The Yoshi video game series is known for exploring wild new art styles and gameplay concepts. Platforming across yarn and crafted worlds, Nintendo’s iconic Dino ventures to the Nintendo Switch 2 with a new 2D platformer. Focusing less on linear point A-to-B progression, it is a more freeform 2D platforming adventure.
After playing a short demo of Yoshi and the Mysterious at the Nintendo NYC store, here are some early impressions.
What is Yoshi and the Mysterious Book?
The adventure begins, Bowser Jr. discovers a magical book called Mr. E, and takes it to Yoshi’s Island. After being pulled into the book, Mr. E wakes up at Yoshi’s home. Losing its information about the creatures within him, Mr. E asks the dinos to assist him.
The demo didn’t delve into the greater narrative, but Mr. E’s comments on everything Yoshi interacts with were quite charming. The dialogue evoked memories of a loving grandfather talking to an active audience about their wonderful discoveries.
Considering the game’s storybook nature and theme, this approach for the game’s dialogue with Mr. E worked for me.
What a Discovery – Gameplay & Progression
Speaking of a storybook theme, that carries over into the actual gameplay. Yoshi looks into the pages of Mr. E, and after using his eyeglasses, they discover creatures to learn about. Soon after, the dino is sucked into the book to begin his adventure. For fans of Yoshi and the larger Mario franchise, the creatures to learn about are from past adventures.
The two levels I played focused on Flower guys and the Fuzzies from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Utilizing a control scheme similar to past Yoshi platformers (right down to it being nearly identical to Yoshi’s Island or Wooly World). The green dino can flutter jump, toss eggs, and ground pound to interact with the world.
Alongside those returning moves, a new ability was added to his moveset called the tailswipe. It can be used to pick up creatures to ride on Yoshi’s back. Picking up the Flower creature, I was able to learn a lot about the little guy through running around with Yoshi and exploring. Every action, like jumping in a pile of mud or running into specific objects, rewarded Yoshi with stars.
This approach with progression and consistent rewards reminded me of more open-world adventures in recent Nintendo titles, like Super Mario Odyssey and DK Bananza. The demo didn’t explain what the stars unlock, but going off past Yoshi adventures, the full game likely offers fun rewards and a great sense of progression.
Some Confused Handwriting – Level Design
The focus on level completion is now focused on learning about a specific creature. The result of this change in progression was mixed from my limited time with The Mysterious Book. A positive example of this working for me was the Flower level, with my little flower buddy cutely interacting with the world.
Them riding on Yoshi, going along for the ride, worked well with the game’s core mechanics. Ridable creatures don’t have unique abilities. That being said, having their interactions with the world be natural occurrences, moving around with Yoshi, allows the new approach to level completion (completing missions) to work.
Issues with Level Design
This approach has its merits. However, when it comes to non-ridable creatures, this new style has issues, with the Fuzzys’ level having unclear mission objectives. For example, while running around and using Yoshi’s moveset (like ground pounding and throwing eggs), I was completing various objectives. But after completing several of them, I wasn’t sure what to do next.
The level being somewhat boxed in wasn’t helping matters, even with hints from Mr. E (by pressing the L button) that offered only loose guidance on what to do next. Overall, this could be more of a ‘me’ issue considering the demo’s short 15-minute length, but it’s worth highlighting for these early impressions.
Visuals
One thing that instantly got my attention was the art direction and visuals—sporting a storybook look reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh. Yoshi and the worlds he runs through are stunning on the Nintendo Switch 2, highlighted by playing in Docked Mode.
This allowed the game’s vibrant colors and almost stop motion-esc animation to pop off the screen. Charming animations, such as Yoshi performing a Mario 64-esque triple jump after landing three jumps, made me smile as my demo session concluded.
In many regards, it takes the best visual flourishes of Super Mario Bros. Wonder and combines that with the iconic art style of Yoshi’s Island.
Performance
Impressively, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is one of the few Unreal Engine 5 games on the Nintendo Switch 2 (save for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds) to run at a smooth 60 FPS. That said, in some menus, the game did feel like it was dropping frames.
One example includes interacting with Mr. E before going into a stage, though that could be the game’s stop-motion-like visual effect rather than dropped frames.
Closing Thoughts on Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
The Larger Yoshi series being one of my least favorite Nintendo franchises, I admire the creative risks from each platforming adventure. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is worth keeping an eye on for its new approach to 2D platforming.
Initial reviews appear positive, too, with many citing that the elements I mentioned here got expanded in the full release.
