If there is one World of Nintendo figure I have passed on buying over and over again, it is Yoshi.  There are a number of repainted versions of this figure and they’re usually the ones leftover on store shelves once the more rarer figures have been sold.  Perhaps there is just something not as exciting about a common figure too and that is why I kept passing Yoshi up.  Since Meijer still charges $10 for World of Nintendo 4″ inch figures and I had a coupon to get a dollar off, I decided to pick Yoshi up and see if I’ve been missing out on anything.  In short, I have.

Box – Much like the figure which has been rereleased several times, the box is something we’ve seen many times now in World of Nintendo and at some point, I hope Jakks will experiment a bit more with their Mario design.

Articulation – I didn’t have all that high of hopes for articulation with Yoshi since he is a somewhat static character and I was pleasantly surprised that Yoshi can achieve a number of nice poses.  Some are silly like the “Sumo” one above but the walking/running and sitting pose look great and capture the cuteness of the character.  The articulation is more or less on par with other Mario figures so there aren’t any major surprises here.  The only area where Yoshi is limited is that his elbows do not bend.  Fortunately, Yoshi’s head can actually rotate all the way around unlike many Mario figures I have reviewed.  Overall, Jakks did well with articulation on Yoshi and I don’t think anyone will be too disappointed by what he can do.

Details – Yoshi has a simple design and there aren’t any details that standout with this figure.  Jakks did well with the white paint overall and my Blue Yoshi doesn’t have too many signs of the white not covering the darker paint color beneath it which was a common problem in early World of Nintendo figures.  There are some paint smudges here and there on the white paint but that is one of the only issues I noticed on what is otherwise a pretty solid paint job.

Accessory – Yoshi’s Egg not only fits the character but makes for a pretty decent accessory.  The egg is hard for Yoshi to hold because of his closed fist hands and I had to rest against his head to get it to stay.  That is relatively common with these accessories and the fact that it works at all with Yoshi’s hands is a nice bonus.  I will say that egg could have been better without the big seam line down the sides but outside of that, it is a good accessory.

Closing Thoughts – If you’ve passed on Yoshi quite a bit like I have, don’t make the same mistake.  He is a better figure than you might think.  While you’ll never get Mario to ride this Yoshi, you can still have a good time posing it, especially if you like any of 2D platforming Yoshi games that Nintendo has made over the years.  Yoshi looks great alongside Mario figures like in the picture above too.  This is a solid figure with only a few slight drawbacks and I’m glad I finally purchased him!