I played ‘Yoshi and the Mysterious Book’ and felt like a kid again

After seeing Super Mario Galaxy movie (stinky! not good!), I could really use a more positive medium to associate with Yoshi right now. It is therefore a fortuitous moment that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is just around the corner.

Nintendo’s next Switch 2 exclusive (and, at this point, one of the only Switch 2 games announced with a release date) comes out on May 21, and I was able to play it for a few hours at a preview event in New York. While I’m still not entirely sure that this eminently light-hearted, kid-friendly adventure is what I’ve come to expect from a Yoshi game, it offers a truly neat take on creative sandbox experimentation and an absolutely stunning visual style.

To put it simply, if you like throwing objects at other things just to see what will happen – or if you need a new game that your young children can play without getting frustrated – then Yoshi and the Mysterious Book should be on your radar.

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Yoshi and the Mysterious Book I just want you to explore, man

I admit that before getting my hands on it, I had a little trouble grasping the basic concept of Yoshi’s first star adventure since 2019.

Mysterious book at the same time, it feels like there’s a lot going on when you jump into one of its many vibrant literary worlds. But on a macro level, it’s really a game about just doing things until you don’t feel like doing things anymore, without too much time pressure (or any other type of pressure) to stress the player out.

Its premise finds a group of colorful Yoshi dinosaurs hanging out with a mysterious book called ME It’s a cool, leather-bound encyclopedia with a mustache, but it also seems to have misplaced the contents of its pages, and it’s up to Yoshi to jump inside the book and find as much information as possible about the fantastical creatures it documents.

Each chapter is a beautifully illustrated tableau of various creatures hanging out in their natural habitats, and by zooming in on a creature you will enter a level based around it.

Once you’re in a level, the idea is simply to discover as many weird little systemic interactions between the creatures and their environments as possible, mainly by trying to eat them (as Yoshi is wont to do) or hiding them on Yoshi’s saddle and throwing them at different animals or objects. Discovering different types of interactions rewards the player with stars, which can be used to unlock more levels.

Mr. E is a cool guy.
Credit: Nintendo

For example, the first level I played involved multi-colored flowers. When I tried to eat one, I got a star for discovering they could be turned into eggs. When I carried one on my back and walked past a patch of grass, a field of flowers the same color as the one on my back sprouted, giving me another star. The rest of the level consisted mainly of growing flowers in specific locations to solve puzzles, and within a few minutes I had collected a bunch of stars and was able to leave whenever I wanted.

Mysterious bookThe flow of seems a bit basic and honestly boring when written like that, but several things prevent it from feeling that way in practice.

For starters, just moving Yoshi around these side-scrolling 2D sandboxes is a delight thanks to sharp platforming and egg-throwing mechanics that have been working for 30 years. Beyond that, Mysterious book has a pretty stunning art style that evokes stop-motion animation in a 2D setting.

Some animations intentionally have a lower frame rate to create this effect, and between that and the simply exceptional character and environmental art displayed, Mysterious book has one of the coolest looks in any Yoshi game.

You really have to see this in motion to understand how pretty it is.
Credit: Nintendo

It also helps if the levels become progressively more involved as you go. One of my favorites involved a certain type of bug that, for lack of a better term, captured various objects in the environment to threaten Yoshi. The level happened to be full of watermelons, which the insect could inhabit to turn into a seed-spitting flying machine gun, but luckily Yoshi could Also seeds on rapid fire by eating one.

After a while, the main objective of the level was to quickly eat watermelons before the bugs could get to them, and if they succeeded, the game would briefly turn into a fun little side-scrolling shootout between Yoshi and a flying watermelon.

Of course, there were also plenty of other wacky things happening in the environment, so if I wanted, I could ignore the watermelon bugs and just poke and prod other things to collect discovery stars.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a very safe space

I really like the idea of ​​small 2D sandboxes where everything can interact with everything else, and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book seems to be built entirely around this idea. My one and only potential The reason I hang up after the demo I played is because, as a demo attendant told me, Yoshi can’t take damage or die in this game. When the watermelon bugs spit seeds at Yoshi, the worst thing that can happen is the player gets a little annoyed.

This looks like a good time! I wish I had done that instead of typing words on a computer.
Credit: Nintendo

I’m not dense enough to misunderstand the target audience of Mysterious book — young players.

I think kids will enjoy this Yoshi title even more than I did.

This next title is openly aimed at children, unlike all Nintendo games, and that’s overall a good thing. The simple gameplay is ideal for young button users who just want to run around and try things.

I think it’s really great that Nintendo produces high quality software that can be enjoyed by gamers young and old, especially in a world where seemingly every other game marketed towards children is some sort of Roblox nightmare. That said, by removing any feeling of risk Mysterious book some parts of the demo seem a bit aimless and not very exciting.

However, I’m open to the possibility that over the course of the full game I might settle into Yoshi and the Mysterious BookIt’s a distinctly and, at times, delightfully nonchalant pace. We will find out together next month.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on May 21. It’s available for pre-order now on Nintendo and Amazon for $69.99.