Yoshi and the Mysterious Book Review – Gotta Lick ‘Em All!

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a strange and compelling take on a Yoshi game that sidesteps platforming challenge to embrace a more open sense of discovery and experimentation. It’s unlike any Yoshi-led game that came before it, and outside of the occasional less interesting level, this has made for a largely worthwhile diversion.

I knew little about Yoshi and the Mysterious Book going in, assuming it was a somewhat floaty and linear platformer like most 2D Yoshi games that came before it. Because of this, I ended up being pleasantly surprised by how bizarre this game is, as it goes for a more encyclopedic and exploratory angle than any 2D platformer I’ve ever played. If that sounds confusing to you, I totally get it, but this weird new angle absolutely works for Yoshi, leading to one of the most inventive new releases from Nintendo in quite some time.

I was immediately struck by how Yoshi and the Mysterious Book scratches the same sort of itch as filling out the Pokédex does in the Pokémon series. Each stage focuses on a specific type of enemy, with the goal of learning about them and how they react to different stimuli. At first, you’re mainly trying to eat them or stomp on them as Yoshi to see what each action does to them, but eventually, you’re seeing how they react to water, mud, other enemies, and all sorts of other stimuli. You feel like a goofy type of researcher, toying with all of these enemies and seeing what they do in all sorts of situations.

This gameplay angle really appealed to me, even more than a traditional Yoshi game would. Pretty consistently throughout, I would stumble into new and surprising ways in which creatures would interact with Yoshi and the world around them, providing me with little bits of wonder in a way that most games struggle to. I was constantly impressed by just how many little details Good-Feel accounted for, as I’d accidentally bump an enemy into something and find that this led to its own rabbit hole of new details to find.

As such, the levels in Yoshi and the Mysterious Book are more open than you might expect, serving more as hubs with different sub-areas than straightforward gauntlets. Though you do have to do a bit of light platforming to reach further areas, the stages are more like environmental sandboxes, filled with things to toy with. There’s a real sense of accomplishment when you discover new details about each creature, which also makes you want to learn even more about them. I can pretty much guarantee you won’t find every detail about an enemy in your first playthrough of a stage, allowing for a bit of replayability as well.

That being said, a couple of the levels are definitely weaker than others. While flying around with a water-filled jetpack creature or catching insects with a carnivorous plant shaped like a bug net is both inventive and satisfying, bonking into Shy Guys to make them play music or hang-gliding with sort of wonky controls messes with the consistency a bit. Still, when a stage hits, it hits, and I’m glad the studio was so willing to try out such weird ideas. I never imagined a creepy stealth level would work in a Yoshi game, but I was proven wrong quite thoroughly here.

It’s not really until you “finish” the main game that you get access to a good deal of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book’s content. You get several new areas to explore once the credits roll, as well as different “inventions” that you unlock in exchange for flowers. These let you edit the game’s HUD to display all sorts of info, from Yoshi’s vertical and horizontal positioning to the location of nearby Flowers. I’m not sure why that’s locked behind completing over half the game, but at least it serves as an intriguing bit of content that lets you make the screen as clear or as busy as you’d prefer.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book looks straight out of a storybook.

I deeply dig the visuals of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, which have a suitably storybook-like style. Though the many Yoshis look as colorful as usual outside of the book where the stages take place, it’s when you’re in the book that this classically drawn style emerges and really helps the game stand out. The new enemy designs are wonderful as well, making for a game that is absolutely filled with “weird little guys” – a descriptor I use in the most complimentary way possible.