Developer: Nintendo, Good-Feel
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Switch 2
Tested on: Switch 2
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book – Review
With several characters making their long-expected debuts on the silver screen in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, it’s not surprising that Nintendo wants to strike while the iron’s hot. We’re all looking forward to seeing Star Fox making the jump to Switch 2, but in the meantime, everyone’s favourite dinosaur has also gotten a brand new game: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book! Aimed at a younger crowd, this new puzzle platformer sees Yoshi headline another game for the first time since 2019’s Yoshi’s Crafted World. Is it a triumphant return to form?
Story
Our story doesn’t start with Yoshi but with Bowser Jr., who is rummaging through the library of Bowser’s castle. Jr. accidentally stumbles on an encyclopedia where he reads about the Bewilder Bird. Wanting to see it for himself, Bowser Jr. grabs the book and sets off in the Junior Clown Car. Unfortunately for the little nepo baby, things go wrong, and Jr. crashes on Yoshi Island. The island’s inhabitants, the Yoshis, find the book, which turns out to be sentient and called Mr. Encyclopedia, or Mr. E for short. As Kamek sets out to rescue Bowser Jr., Mr. E asks the Yoshis to help him fill in his blank pages. Can the Yoshis fill out the encyclopedia? And will Bowser Jr. find the Bewilder Bird?
Graphics
There are two distinct art styles present in Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. Outside of the book pages, the game makes use of the established style of the Mario series, and it is here that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book does look at its best. Once inside the book, the game’s art style shifts into a more “illustrated” style, designed to look like it was drawn or printed, and with stop-motion effects applied to movement. We understand what the game went for here, and on paper (pun not intended) it should work, but the execution leaves some things to be desired. For one, this second style comes with an inexplicable drop in resolution, especially in handheld mode. It’s not as bad in motion as it is in the screenshots accompanying this review, but it’s not particularly amazing looking either.
Sound
There have been a plethora of Yoshi games over the last few decades, and the series has established a very specific musical style. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book builds on what has been established, with a set of cutesy and cheerful tunes that fit with the cosy atmosphere of the game. There are recognisable audio cues for returning fans, helping to make the soundscape feel familiar. Sound effects are identical to those of previous games, including Yoshi’s signature “Pa-dam” and other vocalisations. There is no true voice acting present, with Mr. E talking (subtitled) gibberish, resulting in a soundscape that banks on familiarity rather than breaking the mold.
Gameplay
As far as gameplay goes, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a bit of an oddity. For the most part, the game looks and feels like a platformer, but it doesn’t really play like one. You’re tasked with filling Mr. E’s pages with information about the different creatures that populate the world. This is simply done by going into the specific pages about a specific critter and interacting with it in various ways, whether that’s jumping on it, carrying it on your back or swallowing it. Each set of pages works as a self-contained, non-linear level. Once you meet a specific goal, Mr. E will then allow you to return to the real world where you can give your newly investigated creature a name based on your findings (or let Mr. E provide it with an “official” name in case you don’t have any particular inspiration).
The game is seemingly geared towards a younger crowd: levels are short affairs, Yoshi is invincible, and most of the information you need to gather are things you simply stumble into. That’s not to say that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is entirely devoid of challenge, as one of your side goals is to collect a set of hidden flowers and getting some of these can be on the trickier side. This is entirely optional though, but doing so will reward you with new exploration tools, like a flower radar that makes it easier to sniff out what you’ve missed in your first visit to a chapter. Along the way, you’ll also cross paths with Kamek and Bowser Jr. as they search for the Bewilder Bird, but this secondary storyline never really unfolds in the way we’d expected it. We assumed that the early stages were simply teaching you the skills necessary to clear the latter half of the game in a more classic platforming manner, but this simply didn’t happen. Within the ruleset that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book sets for itself, it does excel at what it wants to be, and we found ourselves cracking a smile at some of the critters’ antics and the puzzle solutions more than once. This is probably the epitome of cosy platforming, and a great little game to unwind with after a stressful day. Just don’t expect this one to live up to what most players expect from a platformer, or even a Yoshi game, if previous entries in the series, like Yoshi’s Wooly World, are anything to go by.
In fact, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book feels incomplete, at least by Nintendo’s own standards. Mind you, those standards are ridiculously high, and we can’t remember the Big N ever delivering a real stinker over the past decade or so. Still, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is woefully short, taking us around 8 hours before we got to the credits, although we can imagine completionists squeezing out a lot more time. The game also screams for a multiplayer component because it’s so obviously aimed at a younger crowd: this would be the perfect game for parents to play together with their children who are just getting into gaming. However, very young gamers will find it too tricky to solve all of the puzzles on their own, and older kids simply have better alternatives to choose from. As it stands, a multiplayer mode is absent, which does feel like a huge missed opportunity.
Conclusion
We wouldn’t go as far as to say that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a bad game, but this one definitely isn’t a must-have either. There are some good ideas in here, but the more laid-back, cosy platforming experience doesn’t entirely cover the overall lack of both substance and challenge. If you’re a Yoshi fan, you won’t regret picking this one up, but you can just as easily give this one a pass.
No Comments