 Ssssssss, Nessdrunk! Yoshi's Cookie was one of those ubiquitous games back when it was first released. Everyone had seen the cover. It was always available for rent, stores like Toys R Us and Electronics Boutique and Funko Land all had plenty of copies for sale. This commercial aired seemingly once an hour. ["Braveiness! Thank you!" Yoshi and Mario have a cookie factory gone mad! Only you can help sort them! Stack them and make them disappear!" But all anyone really knew about it was that it was a puzzle game. In fact, I'm willing to bet that many of you clicked on this, not from recognizing the game or the title, but from recognizing the cover. So what actually is this game? It's a, uh, well, yeah, it's a single-screen puzzle game, but Yoshi's Cookie does have quite a bit going for it. I'll start by explaining how the basic game works. It's just moving blocks around in four different directions, trying to create matching rows and columns. All while more blocks come from the top and from the right of the screen. The catch is, when you move a block, the entire row or column moves as well. Oh, and the blocks are cookies, in case you couldn't figure that out. There's six different types of cookies, with the Yoshi Cookie acting as kind of a blank spot that can fill in for any other cookie type. As far as single-screen puzzle games go, it's pretty standard stuff for the time. The more you progress, depending on which game mode you're in, the game gets more complicated, and cookies fall and slide in faster, and if the screen fills up or if you run out of time or run out of moves, then you lose. If you clear the screen, you move onward to the next puzzle or the next opponent. Pretty basic stuff. Not quite a total ripoff of other falling block games, but not all that original either. You're still just matching blocks and creating lines. Like I said, though, I personally really like games like this. It's nice to be able to just zone out and shut off your mind and see how far you can get. And there's quite a bit of content in Yoshi's Cookie, which I appreciate. There's three distinct game modes here. There's what's called the action mode, and that's your typical puzzle game structure where you've got to clear each screen. There's 10 worlds here, so to speak, each with 10 different puzzles you got to solve, making for an even 100 puzzles, and there is a password system to help you out. That's all well and good, but I really like the other two game modes, verses and puzzle. Versus obviously pits you against a second player or against a computer opponent, with the goal being to get to 25 points first before your timer fuse runs out. What's interesting here is that each of the four characters you play as and against, those being Mario, Yoshi, Peach and Bowser, each have their own strengths and weaknesses, divided up into four attributes, Attack, Defense, Message, and Time Limit. To use one example, Bowser has the most powerful attacks out of anyone, so if he matches a row or a column, that enables him to do one of six different attacks. One is called Blind, that blocks your opponents from seeing the middle of the screen. One is called Panic, which randomizes your opponent's pieces, and one is called Slave, which allows you to actually control your opponent's screen. The thing is though, you don't necessarily get to pick which attack to do whatever you want. You're bound to the randomly scrolling list of attacks up top. When you complete a line, then whichever attack showing there will happen. Now, since Bowser has the strongest attacks, then any attack that he does will last twice as long as other characters. But Bowser's views burns faster than anyone else's. Conversely, Yoshi's defense rating will cut any attack time in half for their opponent, but his message rating is really slow, which means that he doesn't get to use as many attacks. So yeah, there's quite a bit going on here, and it makes for a fun two-player experience, or even a game against the computer. In fact, if you beat all four computer opponents, you can unlock four more tougher opponents. The third game mode is Puzzle. The same basic puzzle mechanics apply here for the most part, only you're given a set number of pieces with a set number of moves displayed on the right. Again, there's 10 worlds with 10 puzzles each, giving you 100 puzzles in total. So yeah, like I said, this game has a ton of content. The puzzle mode is my personal favorite to play through, and I should point out an interesting bit of trivia. Contributing to the puzzle design throughout this game mode is none other than the creator of Tetris himself, Alexei Pajitnoff. So that's pretty cool. There's a bunch of other interesting trivia behind Yoshi's Cookie. One is that it was originally designed as a game called Hermetica, and it had all sorts of alchemy-related pieces instead of cookies, but I can't find a way to play that game and there's no footage around, so I can't really confirm that. That game didn't do well in testing, so it was sold to Bulletproof Software, who then reworked it into Yoshi's Cookie. Another fun fact is that a version of this game was sold with the purchase of an oven. Yes, that's right. As part of a promotional gimmick, when you bought a Korupan oven from National over in Japan, you got a special edition of this game titled Yoshi No Cookie Korupan Oven Day Cookie. Only 500 copies were made, and it was pictured at a store in Tokyo with a price tag of over 150,000 yen, or just over 1,000 US dollars. So yeah, I know it seems like there's about a gazillion Mario-themed puzzle games, there's Dr. Mario, Wario's Woods, Mario and Wario, and I should mention that Yoshi's Cookie is not to be confused with the NES puzzle game simply titled Yoshi, but it does seem like with the massive success of Tetris on Game Boy and NES that Nintendo was absolutely dead set on capturing lightning in a bottle again. Yoshi's Cookie does not do that, even with the involvement of the Tetris guy, but it is a good time and it offers a ton of content. It's cool that the three game modes actually utilize the basic puzzle layout in three different ways, but I should mention quickly that the Super Nintendo Edition is the only version with the puzzle mode. This game was also released on NES and Game Boy, and it's okay on those platforms, but the SNES version is better than okay. In fact, it's one of the better puzzle games on the system. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.