Originally announced back in September 2025 and the last game related to Mario’s 40th anniversary, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book looks to take the plumber’s sidekick back into the realm of a 2D sidescroller. This isn’t your typical sidescroller, though. The new storybook aesthetic coupled with a discovery element of various creatures throughout the world set this game apart, however, is it worth picking up? Let’s get into it.
Story & Gameplay
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book kicks off with Bowser Jr. coming across a strange, mustached book, which he “borrows.” After a crash landing on a Yoshi filled island leaving the young Koopa nowhere in sight, the Yoshi’s are introduced to the talking book. Introducing himself as Mr. E, the book tasks the Yoshi’s with accessing the information within and sharing their findings. It’s simple, cute and on par with story beats from the genre.
Gamaplay is what you would expect from a 2D Yoshi game. You can eat enemies or items with the press of B, jump with A and throw eggs with the right stick. This time around, you can tail whip creatures to have them ride on Yoshi’s back, which plays a very important role in this game. When these creatures ride with Yoshi, players can make use of their abilities. For example, a Crazy Dayzee will make flowers bloom when it comes into contact with bushes or trees, the Glubbit shoots out bubbles which can be used to reach high areas, the Snurfboard can be used to take Yoshi quickly across water or skate across land and more. You’ll need to make use of the abilities of these creatures to complete discoveries in the Mysterious Book’s pages. These are some of the highlights of the game as they offer a variety of ways to get around the levels in fun, meaningful ways.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book may appear to be a standard platforming title, and in some ways it is, but unlike traditional platformers, Yoshi won’t be simply going from the start of a level to a clearly defined goal. Instead, you’ll be navigating the various levels for more discoveries about the abilities and habits of the numerous creatures. Basic things, like finding out if Yoshi can eat them or defeat them are a given, but other things, like how they react to fire, what happens when they get dowsed in mud or other situations are things that you have to try to fill in more entries into Mr. E’s pages. There are even some light boss battles to go through and the ability to change the color of your Yoshi.
Each area has a main discovery where Mr. E will figures he knows enough about the creature to name it and allows players to take a break from the stage or keep going. Players can opt to give the critters any name they like or they can rely on hear suggestions. Even after this, you are able to go back into the creature sections at any time to look things that you may have missed. There is even a hint system that you can make use of if you’re feeling stuck.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is not a very long game if you’re just blasting through to see the credits. It’s also not very hard. Although Yoshi can take damage, he can’t die, which makes this game perfect for a younger crowd or gamers that want a very low stakes experience. Even with that said, the real challenge here comes with tracking down all of the discoveries for the creatures. There are a surprising amount of these scattered throughout the stages, so the game can easily go from something that will take you less than ten hours to see the credits to something significantly more beefy should you opt to attempt to track down everything. When it’s all said and done, the tight controls, interesting creatures, levels and variety in gameplay are just fun and enjoyable.
Visuals, Audio & Performance
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book sports a clean look with a majority of the gameplay segments being portrayed in a color pencil-like art style. This fits in well with the entries in each of the pages as they are drawn inside once discovered. Things here are colorful and varied, with the worlds and creatures showing off many interesting and fun designs. Yoshi and the other creatures encountered in the stages feature intentionally low frames of animation which fit in with the overall aesthetic. In my experience with the game, the framerate holds up very nicely at 60 frames per second and I didn’t encounter many issues with it dropping. The 4K resolution while playing on compatible screens is also a nice touch. Audio is also on point with mostly soothing tracks that fit the adventure perfectly.
Japan Exclusive Promotional Material
Game shops across Japan have an interesting flier available for free for fans. This is fairly common for new releases, especially Nintendo published ones, but what Nintendo crafted for The Mysterious Book is pretty cool. This special flier folds out in various ways to show information about the game and the world that has been crafted. It’s totally unnecessary, but if you find yourself in Japan around the time of the release, it might be worth trying to track one of these down at a game shop or the Nintendo retail stores. With the latter, Nintendo usually has tons of fliers for many of their games available well after they are released. It’s a cool collectible to add to your gaming stash if you’re into such things.
Conclusion
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is somewhat of a short ride, but one that is pretty enjoyable. Even with the said, there are a number of hidden items and discoveries to me made about the creatures and their habitats. Not only this, but the post-game offers more stages and a bit more challenge, but nothing too tough. The game also looks and performs well and also has some nice music. It’s an interesting take on a 2D platformer in the sense that it doesn’t have clear starting and stopping points, making it more of an adventure than an action title. If you’re looking for a laid back experience or if you are looking for something to play with kids, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is worth taking a look at.
But, let’s turn things over to you guys. Did you pick up Yoshi on the Switch 2? What do you think of it? What’s your favorite Yoshi title to date? Sound off in the comments down below. We’d love to hear from you.
Final Score: 8.0
by Danny Bivens
No comments:
Post a Comment