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In most platforming games, you fight against the world. You try to beat a level, nail impossible jumps, or defeat a powerful boss. But Yoshi and the Mysterious Book reframes the goal to focus on exploration instead of competition. It reimagines the classic side-scrolling platformer as something refreshingly new: laid-back, playful, and bursting with ideas.
The new Yoshi game looks like a storybook because it takes place inside one. Early on, you meet a sentient book named Mr. E who has a memory problem. He can't remember much of what exists on his pages. As Yoshi, your goal is to venture inside his pages and learn about each creature. It's like a Mushroom Kingdom version of a zoological study.
Right away, the game's structure feels distinct from other Mario games. Instead of beating levels, you venture into habitats to explore. In each chapter, you run a magnifying glass over a moving image in search of creatures. Once you find one, you hop into their habitat to discover more.
At its most basic, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a traditional side-scrolling platformer. Yoshi has his typical abilities: jumping, hanging in the air, and using his tongue to gobble up creatures and turn them into eggs. He also has a tail flick move. But what's different is what the game wants you to do with those abilities.
The goal in each level isn't to reach the end or defeat enemies—it's to collect as much information about a particular creature as possible. You do that by messing around and seeing what happens. You might learn a new fact by tasting a bug, jumping on it, or carrying it on your back.
The sheer amount of weird, playful creatures makes it work. Early on, you encounter toads that sing when you hop on them, or a frog that is also a bubble wand. There are giant fish, hula-hooping birds, and creatures that mimic umbrellas or skateboards. Every creature shares two things: they are adorable, and their abilities have multiple uses that aren't immediately obvious. The only way to figure things out is to try things.
Each level is its own sandbox. The act of progressing through the game is pure play. There are some specific challenges, but mostly the game is about learning what you can do by going out and doing it. Because there's no real failure state, there's rarely a reason not to try something. Those moments of discovery—whether opening a new path or seeing Yoshi turn red after eating a hot pepper—never failed to make me smile.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is easier than Super Mario Bros. Wonder. You can't die, bosses aren't tough, and platforming sequences rarely take more than a few tries. But the game approaches challenge differently. It's not about difficulty getting from point A to point B. Instead, it's about being creative and finding ways to uncover secrets. Several times I felt stumped, but the solution was to experiment: make Yoshi eat new things, toss a boomerang at a strange plant, and watch what unfolds.
My only real complaint is the storyline featuring Bowser Jr. and Kamek, which feels like a cheap attempt at synergy with the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book doesn't need that. Like the original Yoshi's Island on the SNES, it takes the traditional Super Mario formula as its starting point but reimagines it into something completely different. Even in a genre that has been around for decades, Nintendo somehow keeps finding ways to surprise.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book launches on the Switch 2 on May 21st.
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