ShareThis
9. Yoshi, from the Super Mario series
Yoshi, while technically not a vehicle in the strictest definition of the word, is Mario’s faithful steed. He is a member of a race of dinosaur-like creatures hailing from Dinosaur Land, but their species has since migrated to the Mushroom Kingdom (the effects of this migration on the biodiversity of the area is unknown). Yoshi first appeared in Super Mario World, in which he appeared with tiny, useless arms. He has since grown more human-like arms, gaining enough dexterity to drive a Kart, and even play tennis. This suggests that the evolutionary path of the Yoshi is a very quick one, perhaps heavily influenced by its environmental surroundings. What this means for Mario’s Yoshi and his relationship with Birdo is…also unknown.
So why have I included Yoshi in a list of vehicles? Well, a horse is often thought of as a mode of transport, and Yoshi behaves in much the same way. He’s born with shoes, and gains a saddle from nowhere once he matures into adulthood; it’s almost as if he evolved for the specific purpose of being domesticated. He is also equipped with weapons in the form of those eggs he often pops out, and if you think about it, even has the capacity to transport cargo in his mouth.
Yoshi does not, unfortunately, have an auto-pilot. If you jump off him he will stay there, but if you are attacked, he will blindly flail around, often plummeting to his death in a nearby crevice. To make up for this frustrating behaviour, Mario can sacrifice Yoshi by jumping off him while mid-leap, gaining that extra momentum to make the leap by himself. The amount of times Mario does this may suggest that, similar to Snowball the cat in The Simpsons, Mario has actually owned many Yoshis and christens them all by the name of the species for simplicity’s sake.
