The super Mario himself is up there with Spider-Man, Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse as some of the most recognizable characters in pop culture. The former plumber turned Nintendo mascot and adventurer’s trusty steed, Yoshi, isn’t far down that list either.

After his 1990 introduction in “Super Mario World” on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Yoshi became well-loved by fans, critics and the general public. He became so popular, in fact, that the fictional green dinosaur began starring in his very own Yoshi series beginning in 1995 with “Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.”

That game, which featured a clan of multi-colored Yoshis escorting Baby Mario to his parents in the first chronological Super Mario story, was received about as spectacularly as “Super Mario World” and inspired dozens of games to feature Yoshi in the future.

It’s basically been impossible to miss Yoshi in the Super Mario series.

The adorable mascot has appeared in every Mario Kart, Mario Party and Mario sports title, on top of his sidekick roles in Super Mario platformers like “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” and “Super Mario Galaxy 2.”

Arguably, his own games are where Yoshi and his colorful comrades have shined the most. Spinoff titles — motion-controlled “Yoshi Topsy-Turvy” on the Game Boy Advance and “Yoshi Touch & Go” on the Nintendo DS, which explored the new touchscreen technology of that handheld system — were fun distractions for players. However, Yoshi has spawned two trilogies of platformer games that have brought millions of Nintendo gamers into the Yoshi fold.

The “golden egg,” so to speak, was the original Super Nintendo “Yoshi’s Island,” which remains the most critically-celebrated of the franchise. “Yoshi’s Island” led to sequels about 10 and 20 years later on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS, showing that the love and attention for the original format of throwing eggs and gulping down enemies was timeless. The “Yoshi’s Island” trilogy includes “Yoshi’s Island DS” and “Yoshi’s New Island.”

The DS game developed by Artoon was fairly innovative; instead of Yoshi just carrying Baby Mario on his back, he carried baby versions of Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Wario and Bowser, all with their own abilities.

“New Island” was more of a retread of the original game, complete with a crayon-inspired art style and some unfortunately kazoo-based music. Not much felt very new about this title, but thankfully, the artistic capability of Yoshi games is shown off to even greater effect in what I like to call Yoshi’s “arts and crafts” trilogy.

That’s not an official moniker, but with “Yoshi’s Story” for the Nintendo 64 looking like a pop-up book, “Yoshi’s Woolly World” for the Wii U showing off high-definition yarn-inspired graphics, and “Yoshi’s Crafted World” for the Nintendo Switch mixing together a hodgepodge of realistic paper plate platforms and cardboard obstacles, it’s easy to see why I consider this the second Yoshi trilogy.

“Yoshi’s Crafted World” launched March 29 and has since been praised as the best Yoshi game since 2006’s “Yoshi’s Island DS,” according to Metacritic.

As the DS game was very obviously trying to replicate the mechanics, branding and feel of the original “Yoshi’s Island” with some twists, the Switch crafted adventure feels the most different from the original Super Nintendo game.

This new title cements how Yoshi games are for everyone. “Yoshi’s Crafted World” is accessible for children because the difficulty never gets too harsh.

Challenge for older gamers comes in the form of trying to collect every item in each level.

For kids and kids at heart, “Crafted World” is a lot of fun in brand-new ways. Controlling a giant, punching Yoshi robot through an obstacle course, driving a solar-powered go-kart and spitting out magnets on soda cans to jump on as platforms are all creative gimmicks that Yoshi games have never tried before.

I’m excited to continue playing “Yoshi’s Crafted World” and finish the experience. With eight Yoshi games in the past 25 years, it seems like Yoshi will appear every few years to delight gamers of all ages.

Follow Eric Zavinski at twitter.com/EZavinski