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Played on: Nintendo Switch 2

Playthroughs: 1 ( 100% complete)

Playtime: 60hrs

Curiously across the community, I’ve seen Yoshi and the Mysterious book earn a lot of discourse and fairly average reviews. It seems that this game has been written off by some for being dare I say ‘Babyish’, ironic considering that this is a yoshi game that doesn’t feature a crying baby. They say, don’t judge a book by its cover, has Yoshi’s latest adventure been judged fairly? lets find out!

A Meddling kid

The story is simple in its premise, Bowser Jr stumbles across the titular mysterious book one day and ends up on Yoshi’s island, as he obsessively seeks a powerful bird thats somewhere within the books pages . The mysterious book called Mr. E, is a very nice (and also very sentient) fellow, who invites Yoshi to jump in to his pages to stop Bowser Jr’s medling whilst populating his pages with all the discoverys and creatures you find along the way. Sure the narrative is no more complex than ‘our princess is in another castle’ but its serviceable and really thats all it needs to be.

Each of the games 10 main chapters features a different location, with its own different creatures to discover. There’s a main chapter page for each which has a beautfully illustrated double page where you can see the creatures moving around and living their best lives in their natural habitat (you can also name the creatures if you wish for some extra fun). What’s actually really quite magical is how the chapter page plays in to the core gameplay. Upon discovering the main finding within a creatures habitat, that creature will on some occassions do something on this main chapter screen to help you uncover another creature lurking within the environment (like a creature might roll in to a tree causing another creature to fly out, allowing their level to then be selected). I found myself really enjoying this element of “oooo what happens next” as I found myself anticipating how the creatures are going to interact with the page and what that interaction will uncover. It’s really good and makes everything feel fairly consequential. You’re not just finding discoveries for the sake of doing so for the most part, it feels entirely integral to progession.

A well crafted world

This is where the discourse may originate from, I can’t imagine that this ‘Babyish’ mentality from some comes solely from the visuals, as this game is absolutely beautiful, its vivid, it pops with colour, its utterly charming, I loved jumping in to levels and being scribbled in to the pages with pens, as you find facts about the creature, your finding will be permanently be emblazoned in to the part of the level where you yourself discovered it, giving a more personal touch. Presentation wise, this game is well crafted and the charming visuals have been key to Yoshi games since the very first SNES game.

Where this game differs from other Yoshi outings is that it’s not your a-typical platformer. In fact its one big giant puzzle. You’re dropped in to levels, each containing their own unique creature that has their very own mechanics that can affect how you can traverse across the level or effects what you can interact with within the level. This means that every single level you enter is effectively a blank slate, and dare I say a “mystery” as the games title would suggest.

This is where I feel the game has been hampered in some respects with its ‘its only for kids’ ideology. Sure you’re always going to get a discovery for using your tounge to taste the creature, there are some core mechanics you can rely on to find facts and these are incredibly easy to uncover. If you rely on the mentality of these easy wins, well you’re likely going to have a fairly uninspired playthrough . What the game is asking players of all ages to do is to tap in to their intrigue, play with logic, and think outside the box, it’s a game that rewards the youngest of players allowing them to see the game through to the end with their comprehension, but rewards older players for lateral thinking.

For those who want to reach 100% completion there are some beautifully crafted puzzles to achieve that are a genuine challenge. I found absolute joy in the ‘Eureka’ style moments this game provided me in the over 2000 discoveries I found across my 60 hour runthrough ( I don’t think theres a single other Yoshi game I’ve invested so much time in), I’m not ashamed to admit that to get some of those harder discoveries I found myself spending a fair amount of coins to buy hints of how to uncover them otherwise I fear this 60 hours may have esculated even futher.

For full context, you’ll find within the pages, Platforming puzzles, logic puzzles, Music and Rhythm puzzles, skill puzzles, stealth puzzles, the variety goes on and on. The inner Mario fan within me equally filled with glee at levels featuring classic enemies such as Shy guy, a particular highlight being growing my own Pirhanna plants and working out each stage to grow it successfully.

The adventures appendices

If 10 main chapters of content isn’t enough for you, there are 2 extra chapters within Mr. E’s pages too, one of which is a challenge chapter that houses some of the hardest puzzles in the game, these are fair but genuenly quite tough, some of them taking me a fair few attempts, I wouldn’t say they are for the faint of heart.

In true traditional Yoshi fashion, each level also has their own smiley flowers to collect, which again some are not that easy to find. Rarely did I find them in plain sight which I feel is characteristic of previous series entries. The smiley flowers actually have a pretty unique function in this game too. Every 5 you collect can be traded for an exploration tool, what’s unique about these gadgets is that they can be fixed on to the games HUD, you can fix them wherever you like and customise it when you need to. Some of the gadgets can be extremely helpful, for example I chose to affix a gadget that tells you how many discoveries are still left in the level as well as one that acts as an archive of Mr. E’s notes on discoveries and hints to better keep track of things. I even placed a compass that showed me the nearest Smiley flower to help me track down those last few I needed.

Unfortunately this is one of the aspects that let me down slightly, there are some incredibly useful tools in here as described, but a large proportion of them felt rather superfluous. Such as speed trackers, Height meters and a life bar (which was strange as I didn’t realise you took damage in the game in the traditional sense). I’m not suggesting that these tools won’t help certain players to uncover discoveries in the game, they didn’t always for me, but every level within the game can be viewed as its own micro sandbox, and these tools may encourage creative play and solutions for some players. I wish however they had built on this mechanic a bit more to make it more worthwhile.

Is it a Ten though?

It’s a game that I truely feel everyone can find a sense of joy from. I recall few moments playing where I didn’t feel my smile wide from side to side. The game successfully subverts the expecations of what a Yoshi game usually is, providing exceptional variety in its sandbox levels. It’s a game that wants to create intrigue and play around discovery, and it absolutely nails that sense of curiosity. It’s a difficult review to write, as the game feels utterly unique, and its difficult frankly to put down on paper how the game plays (I don’t want to spoil the puzzles and solutions too much) but it feels like if Nintendo did it’s own version of the Crystal Maze.

If you go looking for a challenge, you can find it and effectively play your way even though the unique HUD customisation for me left a sense of disapointment, it fails to get the perfect rating as a result, but needless to say, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book has become one of the most essential games to play on Switch 2 to date.

It’s a 9/10

• Beautifully presented, with wonderful visuals and effects that bring the mysterious book to life
• Unique puzzles and mechnics across each level
• Encourages play and creativity, each level features simple puzzles but equally tough challenges for all levels of player skill
• A sizeable level of content for those who decide to keep playing to 100% completion
• Exploration tools and HUD customisation feel unique but could have been fleshed out further