Just because a game looks childish and is made with younger audiences in mind doesn't mean it's immune from frightening moments...
- Inside the Magma Castle lurks an enemy not found anywhere else in the game—the Attacky Sack, a colorful, invincible patchwork ball with razor-sharp teeth and a frightening Slasher Smile that bounces around the rooms of the castle. Watch this,
(at 2:40) and be enlightened. - The scene where the Toadies carry off the Yoshi you were playing as to Baby's Bowser castle when all of their HP is lost is unsettling enough, especially for kids, but the music that plays on the Game Over screen when you lose all of the Yoshis is even worse!
- Levels 2-1, Bone Dragon Pit, and 2-2, Blargg's Boiler, are a considerably huge Mood Whiplash from before with their dark environments.
- Bone Dragon Pit features the titular Bone Dragons, which are skeletal dragon heads and necks with green glowing eyes. While on the lesser side of scary design-wise, they still manage to be rather imposing and somewhat intimidating, as they will usually block the way while spitting fireballs at the Yoshis, and they will also attempt to throw them off of their heads if they land on them for too long. There is also a three-headed version with a full body that is fought as an optional miniboss in the same level. Thankfully, the Bone Dragons are rather easy to defeat, requiring two eggs or Ground Pounds to their head, and they are exclusive to this level.
- Blargg's Boiler, however, is a rather different story. Not only is it pretty dark and filled with lava that will instantly fry the Yoshis if they fall in, but the enemies that come from the lava, unlike the Bone Dragons, are invincible and more unsettling design-wise. The most notable offenders are the Lava Ghosts, which have a distorted frowning expression and let out an unnerving moan as they jump in and out, and the Blarggs themselves, which, while also a bit goofy with their beady eyes, have a big mouth with sharp teeth and a big tongue and can easily catch players, especially younger ones, off-guard, as they will pop up from the lava and let out a roar when they do so. Fortunately, touching them only pushes the Yoshis back and they can either wait for the Blargg to go back under or throw an egg at them to make them temporarily retreat.
- Inviso from Level 3-2, Tall Tower, is especially terrifying on certain emulators and video captures, where his sprite appears black instead of transparent.
- Level 4-2, Jungle Puddle, is fine until you reach the second half of the level, which introduces two varieties of giant, invincible fish called Blurps that will persistently attempt to eat your Yoshi, the orange one by occasionally leaping out at the Yoshis and the blue ones by spitting water at them until they fall in, and if they succeed, the Yoshi you were playing as will be instantly lost. Not even Super Happy mode will protect the Yoshis from being eaten! Making things even worse and more stressful, players attempting the Melon Quest with this level have to go into the same water as them to access the pipe that goes to the Special Delivery challenge. Thankfully, however, they only swim on the surface of the water and will not pursue the Yoshis underwater.
- Level 4-3, Piranha Grove, is, as the name implies, an entire forest full of Piranha Plants, with you in the middle. Throughout the level, the Yoshis will have to face off against foes like the Piranha Pest, a small, flying Piranha Plant that can eat them with a long, extendable tongue and spit them out small; Piranha Sprout, Piranha Plants that can actually walk and can also eat the Yoshis and spit them out small; and the Piranha Plants themselves, which suddenly rise out of bottomless pits before moving back and forth while gnashing their teeth. On the bright side, all three of these enemies can easily be defeated with a thrown egg.
- One area in Level 5-1, Lots O'Jellyfish, contains a giant, white, spiky pipefish-like foe called the Snorkel Snake that will pursue your Yoshi and attempt to trap it by encircling it with its body. The strange, almost alien appearance of it and the unusual sound it makes as it chases the Yoshis may unnerve some. Thankfully, the Snorkel Snake is only relegated to one area in the entire level, and it's pretty easy to escape its encirclement attempts since it moves rather slowly and its body isn't long enough to make a full circle.
- The last page of the game, Page 6: Finale, has four different themed castles, each of which is terrifying in its own way. Mecha Castle has machines that can crush or flatten you, Lift Castle, probably the least creepy, is filled with buzzsaws that try and kill you, Ghost Castle is full of Boos and other ghosts and Magma Castle is filled with lava and some of the creepier enemies. Mecha Castle is probably the worst of the lot, as it features blades that pop out from walls and chase you, spikes, saws, and the aforementioned one hit kill machines that move particularly realistically and violently. Magma Castle would be second, but it has a more epic and dungeon feel to it.
- Totaka's Song, composer Kazumi Totaka's Creator Thumbprint, is a bit more... unnerving... than usual in Yoshi's Story. It's the same 8-bit tune heard in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Mario Paint, and others, but in Yoshi's Story, it is heard after staying on the Trial Mode screen for 2:07. Imagine listening to this song, so happy and cheery that it practically causes Sweetness Aversion, in an endless loop for more than two minutes... and then it suddenly drops to complete, dead silence before a somewhat-creepy 8-bit tune plays unexpectedly, then dead silence once again... and then it resumes the happy, cheery music like nothing happened.
- There's a code (press Z, L, A, and B simultaneously) to instantly kill your Yoshi regardless of health. It's likely kids would discover it by complete accident.
