Yoshi colors and how to pick them in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

One of your partners in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a newborn Yoshi that you name yourself. The marketing material invariably shows this Yoshi as being green, but that’s actually only one of a variety of possibilities.

What color of Yoshi you get depends on the amount of time that it stays in its egg. There are seven color possibilities. But let’s first look at how to get the baby Yoshi. Just scroll down to the chart if that’s what you’re looking for.

How to get Baby Yoshi in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

You’ll come across baby (or kid or mini, whatever) Yoshi in the regular course of the game. It occurs during chapter 3, when you’re battling your way up the ranks in the Glitzpit.

As you proceed, you’ll eventually be told that you should go try a hot dog from the stand in front of the stadium. Do as you’re told and you’ll see a cutscene of an egg bouncing around with the stand owner chasing after it. It will eventually go up to the top of the hot dog stand and stay there.

To reach the egg, go to the roof of the Juice Bar and use the paper airplane pad to glide over to the hot dog stand. This might take a few attempts, as it’s pretty precise. Once you reach the egg, it will join your party.

Continue to fight up the ranks of the Glitzpit until you reach the fight with the Iron Adonis Brothers. You won’t be able to beat them, initially, no matter what you do. Run away (or get defeated). You’ll be sent back to the locker room, where you’ll find the egg has hatched. Name baby Yoshi, and he’ll become a party member. His battle ability is how you defeat the Adonis Brothers.

How to choose your baby Yoshi color

Baby Yoshi’s color depends on how long he stays in the egg. If you beat the Iron Adonis Brothers in less than six minutes, you’ll get the default green. However, the color changes every few minutes after that until it hits the 20-minute mark and starts over.

This means that if you start a timer and push your way up to the Iron Adonis fight, you can choose what color you want. Just wait in the fight until your time comes up, then run. I would recommend that you save first and be careful not to save again if you get the wrong color.

With that in mind, here are the colors and the timing you need.

After 20 minutes have passed, the cycle starts again. So between 20-26 minutes, you’ll get green Yoshi. 38-39 minutes and you’ll get black Yoshi.

It can be a little tricky to get the timing right, so make sure that you save first. If you do, you can always just try again for another color. You cannot change the color after the fact, so you’ll need to get it right before moving on.

Lastly, the color does not affect the stats or abilities of the Yoshi. It is purely cosmetic.