The N64 Game That Takes The Shortest Time To Beat

There are a couple of Nintendo 64 games that consistently get brought up on the back pages of internet forums when discussing the shortest game on the console. For example, the futuristic battle racing game "Wipeout 64," is a heavy contender due to its puzzling lack of content. Players can speed through the game's challenge mode in as little as half an hour. But because most of the game's fun comes from challenging a buddy to a race via split-screen mode, it's hard to argue that "Wipeout 64" is "beaten" after finishing the solo content. "Yoshi's Story," on the other hand, is a completely different story (see what we did there?).

Released in 1997, the platformer "Yoshi's Story" captured the hearts of gamers with its storybook art style and fun gameplay. The gameplay of "Yoshi's Story" is largely identical to that of "Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island" on the SNES, giving players access to Yoshi's flutter, ground pound, and egg-firing abilities. But unlike in "Yoshi's Island," Baby Mario doesn't join Yoshi on the ride this time. 

Although the gameplay was well received by critics and fans, those that popped the cartridge into their N64 most likely needed to head back to Blockbuster the same day to grab a new game. "Yoshi's Story" ditched the traditional level completion mechanics seen in previous "Mario" franchise games, arguably making it the shortest game on the N64.

In "Yoshi's Story," players don't need to make it to the end of a level to move on to the next one. Instead, players collect fruit to raise Yoshi's happiness level. Once the player collects 30 pieces of fruit, the level ends. Because of this experimental formula change, "Yoshi's Story" is a game that can be completed very quickly.

There aren't many levels either. With only six worlds made up of four levels each, "Yoshi's Story" caps out at 24 levels. In contrast, "Yoshi's Island" featured a whopping 60 levels once you'd unlocked everything. If a player is efficient enough, they can get through all of the levels in "Yoshi's Story" in about an hour. Although there is an extra trial mode that allows players save their score on each level, they don't offer anything new in terms of actual gameplay, making the replay value a bit low.

Interestingly enough, "Yoshi's Story" is also one of the rarest N64 games, so it still holds a place in many collector's hearts.