A couple of months ago, Nintendo started a new line in the US called My Mario.  It’s a bunch of toys and games geared towards babies and toddlers and their parents.  Some of the items include Mario themed wooden toy blocks, which are cool because they also act as amiibo.  I wish I could get them, but right now they’re just exclusive to the Nintendo stores in New York and San Fransico, and I won’t be going to those places any time soon.  There’s also other toys like Fischer Price Little People playsets (which still look cool), apparel, plush toys, and videos.  Another item in the line was a little app called Hello, Mario!  It let you play with Mario’s face and stretch it around, kind of like the title screen from Super Mario 64.  And now you can do that with Yoshi!  Hello, Yoshi! is also available on Switch 1 & 2 as well as mobile devices, but reviewed on Switch 2 here.

Anyway, when you turn on the game, you can tap and drag Yoshi’s face anywhere on the screen to make it look funny and do silly things.  It doesn’t seem like Yoshi has as many animations as Hello, Mario! did, but you can stretch out Yoshi’s tongue to eat things.  Sometimes items will fall down for you to play with, too, like sunglasses, fruit, or a Boo.  Spin Yoshi around and he’ll get dizzy.  Spin him more and he’ll bounce around and you can pop bubbles (pop 100 for a special victory message). On the top left corner of the screen is a question block with a menu you can open to do other fun things.  It’s very similar to the one in Hello, Mario!  Here’s what all you can do:

The Yoshi icon lets you play peek-a-boo with Yoshi.  The question block lets you tap it and get a lot of coins.  The mushroom will make Yoshi big when you drag it to him.  The star turns Yoshi invincible and you can do the spinny game with him like that.  The pipe brings out 3 pipes at the top and you must guess where Yoshi is.  One difference here is that the Yoshi egg that comes out of the pipe will be a different color, so you can play with another colored Yoshi  The Blooper will squirt ink on Yoshi when you tap it.  The Cheep Cheep icon will make one flop around.  If it hits Yoshi he’ll turn small.  But one thing you can do to the Blooper and Cheep Cheep that you couldn’t do in Hello, Mario! is have Yoshi eat them if you pull out his tongue!  The Note Block changes the background music and Yoshi will even sing along a bit.  It cycles from the Mario theme, underwater theme, and Super Mario World title theme.  And last is Toad, and he’ll take a picture of Yoshi and you have three seconds to make him do a funny face.  And that’s it.

After around ten minutes of this, Yoshi will get tired and they’ll play the piranha plant lullaby theme and he’ll go to sleep.  But you can just restart the game again.  Anyway, even though there’s not much to Hello, Yoshi!, it is free and very cute so if you’re curious it won’t hurt to download it.

Kid Factor:

Nothing very violent or objectionable here.  You can stretch Yoshi’s face around, but he doesn’t seem to mind too much.  You can spin him around and hit bubbles and sometimes they have enemies in them like Goombas and Bob-Ombs, but they just fly off the screen when hit.  No reading is required, and of course this game is designed for the very young.  Hello, Yoshi! is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews