Yoshi and the Mysterious Book Review

It has been a quiet few years for Yoshi, whose last adventure came in Yoshi’s Crafted World in 2019. With Nintendo greenlighting numerous ports to Nintendo Switch over the last few years, it was hoped and expected that Yoshi’s Woolly World would get the remaster treatment, but it hasn’t come to fruition, leaving fans of Mario’s dinosaur pal to keep waiting for that green and white egg to hatch. Now, as the standout star of the recent Super Mario Galaxy Movie and riding a popularity high, it is the perfect time to bring Yoshi back into the video game limelight, as Yoshi and the Mysterious Book chronicles onto Nintendo Switch 2.

There may be older readers that feel similarly to this aging gamer that grew up predominantly on some of the best the Super Nintendo Entertainment System had to offer. Yoshi’s Island is still a personal favourite game, and this self-professed fan of the egg-throwing green dino has always felt that Yoshi’s first true solo platformer from 1995 still hasn’t been topped by his many other outings – or, indeed, by many other side-scrollers since then.

In fact, Yoshi has regularly been used in some of Nintendo’s more quirky and experimental games, including the tilting antics of Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation (Yoshi Topsy-Turvy) on Game Boy Advance, and the touch screen, on-rails score-based title Yoshi Touch & Go from Nintendo DS. Evident, too, in the visual styles of just about every entry in the series, Yoshi games play around with a variety of aspects, but despite some solid attempts, it is debatable if any have managed to capture the greatness of that original baby-carrying adventure.

Nintendo and developer Good Feel have gone back down the inventive path, conjuring a side-scrolling platformer unlike anything else out there…except perhaps Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Enjoying another day in paradise on their fruitful island, the Yoshis witness a giant book crashlanding nearby, the troublesome Bowser Jr. the cause of the ancient tome’s unexpected and hard-hitting arrival after sneaking it out of the Koopa castle library. Ever the inquisitive souls, the Yoshis hop on over, dust the old hardback down and prop him up neatly. Revealing himself to be Mister Encyclopedia (or Mr. E), the moustachioed book informs the curious locals that his purpose is to document the land’s living inhabitants.

Unfortunately, Mr. E’s notes have been lost, and all that remains on his pages are the creatures themselves. Always willing to help, the Yoshis dive into the dusty pages, setting out on one of their most unique quests to date.

Yoshi’s Island fans will instantly recognise a certain flowery denizen on the first page, that of the ever-smiling Crazee Dayzee. Selecting it takes Yoshi to the first level, and naturally, it’s time to make Yoshi do Yoshi things and eat the jolly little plant! An egg pops out of Yoshi’s behind in customary fashion, as well as an exclamation from Mr. E about how it tastes, with this fact scribbled down onto the screen’s background. Jumping on, pounding, and even scooping Crazee Dayzee onto Yoshi’s back with a tail flick will result in other details being pointed out.

At this stage it is clear what Yoshi is here to do: investigate each creature’s habitat, play with them, and cause all sorts of havoc! Is there anyone more suited to the job than a bunch of bottomless stomach Yoshis? Thankfully, the respawning Crazee Dayzee means it won’t go extinct any time soon.

A lot can happen in a short space of time in these enclosed environments. These aren’t levels designed in the traditional Super Mario or Yoshi format, where the usual goal is to dodge hazards, defeat enemies, and make it to the goal, sometimes within a time limit. In fact, Yoshi cannot fail at all as he acts as researcher during his bookly travels.

Not all Yoshi games are super challenging affairs, but Yoshi and the Mysterious Book has taken this to a different level. Following his permanent invincibility in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, he is also completely unphased by potentially damaging acts here. There is no health meter, and falling down pits will return the scaly lizard right back to dry land. Lives, time limits, game overs – none will be seen as Yoshi merrily bounces through these stages.

It is easy to imply that this is a game targeted at young children, especially given the utter cuteness of Yoshi – after all, he is the ideal Nintendo character to appeal to kids and get them to pick up a controller – but while it is certainly true that this adventure more than likely aims for that demographic more than the majority of other Nintendo titles when factoring in an inability to take damage, to turn a nose up at this side of the game would be to shamefully dismiss one of the most creative games in recent years.

