4. Yoshi
Yoshi: Yoshi! Yoshi was the unsung hero of the
Mario franchise for quite a while, doing all the hard work of lugging the Italian plumber about with none of the glory. All of that changed in the 1995 title
Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island, which saw the lovable green dinosaur finally step into the spotlight (even though they marketed the game as a Mario title, presumably to sell more copies). Its a simple premise; two storks are carrying the Mario brothers over Yoshis Island when Kamek (acting on behalf of Bowser) intervenes and Baby Mario plummets to the earth. While Mario and Luigi having been born in the Mushroom Kingdom totally contradicts almost all other Mario Lore, its hard to care when the game is so much fun. Different coloured Yoshis work as a team to reunite Baby Mario with his brother, heading towards the final epic confrontation against Bowser. There was a semi-sequel in 1997;
Yoshis Story. Possibly the happiest game ever made, one has to admire the artistic vision behind the title (although I agree with some of the criticisms that its slightly too easy and is in some other respects flawed). You can choose to play the levels in the order you please, more or less, and to progress through a level you need to eat 30 of the fruit scattered throughout the level thats all; theres no need to fight bosses or visit areas you dislike unless you wish to. Different fruit was worth different amounts of points, so for a perfect score the player had to track down watermelons (which was actually extremely challenging), of which there were only 30 each level. Its an interesting gameplay concept, although personally I dont really find it as satisfying as the conventional level layout. The art style and soundtrack of the game were also fantastic, so its worth trying out if you havent. There was another sequel, truer to the original, released for the DS in 2006, and of course Yoshis a regular in
Super Smash Bros.
3. Star Fox
Peppy Hare: Do a barrel roll!
Star Fox (aka
Star Wing) was an exceptional space battle title, and Star
Fox 64 (aka
Lylatwars) improved on it and added an exceptional multiplayer deathmatch mode as well. Since then there have been numerous sequels, an ill-fated 3D action/adventure title (Starfox Adventures) and a regular character spot in the
Super Smash Bros series, along with Star Wolf and Falco Lombardi (my personal preferred character in
Melee.) Star Fox leads a charismatic team of pilots, the rebellious Falco, the wise Peppy and the somewhat useless Slippy Toad (who nonetheless is worth keeping alive if only for his ability to reveal the bosss health bar). The games really capture the camaraderie between the four pilots well, and the space combat is a lot more enjoyable than other titles of the genre, such as the
Star Wars licensed games. Click Next to see number 2 in our countdown.