Like a lot of aging Super Nintendo aficionados, I didn’t have a great deal of optimism for Yoshi’s next big adventure, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, when it was first revealed late last year.
The power-up-turned-support-hero has had what can be fairly described as a hit-and-miss track record since his fantastic top-billing debut in 1995’s Yoshi’s Island, with his mostly-outsourced roster of games failing to live up to the standards of the mainline Super Mario entries (though 2019’s Crafted World came closer than most).
But as they say, perhaps I shouldn’t have judged a big, anthropomorphic book by its cover.
Because after playing for just over an hour, The Mysterious Book feels different. It’s not trying to conjure the spirit of Yoshi’s Island for the umpteenth time (though with its gorgeous pencil art style and familiar controls, it very much looks and feels the part). Instead, this could be the adventure where the dinosaur finally escapes the shadow of his plumber-carrying past with a formula all of his own.
As its name suggests, the Nintendo Switch 2 entry starts with a giant tome falling from the sky, dropped by the slippery hands of typical Yoshi villain, Bowser Jr. The titular book is Mr. E, an enchanted encyclopedia whose magical pages are filled with mysterious creatures. Mr. E asks the Yoshis to explore his chapters and discover more about their inhabitants by interacting with them in the only ways they know how: licking, stomping, and carrying.
Instead of traditional platforming stages, The Mysterious Book has Yoshi leaping into the habitats of individual creatures, such as a Shy Guy, or a Frog-like critter that emits bubbles, in a sort of mini sidecroller sandbox. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is less about getting from Point A to B, and more about exploring the world around you.
As Yoshi learns more about each creature – whether they can be eaten, or any unique properties they have, like a bouncy head or an aversion to mud – these learnings will be physically scribbled onto the level scenery, providing a permanent knowledge base.
Since the enduring success of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where appropriate, Nintendo has looked to introduce more player freedom and system-driven design into its other franchises, and it’s impossible not to see this as Yoshi’s own Great Plateau moment.
Once you’ve learned about a creature and achieved a greater objective in its habitat (collecting all Smiley Flowers, or capturing all runaway Shy Guys, for example), you’ll earn the right to name it. This all but guarantees highly shareable nonsense, as you can see from my gameplay footage embedded above. Mousers become Geezers, aggressive item-snatchers become ASBOs, and the timid flower people are, of course, Mr. Brexit.
More compelling are the hints at deeper systemic gameplay that could potentially be used to solve puzzles in multiple ways. During a later section of the game I was able to try, it began introducing the concept of changing enemy states by feeding or giving them different items, such as a hot chili, or by throwing them into lava or mud.
“Nintendo has looked to introduce more player freedom and system-driven design into its other franchises, and it’s impossible not to see this as Yoshi’s own Great Plateau moment.”
For example, if you find a small Nep-Enut (the water creature featured on the Yoshi’s Island box), you can turn it full-sized by carrying and throwing it into a body of water, then use its size to reach previously out-of-reach platforms. And the bouncy creatures (I named, Leafy Keith), will get up and move around if fed chillis, allowing Yoshi to bounce up to different areas.
The Yoshi games have increasingly felt like they’ve skewed young, but according to Nintendo, the Switch 2 instalment is aimed at both kids and seasoned players. From the over an hour I played, this absolutely feels like the case.
You can imagine small children loving the beauty and interactivity of Mysterious Book, but there were several points when I was stumped about what solution to come up with. And as mentioned, these early challenges suggested that there will be flexibility in terms of the solutions players can come up with. At its most simplistic, you can take out a beehive by eating the bees, by launching an egg at the hive, or by commandeering a large nut that’ll trap their stingers.
Each creature I experienced in the preview felt unique, and I’m intrigued to see if later stages could combine their properties for more complex scenarios. In one stage, there’s a tired variant of ‘Leafy Keith’ who needs to be fed to activate their bounce pad ability, but he’s also surrounded by Mousers (‘Geezers’) who will try to steal anything you’re carrying. If you learn more about the latter, you’ll discover they hate spice, so neutralizing them with chillis is one option to clear a path.
From the short segment I played, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book was a pleasant surprise. Its setup feels unique among Nintendo’s other 2D platformers, and if it delivers on the early promise of systemic gameplay, it could turn out to be a real gem in Nintendo Switch 2’s 2026 line-up.
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