It is difficult to fathom that Nintendo fans went through the drawn-out New Super Mario Bros. era, but Nintendo has been at its creative best for some time, now, when factoring in titles like Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, Super Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bananza, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

In keeping with the series’ focus on delightfully unique handcrafted art styles, the world inside of Mr. E is presented in a gorgeous pencil sketch fashion, with subtle moving lines around Yoshi and other creatures emphasising the pen-to-paper approach. It loses its impact when played away from the TV but remains a visual treat full of colour and life.

It is life, too, that is breathed heavily throughout each and every dwelling that Yoshi can explore. Much like the inspired stages found in Super Mario 3D World and Super Mario Bros. Wonder in the sense that original gameplay ideas will be put to use in one or two levels and then never seen again, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book employs the same concept to an even greater degree.

Each level is very self-contained, smaller than most stages that 2D platformer fans will be used to – but the point isn’t to hop through long, horizontal levels. Yoshi is here on a research assignment, and levels incorporate puzzle-like elements that require experimenting with each creature to uncover the dozens of secrets contained within.

Even within the first stage featuring Crazee Dayzee, the game encourages Yoshi to try all sorts, taking the flowery resident past budding plants to make them bloom, plopping it in a pool of water for a splish-splash with friends of a different colour, and getting it to eat apples or other edibles to alter its own hue.

Other stages see Yoshi bopping on musically inclined croakers to piece together tunes, getting a liquid-based buddy stuck on his mouth so that he can spray water like a hose, throwing slug-like boomerangs around that build up power if dodged accurately, ploughing across the ground atop a drill-nosed hog, or floating through the skies with a feathery brolly.

A whole host of familiar Yoshi’s Island faces even return, including Nep-Enuts, Mildes, Shy Guys, Mousers, and Goonies. It is a fascinating and rather warming experience to see what used to be enemies in past games depicted in a completely different way, enriching the usually basic lore of a Mario-related franchise without the need for cut-scenes or lines of text. By creating habitats for each creature to reside in, Nintendo and Good Feel have made Yoshi’s Island and its nearby regions feel more real and alive than ever, and Yoshi can get a closer look and better understanding of how each life form spends its days.

It would be spoiling too much to be detailing all the peculiar and humorous gameplay elements that pertain to the plentiful critters, but it results in an adventure full of character and charm, of a relaxed ordeal where the player has no worry of failure and can casually enjoy the sense of discovery and wonder as Yoshi trials his theories. See what happens if Yoshi tries a particular move on a creature, or makes it eat a certain fruit, or causes it to touch or pass by certain objects or plants. As more progress is made, newly discovered wildlife will show up in previous areas, where Yoshi can then combine the distinct qualities of multiple organisms for even more imaginative outcomes.

The rewards can be satisfying, and it can also be sudden and uncertain how some effects are reached, but it all gets indexed with some lovely artwork in Mr. E’s pages. Tokens can be spent to offer up hints on unknown findings, while Smiley Flowers can be uncovered throughout stages as a means of offering further collectables and an optional goal for each stage. Unusually, these can be traded for mostly useless HUD elements that are more for show than anything else (e.g. a heart meter despite Yoshi not taking damage), although the Smiley Flower pointer is a helpful tool.

It might seem a little odd that the credits can be rolled fairly quickly, but the game reveals twice the content by the point that happens, featuring a delectable number of imaginative extra stages right out of the Nintendo playbook. If not intending to purchase for a child, the best way to treat Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is as a calming piece of puzzle-platforming that does a genuinely good job of putting a smile on the face, especially since Yoshi is presented with more personality than ever, with animations tied specifically to certain levels and interactions with specific creatures.

Yoshi’s endeavour to unearth all the weird and wonderful inhabitants of Mr. E’s pages is a joyful one, but it still can’t help but be thought that without any real challenges or stakes, it is missing a core piece of gameplay. It is certainly tough to overlook that side of things completely as a fan of many of Yoshi’s quests and one that is still pining for that Yoshi’s Island rival. The puzzle elements from the SNES classic remain to an extent, but the shift from a series with many tests of platforming skill to one that is lacking in them is a shame. Despite that niggling feeling, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a perfect example that there doesn’t necessarily need to be fail states in games in order to have fun.