Yoshi And The Mysterious Book

Platform: Nintendo Switch 2

Nobody does charm like Nintendo. Boot up a title from the big N and the overwhelming reaction is likely to be a quiet delight at some small but perfectly polished element of the game, whether it’s the awe of modern Zelda’s open fields, joyfully hopping around in Super Mario, or the satisfying flutter-jumps of dino icon Yoshi in their occasional spin-offs. Like its predecessors Yoshi’s Woolly World or Yoshi’s Crafted World, this latest outing for the apple-gobbling therapod packs in plenty of that trademark charm – but otherwise, this is more of a mildly interesting pamphlet than a mysterious book.

When Bowser Jr. uncovers a strange tome in his father’s treasure horde, he becomes obsessed with finding the mythical Bewilder Bird depicted in it. After accidentally trapping himself inside the book’s pages, it ends up falling into the hands of a multicoloured herd of Yoshis. Introducing itself as Mister Encyclopedia, or Mr. E, the inexplicably sentient book enlists the friendly creatures to also hop into his pages, document what’s inside, and stop Bowser Jr from wreaking literary havoc.

It’s a threadbare premise, but serves as set-up for what could be an interesting platformer. Unfortunately, this fails to be terribly interesting. Each chapter of Mr. E’s pages sees you repeatedly jumping into the same level to encounter strange creatures, interacting with them in different ways – usually but not always involving jumping on them, licking them with Yoshi’s telescoping tongue, carrying them on Yoshi’s back, or luring them to interact with each other – to catalogue their unique abilities, and fill the book with info. That’s… kind of it. That’s the game.

Some of the interactions with the book’s inhabitants will be obvious, such as using the bubble-spouting Glubbit to create slowly rising bubbles you can ride to higher spots, or the flower-like Crayzee Dayzees to bloom actual flowers. Others are a bit more obtuse, like having to guide attacking Bunchabees – bees that grow like grapes, obviously – to hit rocks or giant walnuts to crack them open.

Developer Good-Feel does, at least, carry over some creatures to later levels rather than siloing them off in dedicated environments, relying on the player to remember what the weirdos can do, and how to apply those abilities to solve later puzzles involving more challenging fauna. Even here though, hopping into the same maps over and over to document them rapidly feels repetitive – completionists only need apply.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is also let down by a complete lack of peril, or even any real difficulty. Yoshi takes no damage, and the only real hazard is occasionally running out of eggs to fire around, but only because they’re usually better suited to solving puzzles than attacking enemies. Even the central conceit of figuring out every possible ability of the beasts is somewhat undermined by the ability to spend in-game collectible currency to buy hints. The player’s hand is held in a vice-like grip at all times.

The storybook visuals are a real delight, as is the incredibly inventive character design.

There is a nice option for personalisation at least, in that you’re prompted to name the creatures yourself at the end of a level, but you can also default to Mr. E’s official names. This feels like it makes the feature only really suited to puerile abuse – because face it, you’re not going to come up with better names than Nintendo itself has.

It’s not all bad though. The storybook visuals are a real delight, as is the incredibly inventive character design. Yoshi is as much of a delight to control as ever (even though an infinite flutter-jump allows them to effectively fly, making the game even easier in places), and there is an undeniable glimmer of satisfaction when you figure out every creature skill. There’s also a fantastic moment late in the game that switches up the mechanics somewhat, although that might be damning with faint praise – anyone who reaches it will doubtlessly end up feeling like it would have made for a far better overall game than what came before it.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is clearly timed to capitalise on Yoshi’s star turn in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and younger viewers attracted to the colourful character will likely enjoy what’s on offer here as a result. Unfortunately, anyone outside that cohort will need a medically diagnosed requirement for pure whimsy to get much out of this.