Game Theory: Yoshi's Identity Crisis! What is a Yoshi?

ah still no new releases they all got pushed back well without anything new to talk about I need an idea for a theory and you know what that means the triumphant return of the wheel Oh gaming wheel of gaming spin spin spin give me a game that's a total win ah very funny wheel let's try this again we love gaming that wasn't right give me a topic that's super tight mmm that's gonna be a yikes for me here chief do it one more time we love gaming clutter you smokin it's time for you to stop your joking oh come on is this thing broken I see the problem here just a slight misalignment issue wow it landed on a Mario Theory thanks we love gaming [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hello Internet welcome to game theory where I'd like to start today's episode off by telling you that there is finally some new theory we're available right now in our merch store in the merch shelf right below this video and back by popular demand is drumroll please the game theory switch case this time in a holographic design it is color if ik and speaking of holographics we also have this incredible lightweight zip-up mesh hoodie jacket with holographic game theory print on it it's soft its waterproof it is perfect for going outside this spring or summer or if you know just walking around you're really cold house if you don't like fully zipped up jackets we also have this lightweight half zip hoodie sporting the game theory green and a little secret inside it folds up into itself so you can take some waterproof theorists pride action with you whenever you're on the go it's cold I'm so much warmer and it's waterproof too we've got new hats we've got a new tie-dye shirt the last thing I'll mention is our game theory wallets made with sustainable animal friendly pleather it has embossed patterns a full metal game theory logo on the front with plenty of slots inside of it for your various cards and reminder that everything is all just a theory on the inside it just makes me really happy the rainbows the wallet the functionality I just wanted designs that weren't so serious right now you know stuff that would make us a little bit happier and on that note I wanted to call out here that I'm not gonna do that youtuber thing where we create false scarcity and fake you out and make you think that things are sold out and you feel really bad when you don't get an item that you were excited for and then all miraculously we made more go figure good thing that you waited around you better get it before it's out like I don't know it's just mean and it's playing psychological games with you and right now I don't think anyone needs anything that's gonna make them feel bad right so this whole collection is made on pre-order basically under the idea that if you want it you're gonna get it merch from your favorite creators should make you feel happy it shouldn't be some sort of contest or competition or something that stresses you out there's already enough stress out there in the world these days so if you're excited about it we're excited to make it for you everything you need is below this video merch shelf top line in the description and as a final note thank you guys so much for supporting stuff like this at a time like this when ad revenue is really really really low you guys going out and supporting merch makes a huge huge difference to all of us working on this channel so thank you stay safe and with that it's time to talk about everyone's favorite D tier smash fighter Yoshi perhaps the single most inconsistent character in the Mario canon I mean Mario always the hero in red Luigi always the scaredy-cat and green toad always obnoxious but Yoshi I mean he is all over the place sometimes he has a saddle other times that saddle is actually a shell sometimes he can talk other times he just says his own name like a reject Pokemon three fingers four fingers wool fingers it is everywhere heck we even be sure his name is Yoshi because guess what in 1995 it was translated as yah see yah see I mean the games tell us that he's meant to be a dinosaur but is he even that so today I wanted to answer the question what the heck is a Yoshi exactly we're looking at their behavior and their biology to determine exactly what they are or they dinosaurs and if so what sort of dinosaur are they and along the way we may just come up with the solution for how he became the long-tongued egg pooping Green Machine of death that we all know and love who knows well the answer to that one is is me I know and the answer is yeah we're gonna answer the who's behind the end of this episode so stay tuned it's it's a good one for the anti Nintendo viewers out there while you guys come in from the fan and minecraft fandoms Yoshi was introduced in Super Mario World back in 1990 and has been in 101 games since that time ranging from the NES all the way to the most recent Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 which come to think of it as kind of a weird piece of history at this point the Olympics are pushed back to next year which means that the only official olympic games of 2020 are gonna be a competition between two fictional game universes wonder if