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Yoshi's Safari (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

Published on Wed, Feb 5th 2020 Gaming Rectangular HD

A playthrough of Nintendo's 1993 first-person rail shooter for the Super NES, Yoshi's Safari.

If you've ever wondered what might happen if you were to put a bazooka in Mario's hands, here's your answer!

Yoshi's Safari is a light gun shooter that requires the Super Scope peripheral, and as far as I know, it's the only game in the Mario lineup to provide a gun as the hero's primary weapon, just as it is still the only game to give you persistent control of Mario from a first-person perspective.

Given that Yoshi's Safari is a first-party release, I'm really shocked that it doesn't get a whole lot of attention. Maybe it's because it's not a classic platformer, or because it requires that you have access to an exotic controller and a tube TV to play it, but despite its relative obscurity, Yoshi's Safari is a cool novelty and an interesting conversation piece.

The story goes something like this: Princess Peach (as she is officially named for the first time in English) begs Mario to go save King Fret and Prince Pine of Jewelry Land, friends of hers that have been kidnapped by Bowser. And as whipped as he is, we all know that Mario can't refuse.

Somewhat not akin to Dirty Harry, you dish out a heap of vigilante justice on traditional Mario enemies, including the Koopa Kids, to find the royals and treasures of Jewelry Land. To rescue these totally random and non-canonical friends of the princess, Mario hops aboard Yoshi's back, his fully automatic shoulder cannon primed to shoot at anything that moves.

Except for Yoshi, that is. He doesn't seem to much appreciate it when you blast the back of his head with bazooka rounds.

Yoshi's Safari is an exceptionally good looking game that takes full advantage of the SNES hardware. The screen scrolling is butter-smooth, the enemies scale in and out of the screen fluidly and without excessive pixelation, the floor textures and backdrops all attractively depict the range Mario stage motifs on display, and it generally runs without hiccups - the occasional bits of slowdown rarely last for more than a second or two. The game leans heavily on Mode 7 effects to provide an impressive illusion of 3D movement, and the twisting, turning course designs coupled with light gun controls make Yoshi's Safari feel like a trippy combo-platter of Super Mario Kart, Lethal Enforcers, and Space Harrier.

You grab items like coins and fire flowers to perk up your odds, and many of the stages offer branching paths which are handy for finding extra power-ups and 1-up mushrooms. Most of the time you'll be shooting at streams of staple Mario enemies like Goombas and Bloopers, and each stage is capped off with a showdown against some notable baddie from Super Mario World. As in every other light gun shooter ever, these boss fights require that you find a weak spot to fire at mercilessly, but the expressive spritework gives these guys a lot of personality that you normally wouldn't see from the squat character graphics in traditional Mario platformers, and I got a kick out of the vehicles that many of them ride - some of them look like they were taken straight out of Dr. Wily's mini-boss design manual.

Suffice it to say that I found it all pretty charming overall.

And the last boss battle is so awesome - I don't recall ever seeing Bowser look as metal as he does here. It is a pity that you never get to hear a Hammer Brother screaming, "You can't shoot me!" as you shoot him, though.

Yoshi's Safari is an easy and short game (though it does have an "expert mode" if you're inclined to play a second loop), and it's not as addictive or deep as the likes of Battle Clash or Metal Combat, but Yoshi's Safari did provide a good excuse to dig out the Super Scope and a few handfuls of AA batteries for the weekend back in the day. It's still a lot of fun now, though I'd suggest a Wii-mote and a SNES emulator to play it these days. That's how I played when I was recording this video.

Man I wish they had done more games like this! The way it goes about doing the whole first-person-on-rails thing is super effective.

On occasion I still wonder about whatever became of King Fret, Prince Pine, and Jewelry Land. Any thoughts, guys?
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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