Yoshi's Safari

) and Yoshi fight a Koopa Troopa piloting a mech. ''Yoshi's Safari'' is a light gun shooter and will earn an extra life by collecting 60. The game also has a leaderboard to encourage multiple playthroughs and so players can keep track of their scores. ==Development==

In February 1992, Nintendo released the Super Scope, a successor to its popular NES Zapper for the Nintendo Entertainment System. At the time, Nintendo was in fierce competition with Sega, a company known for its "cool" games and advertising, and needed an edge over this new rival. Unlike its predecessor, the Super Scope was only a moderate success and by 1993 risked fading into obscurity. Nintendo management realized the peripheral's relevance was waning and commissioned the company's R&D1 department to develop a Super Scope game featuring Mario. The future of the Super Scope depended on the performance of this game. ''Yoshi's Safari'' was the first Super Scope game to use the SNES's Mode 7 graphics mode, which created an impression of 3D computer graphics and made the gameplay more realistic. Nintendo released ''Yoshi's Safari in Japan on July 14, 1993 The title did not garner much attention upon release. Its North American launch coincided with the rerelease of the popular arcade game Mortal Kombat'' (1992), a game controversial for its violence, for the SNES and Sega's Genesis. According to IGN, Nintendo's decision to soften the blood and gore in the SNES version drew public attention away from ''Yoshi's Safari''. ==Reception and legacy==

While ''Yoshi's Safari failed commercially, which IGN attributed to its reliance on the Super Scope and the Mortal Kombat debacle, Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), and Nintendo Magazine System'' considered the graphics and smooth scrolling among the game's highlights. Joypad wrote the animation was fluid The Los Angeles Times praised the game's use of Mode 7, describing the graphics as excellent and colorful. ''Yoshi's Safari failure signified that the Super Scope was commercially nonviable for Nintendo. Games starring Yoshi did not gain much popularity until Yoshi's Island, and Yoshi's Safari'' remains relatively obscure. The title's additions to the Mario lore, such as Jewelry Land, were ignored in subsequent games. ''Yoshi's Safari is notable for being the first Mario game to refer to the Princess as "Peach" instead of "Toadstool" in Western territories, although this did not stick until Super Mario 64 (1996). Nintendo would later revive old games from its back catalog through its Virtual Console service, but Yoshi's Safari has never been rereleased, and IGN noted its 25th anniversary passed in 2018 with little fanfare. The game remains the sole first-person shooter in the Mario'' franchise. IGN lamented the obscurity of ''Yoshi's Safari in a 2019 retrospective and felt it deserved more recognition, writing the game was and still is a standout in the Mario'' franchise. The title's "quirky aspects", IGN wrote—such as its science fiction theme (in contrast to previous Mario games' fantasy one), upbeat music, and use of the Super Scope—paved way for the franchise's more experimental games such as Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (2017): "while far from perfect, [''Yoshi's Safari''] was still ahead of its time in certain regards." The writer also called it "a shame" the game has never been rereleased. ==Notes==