they're gonna re-release that for next year anyway according to Nintendo official magazine the inspiration for Yoshi began with a little lizard creature named Tama Gong star of the 1984 game devil world you know that beloved Nintendo franchise we descend down into each double hockey sticks and use crosses to defeat the devil wearing his red speedo yep that green little dinosaur right there carrying the Bible that is our earliest version of Yoshi so from that holy beginning of being humanity savior Yoshi kind of downgraded and in his first official appearance in Super Mario World he basically functioned as little more than a cute mount for swallowing goombahs and being sacrificed mercilessly into lava pits but he quickly became a fan favorite earning spin-off titles and even a starting position in the smash franchise he's iconic for inhaling just about anything and turning him instantly into an egg including babies yep he can even eat baby Mario revenge and babies never tasted so sweet so what exactly is this baby eating reptilian well in the original Japanese version of super mario world Yoshi writes us a letter in the message box just outside of his house he signs it super dragon Yoshi supporting the idea that Yoshi here is a dragon instead of a dinosaur is the fact that there are dragon coins hidden throughout the stages in this game coins that wouldn't you know it have Yoshi's face on him that said those are really the only two major instances of Yoshi being considered a dragon in pretty much every other media item since then he's considered a dinosaur in Smash Brothers 64 his trophy reads quote Yoshi is the friendly dinosaur in melee again quote Yoshi's are gentle fleet of foot dinosaurs end quote and going back to that original appearance in Super Mario World both the English and Japanese have the setting of the game as Dinosaur Land with Yoshi listed as a young dinosaur in the original manuals it's also worth noting that most if not all the enemies in Mario games can be simplified into an animal or plant inspiration for instance all the other residents of Dinosaur Land Reznor Rex and Dino Rhino all of them have clear counterparts in IRL prehistory Reznor da is a triceratops though the name of Rex might make you think that this guy is a t-rex that Miyamoto slapped some wings on to and called it an enemy the design is actually riffing on the Ceratosaurus they both have horns on their snouts walk on two legs have teeth that hang out of their mouths and were likely to tone from their belly to their back hecht Rex's height in game even matches the real-life height of the cerrado soros just slightly over that of a fully grown man lastly the Dino rhinos are pretty clearly proto Sarah cops albeit a little bit larger with its stocky quadropod body hornless head and bird-like little bead so where does this leave Yoshida it doesn't really have any defining trades that clearly harken back to dinosaurs that we know about off the top of our heads so what is it exactly well let's start by defining Yoshi's characteristics Yoshi is also taller than Mario at 175 centimeters established in an earlier video with smooth green skin along his back in a white underbelly red spikes along the spine that lead to a shell which was originally a saddle so I'm gonna take that one with a grain of salt speaking of eggs Yoshi's are born from a hardshell egg as shown in its hatching animation in Super Mario World for the SNES note egg cracking and it's chipping away its head is very large especially around the nose he has a thick stocky tail and the species can be found in all sorts of climates throughout the Mushroom Kingdom from scorching deserts to freezing tundra and last but certainly not least we have Yoshi's long prehensile tongue that it uses to snatch up Bowser's underlings so at that Arsenal of information we can quickly and systematically narrow down what Yoshi is using drum roll please ooh that's to drumrolls in the same episode very special I should probably get to what I'm about to reveal which I guarantee is gonna be underwhelming cladistics the classification of animals and plants according to the characteristics they have in common come on guys that is totally worth a drumroll you remember cladistics from school right domain kingdom phylum class order family genus species and all that bolt if you've forgotten it or you never learned it because no one's learning from any of the online classes that are going on right now here's the mnemonic device that you won't forget drunken kangaroos punch children on family game shows or you know what there's always the classic dear King Philip came over for great sausage think you can replace that with the appropriate word wink-wink nudge-nudge anyway what all this is gonna do is let us narrow down what Yoshi is so he can put him alongside the appropriate similar creature just to cover our bases I'm gonna start with the highest level of classification Yoshi is eukaryotic meaning that its cells have a membrane bound nucleus placing it under the domain of Eukarya its kingdom is Animalia since it's a multicellular animal and it must be in the phylum Chordata because Yoshi has a backbone now those are three super broad classifications but in