• Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
• Players: 1 (2 with secret minigames)
• Released:
NA - October 4, 1995
JP - August 5, 1995
EU - October 6, 1995
• Genre: Platformer

Yoshi's Island possesses an at the time unique gameplay style for Mario games. Instead of playing as the Plumber, likely rescuing The Princess from the Koopa Troop, you got to play as his companion in the previous game: Yoshi. Along with this, Mario is only a baby. The stork delivering Mario and his Brother Luigi to his parents were attacked by the Magikoopa Kamek unexpectedly. Both of the babies fell out of the stork's grasp, falling towards the open sea. Kamek managed to capture Luigi, but Mario was nowhere to be found. It turns out Mario landed on Yoshi's island, right onto the back of a green Yoshi! Yoshi finds a map with the baby, but can't figure it out. The baby seems to know where he wants to go, so Yoshi decides to carry Baby Mario across the land, starting the adventure.

The gameplay revolves around Yoshi safely bringing Mario to the end of stages in different parts of Yoshi's island, passing him onto another Yoshi in the area, in a relay system. If Yoshi is hit, he takes no damage, being momentarily stunned instead. However, Baby Mario is launched off of Yoshi's back in a bubble and starts crying loudly, starting a timer. You must grab Baby Mario before this timer runs out, or the Toadies, minions of Kamek, will grab Baby Mario and carry him off, causing a game over. Yoshi can defend himself by eating enemies on Yoshi's Island, allowing him to either spit them out again or turn them into eggs. Eggs must be used to defeat certain enemies that Yoshi can't simply eat. However, there are Watermelons you can eat to spit Watermelon Seeds, Fire or even Ice! These allow you to clear your path of enemies even without eggs. Watermelons can be found in levels or awarded via Minigames (along with many more useful items).

Beating a stage involves passing through the flower ring at the end. Depending on the number of flowers you collected (5 in each stage), you have an x/10 chance of playing a Minigame after the stage ends, x being the number of flowers you collected. Each World has 8 stages, 1 being a Miniboss' castle and the second being a Boss' castle. These must be defeated to continue onto the next part of Yoshi's Island. In each world there are also 2 secrets. One is an extra level you do not need to complete to advance, and the other is a Minigame you can play any time you wish. To access these hidden 'stages', you need to get a perfect 100 score in every level in the current world.