Yoshi and the Mysterious Book review: a playful but surprisingly slow adventure

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is absolutely lovely. It’s a curiosity-driven adventure with a light-hearted approach that encourages player exploration and experimentation over more action-heavy adventuring. While that marks it as different to other entries in the Yoshi video game franchise, it’s an endearing tilt that encourages return visits.

This is a Yoshi game that leans more into the peace of life on Yoshi’s home island. It’s a place where there’s rarely conflict, and the Yoshis live quietly amongst fields and flowers. That is, until the destructive Bowser Jr and Kamek arrive, via the titular Mysterious Book.

Filling the pages of the Mysterious Book

As its pages open, the Yoshis quickly realise this book is rather strange, and it’s rather empty. In its pages, you’ll find an array of storybook chapters introducing tiny, living worlds filled with an array of odd creatures. But everything known about these creatures has been shaken out by the intrusion of Bowser Jr and Kamek.

For the book to regain its power, you must portal inside these realms and play with these creatures, filling out research and discoveries.

It’s a strong premise that encourages you to explore with a spirit of curiosity. In various playgrounds, you’re not given much direction. What follows is a case of push, pull and prod, as you jump across terrains, looking for unique creatures and analysing what makes them tick.

One big science experiment

The simplest method of exploration involves using Yoshi’s key abilities – swallowing creatures to see how they taste, or flipping them up to ride on his back. The magic happens in what’s next. If you run through a field of dandelion-like creatures, where do they go? What happens if they float by and attach to another creature? What about if they get soaked in water, or get wrapped around rocks?

In the simplest terms, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is one big science experiment.

The game is all about figuring out how creature interact, and discovering something new in each and every turn. Pages fill out with data on each creature as you discover it, with certain clues giving you a hint about what to try next.

A creature that loves fishing might be able to net you a surprise underwater. If paired together with another creature, you might be able to use their special skills to reach new heights. And what about a giant pink absorbing blob? You can pop it if you stomp on its head, but you can also bounce lightly on it, and create a cascade of blob multiplication that eventually shoots you all the way up a volcano.

There are simple discoveries to be made as well as more complex ones, all of which require you to think deeply about each tiny creature and their environment. There are always hidden areas to explore and new discoveries to make, but the path does require a level of finesse that adds challenge to the game.

The cascading-blob-volcano quest, for example, requires you to play around with the blobs in their biome, and figure out how to make them multiply and grow in ways that have explosive results. Finding some caverns requires you to cajole dandelion-creatures into crushable rocks. Sometimes, you’ll need to deploy hostile bees at just the right moment, or otherwise pit two rival creatures against each other for a spectacular clash.

When the tiny ribbon of achievement appears on screen, you feel joyful and warm.

A friction-free world does create tension

There is enough diversity in the world of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book to keep you diving back in. The appeal is in seeing what’s next, and how far you can push your menagerie of tiny creatures. There are volcanoes to explore, seaside beaches, jungle forests, cliffs and isolated islands.

It’s very novel to see these biomes come to life, and to see how your actions may change them. But there is a lack of real tension and challenge in these activities that somewhat diminishes the overall shine of the adventure.

The earlier Yoshi’s Crafted World was all about discovering hand-crafted worlds, but it came with a variety of neat puzzles and some hefty combat challenges too, which created a rewarding ebb and flow between exploration and action.

That tension – the delight of discovery, paired with the rush and stress of action – created a layered experience, where players could challenge themselves and their skills even in a light-hearted and playful setting.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book rarely has any significant combat, however, unless you’re encountering the occasionally hostile buzzing bees or another obstacle. The strong focus on exploration and discovery means the game is overall a slow-moving, lush adventure.

The lack of tension does colour the experience though, and makes some discoveries feel throwaway and not as hard won.

Perhaps Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is simply aiming for a much younger audience, who might be better-pleased by easier achievements. That’s no bad thing, of course. Having games for all ages is a boon, and everyone deserves to be able to enjoy games like this.

But as a next step for the long-running Yoshi video game series, which has been known for more artful and complex adventuring, this game’s lack of complexity is a surprise.

To approach Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, it’s best to understand this direction. Rather than focusing on action, as it typical of most Super Mario games, this is a safari through a storybook world. It comes with a lovely stop-motion-inspired gameplay, along with a style and flair that marks it out as unique and flavourful. In this journey, knowledge is more powerful than flexing on your enemies.

In fact, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book explores something rather novel: a more human, understanding approach to in-game enemies.

Shy Guys, which are typically faceless enemies in the Super Mario series, are subjects of observation, and friends to play with. You can also spot familiar lesser enemies from the wider franchise, all reimagined as part of a wider, more cohesive ecosystem.

In future games, the knowledge gained in Yoshi and the Mysterious Book might lead to bigger questions. For example, if Shy Guys are peaceful and fun-loving, why does Mario spend so much time squishing them into dust? Making friends with these creatures will more than likely lead to harder feelings down the road.

In any case, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book expands on the lives of these critters in a compelling way, allowing you to experiment with them like a scientist would. While it’s lacking in traditional combat, there are at least some neat environmental puzzles that’ll keep you wandering the game’s biomes for hours.

Harness your childish sense of play and wonder, and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book can be magical.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book launches for Nintendo Switch 2 on 21 May.

A code for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book for Nintendo Switch 2 was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

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