those three quick steps we've already eliminated about 97% of all animals on earth that really puts things in perspective doesn't it philosophy aside and phylogeny back on the table we now get into the segments of classification that are based on physical traits and characteristics we established before that Yoshi is a dinosaur so that puts him in the class of sauropsida the classification where you find reptiles and birds from here things start to get a bit dicey though there are two orders that we can put Yoshi in to soar its Kea or or nits Kea meaning lizard hipped or bird hip respectively and as you can imagine this is based off the structure of the animals pelvis really the difference boils down to the placement of the pubis the pubis not this bone right here the pubis bone but how do we possibly check out yoshi's pubis placement well when it comes time to look at the skeletons of fictional video game creatures there's only one place to turn to Super Smash Brothers 64 and Pikachu's shocked ability oh oh that's horrific Yoshi not only doesn't have a pubis he literally doesn't have a pelvis is completely comprised of ribs apparently just a big old wall getting ribcage so okay maybe Nintendo hasn't really given us an official accurate read on the state of Yoshi's skeletal system so we're gonna need to tackle this problem a different way the order or knits Kia is comprised of the ornithopods margin Assefa Lia and theory of flora now don't worry if those words mean nothing to you I'm barely holding their pronunciations together myself I literally just looked up how to pronounce them all just so I didn't butcher them completely I'm just gonna simplify them for you ornithopods are dinosaurs that primarily walked on two legs eight plans and have a little beak like the Iguanodon or the dry asaurus margin assembly are pretty much the dinosaurs with funny-looking skulls the bony frills on the back of their head like a triceratops or that little ring that you see on those ramming guys that always appear in the Jurassic Park movies those guys by the way are called a pachycephalosaurus and they always make me think that they have a bald spot on the top of their head right like welp someone forgot to put their toupee on and lastly there are the thyri offerings which means shield bearers these are the guys with body armor like the ankylosaurus and the Stegosaurus and looking across all three of these categories Yoshi doesn't fit any of them he doesn't have a beak or any sort of weird skull extensions outside of that enormous nose of his and he doesn't have any sort of scaly body armor so by process of elimination he's pretty solidly in the Souris Gaea order which itself is broken down into two main sub orders sauropods the massive long necked dinosaurs like the brontosaurus definitely not Yoshi and the theropods carnivorous bipedal dinosaurs like the t-rex and the Allosaurus known for walking fast on their two legs eating meat and using grasping clawed fingers don't think I need to really discuss this any further Yoshi's order is sorry skia and his sub order is therap oda hands down what also helps support this idea is that Nintendo's official name for the Yoshi dinosaur his scientific name is T yoshisaur munchakoopas what does that T stand for no one really knows Nintendo's never come out and said it but I'm gonna say it right here I think that the T actually stands for theropod theropod uh Yoshi's or munch a coupon it actually works it would be his official scientific name so let's recap here kingdom Animalia phylum Chordata class or upsetting order Sora skia sub ordered theropod ah we are almost there now all we need is his genus and a species so up until now we've been focused on the little things right Yoshi sells his hips its pubis now we just need to look at the big picture common traits across every Yoshi include that huge honker on his face the frills down his back that are always red no matter what his skin color a height roughly the size of an adult man and boots so all we really need to identify Yoshi is to find an IRL dinosaur in the theropod a sub order with red spines of big nodes a height around 175 centimeters and a set of permanent footwear and after scouring the entire encyclopedia of dinosaurs I think I have it Yoshi's closest dinosaur relative is none other than can I get a drumroll please okay three drum rolls in the same episode I'm just overusing and editing trope for dramatic purposes and also comedic effect but seriously this is getting kind of obnoxious so let me just say it's the mono lava soros a medium-sized bipedal carnivore that lived in western China during the Jurassic period it's known for the single crest on its skull giving the front of its face a rounder more bulbous feel just like our little Yoshi it's thought that the crest might have intensified its mighty roar mighty roar indeed height wise they're a perfect fit with the model officers standing almost exactly at a meter in three-quarters in height which is exactly where Yoshi sits it was also known to be very communal hunting in packs much like we see with the Yoshi's living together and building a society together the area where Monell office source was found also showed signs of