N-Philes

Beating out the "prequel" trend by a short few years, the second Super Mario World game tells the tale of how Mario's delivery-by-stork went awry as a baby, and how a tribe of Yoshis set out to get him and his little brother back together and safely into a loving Mushroom Kingdom home.

"But wait," you might ask, "I though Mario was from Brooklyn?" Well... he was, until someone decided that idea wasn't interesting anymore. Either because the concept of wandering into a videogame dimension by accident was too '80's or because they just wanted to sever all ties with this tainted and horrible Earth, Nintendo decided to make Mario a rightful citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom. Same treatment for his younger brother Luigi, who I guess turned out to be his twin brother Luigi. Thus, Yoshi's Island takes a dump on the Mario culture native to the NES and the "Super Mario Bros. Super Show", effectively marking the turning point between "Super Mario Bros." games and "Super Mario" games. No fire flowers or starmans beyond this point.

Yoshi's Island also reveals that before Mario battled the King Koopa, Yoshi and a younger Bowser went toe-to-toe. The final boss you face is Baby Bowser, not to be confused with Bowser Jr. from Super Mario Sunshine who is actually Bowser's son (but what about the Koopa Kids oh wait they went the way of the dodo along with the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom nevermind). See? It all makes sense if you stop for a moment and take a deep breath... provided it's a deep breath of some mind-altering substance or other.

Anyway, Baby Bowser, in addition to being an admitted Yoshi racist and a bit of a whiner, is also a bit of a pushover. But after you bring him to know true pain, Kamek the Magikoopa blows Baby Bowser up to Godzilla proportions, at which point the monster kills you and eats Baby Mario. Wait no, you still have a chance to win. Yeah, you throw eggs at him and then maybe Baby Mario does something cute that somehow saves the day, Anakin Skywalker style. I'm ending here because I don't honestly remember what happened, and also Annie does a pretty good job of bringing me full circle on the whole "prequels with massive plotholes" thing.