We all know you can find Yoshi on the castle roof after collecting 120 stars. But in the beta assets, Yoshi was a fully functional mount. Code exists for Yoshi riding mechanics: tongue attacks, ground pounds, and even eating enemies to produce "Yoshi Coins." The Gigaleak included Yoshi textures with a saddle. So why was he cut? Memory constraints. The N64 had a razor-thin 4KB texture cache. Adding a rideable Yoshi required holding two character models in memory simultaneously—something the console struggled with.
Several levels were redesigned or deleted entirely during the transition from the "Ultra 64" prototype to the retail release. White Sky: super mario 64 beta assets
The cutting room floor was littered with hazards that never made the jump to 3D. Motoshako: We all know you can find Yoshi on
The Super Mario 64 beta assets are significant for several reasons: So why was he cut
This is the most "painful" cut asset. In the final game, if Mario misses a ledge, he falls. In the beta, there is a full animation where Mario’s fingers scrape the edge, he kicks his legs, and pulls himself up. This "climb" mechanic was standard in later 3D platformers ( Crash Bandicoot , Tomb Raider ). It was cut because the collision detection for ledges was too buggy near the 1996 deadline.