Yoshi's Story - Development

Development

Originally titled Yoshi's Island 64, the game was developed by the Yoshi's Island team, directed by Hideki Konno and produced by Takashi Tezuka. With the first promotional video clip from the game being revealed at Shoshinkai in November 1996, Yoshi's Island 64 presented lush, colourful worlds of pre-rendered 3D graphics and polygonal animations, also demonstrating the Nintendo 64's ability to run 2D games. The game's title was eventually changed to Yoshi's Story, being announced in August, 1997, with a release of promotional screenshots from upcoming games. Shortly after, the game was also noted to be getting a memory expansion, extending from 96 to 128 megabits.

With the game's initial release hitting Japan on December 21, 1997, the international release was slightly delayed. With mixed reviews from the press, the game was noted to be too easy and little rewarding. Nintendo of America would thus demand the difficulty bar of the game to be raised. With extra time to polish the title, several changes were made to the international release, including graphical cleanup; the addition of white fences on cardboard courses; Egg Blocks with colours matching the Yoshi in play; new locations for some items; a slightly different ending when the player finishes a course with only melons; and additional secrets, including hidden coin formations that spell out letters. Furthermore, the updated version also added a save feature to Story Mode, allowing the player to continue the game from the last page reached.