ancient water leading researchers to believe that these dinosaurs lived near the shores of lakes and oceans which again look at where Yoshi's houses in Super Mario World right on the water line and the fact that they have a whole island of Yoshi's in the next game just want to be clear here I'm not saying Yoshi is a Monell office or Asst but based off all the evidence as it's been presented it's extremely likely to be a distant relative of the model office horas which brings me to the biggest problem in all of this right what about the multi-coloured skin the long tongue the whole omnivore thing and the egg-laying well I think all of this actually has an explanation under the model office Soros angle Yoshi Island is surrounded by water right so let's assume some model office or psa's model office or I got stranded on that Island and kind of like Darwin's finches only the model office sources that had the right adaptations are actually able to survive on that island and survival means food so how are those model office sources gonna find themselves some food well let's look at what's on the menu as we see in Super Mario World to Yoshi's Island there aren't a lot of things to eat on that island the game is mostly filled with koopa troopas the shells of which can't be swallowed Piranha Plants tap taps and lava blogs which Yoshi can't eat and shy guys which may or may not be native to the island in the first place in short the actual edible meat on the island is relatively sparse meaning that the monolith asaurus a carnivorous dinosaur would have to start broadening out its eating habits to the local fruit the local fish but the monolith asaurus has small arms they can't be climbing trees to get the fruits that we see growing on them in Yoshi's Island and like mangos and bananas so what can it do well it can either develop a long neck or better yet a long tongue that allows it to get both fruit and the fast flying Goonies and Gus T's of the island and then what about fish well there's plenty of cheep cheeps in the ocean but model office sources don't really swim well we better start developing smooth skin which will serve it better in an environment where it needs to move through the water notice that Yoshi's aren't particularly good at swimming they can when they need to but it's not just their natural thing that is adaptation at its finest and finally what about their coloration why do they come in so many different colors like bright reds and vibrant greens but also faded blues and browns again it's adaptation super mario world 2 shows us just how colorful Yoshi's Island is with bright red flowers big green jungle plants but also massive systems of grey blue caves and brown mountains for Yoshi's needing food wherever they can get it on this island they evolved to feature a huge range of colors in order to survive remember their communal they're working together in a lot of cases to pool their food together and thus we have how a carnivorous bipedal big-nosed monolith asaurus with over generations slowly turn into the neon coal a numerous long-tongued yoshisaur munchakoopas which leads us finally to the biggest question of all the eggs how is every Yoshi able to lay eggs for that I point you all in the direction of another reptile the New Mexican whiptail a species of lizard that is all female and still reproduces that's right zero males suck on that Bechtel test through a form of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis this lizard is able to double the number of chromosomes and their reproductive cells twice a forced cell division begins giving their eggs the right number of chromosomes I mean they're certainly not doing it at the rate Yoshi's are pooping out eggs no maybe we chalk that one up too the miracles of nature so could it be that every Yoshi is just a female descendant of a monolith asaurus let's just put it this way it's all just a theory game theory thanks for watching and remember the holographic switch-case the holographic jacket the fold up jacket the wallet the tie day hoodies the hats all of it are available right now just below this video click there to order yours today no false rush except for that you need to place an order for us to make it for you in a reasonable amount of time no mad scramble just some products made to keep you warm help you feel cool just bring us all a little bit of happiness I'll see you all next week [Music] you

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 4,077,715

Rating: 4.9304442 out of 5

Keywords: yoshi, mario, nintendo, paper mario, paper mario trailer, paper mario 2, origami king, nintendo direct, luigi, super mario bros, super mario world, yoshi's wooly world, yoshi smash bros, mario theory, yoshi mario, yoshi island, yoshi world, super mario yoshi, super mario, yoshi theme, yoshi song, yoshi music, what is a yoshi, mario science, dinosaur, dinosaurs, yoshi dinosaur, game theorists, game theory, matpat, yoshi's crafted world, yoshi's island, yoshis woolly world

Id: yhucShIRTcw

Length: 19min 35sec (1175 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to /r/GameTheorists!

Make sure to read the rules and we also have a discord!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.