Yarn Yoshi Nintendo Direct

The lovable green dinosaur Yoshi is back, but this time he’s not chauffeuring Mario and his brother around the Mushroom Kingdom. After 14 years, he’s finally starring in his own game on Nintendo’s Wii U console.

Company president Satoru Iwata announced Yarn Yoshi during today’s Nintendo Direct. Good-Feel, the same team that made the charming Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Wii, is bringing in plenty of string and textiles to re-envision Yoshi’s world. This is the first game since Yoshi’s Story, which released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998, where the apple-eating creature is the main character.

Takashi Tezuka, who directed Yoshi’s Island (the beautiful hand-drawn game for Super Nintendo) and Yoshi’s Story, is supervising development.

As you can see from the trailer below, Yarn Yoshi carries over the same style of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which came out in 2010, only its visuals appear more polished than what’s in that Wii game.

“We’d like to leverage the Wii U graphics and hardware capabilities to show how attractive a new Yoshi game can be,” said Iwata.