Name: Egg-Plant
Debut: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
So I’ve finally gotten around to playing ONE of the games I’ve been wanting to play for a long time, and I gotta say... Yoshi’s Island is just... splendid. The graphics and music still hold up after almost 25 years, the gameplay is wonderful, and of course, it has LOTS of Weird Mario Enemies! Maybe even more than I expected! I’m gonna have to cover a few!
But not today, as I dedicate today to more of a Weird Mario Entity! Meet the Egg-Plant! A lot of Yoshi’s gameplay focuses on collecting eggs, and throwing them around, but sometimes you need more eggs! You do throw a lot of eggs after all! Usually in that instance... a Shy Guy will pop out of a pipe! Or a Lantern Ghost! Your choice! But maybe it’s more urgent than that! In that case, there will probably be an Egg Block, where you can hit Yoshi’s head against a block and more eggs will pop out!
But what if it’s more urgent than that. Let’s say the middle of a boss fight! That’s where Egg-Plant comes in. Or at least is most useful! According to the wiki, they’re in “almost every level” but I only remember seeing them in the boss fight against Burt the Bashful! But I trust the wiki. I could probably play through these levels more thoroughly anyway.
Anyway, Yoshi can carry about half a dozen eggs at a time, but he doesn’t always have half a dozen eggs, and that’s what Egg-Plant is for. If Yoshi has fewer than six eggs, Egg-Plant will continue to spit out eggs until Yoshi does! And if Yoshi throws the eggs as soon as he gets them, well Egg-Plant will just keep producing eggs! Please be more careful with your egg-throwing, though. Do you realize how difficult it is for a plant to produce eggs? And also how weird it is? Like, seriously. Can these eggs hatch into more Yoshis? Maybe this is how Yoshis tell young Yoshis where Baby Yoshis come from! But that’s just silly, we all know that the stork is responsible here.
Name: Sanbo Flower
Debut: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
And this is Sanbo Flower! It looks identical to Egg-Plant. I’d ask that you don’t get them confused, but I guess that’s much easier said than done. So what does Sanbo Flower do that makes it so special? Audience, please put your hands together for...
That’s right! It’s the grand return of Needlenose! It might’ve only been a couple months or so, but any appearance of Needlenose deserves this much applause if you ask me.
That’s right! Sanbo Flowers spit out Needlenoses instead of eggs, which I guess makes these count as Mario enemies? However, otherwise they are functionally identical to Egg-Plants, and will not spit out any Needlenoses if Yoshi’s carrying all six eggs. So if you want to avoid Needlenose? Keep enough Eggs around on Yoshi’s trail! But if you want to meet what seems to be every enemy’s best friend... knock yourself out.
