Since his Super Nintendo debut, Yoshi has made a name for himself as much more than Mario's tongue-flinging steed. His latest outing, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book ($59.99 digital, $69.99 physical) for the Nintendo Switch 2, is an engaging and varied romp that takes the typical Yoshi's Island-style 2D platforming and eschews traditional obstacle courses in favor of much smaller, less linear habitats for him to explore. This is a full-on safari, with dozens of creatures to observe, experiment with, and, of course, eat. It's a big departure from Yoshi's previous adventures, but the Mysterious Book is plenty of fun in its own right. 

Story: A Mysterious Safari Adventure

Yoshi's adventure this time around is eponymously mysterious at first glance. A talking book, Mr. E (for Encyclopedia), is accidentally launched from Bowser's castle by Bowser Jr. and lands on Yoshi's island. His pages have been scrubbed almost entirely blank, so he asks Yoshi to add the missing information by jumping into the worlds he contains and researching the wildlife there. Yoshi and all his kin, being amiable sorts, agree to help.

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And so, Yoshi jumps into Mr. E to observe various creatures, eat fruit, collect flowers, throw eggs, and solve puzzles. Bowser Jr. and Kamek the Magikoopa are also in the book searching for something, but they mostly wind up getting caught up in their own mischief and don't present much of a threat. In fact, because they're wandering through Mr. E's pages, Bowser Jr. and Kamek don't menace Yoshi's island in any way. 

It's a far cry from Yoshi's other titles, where he must escort a baby to safety (Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Island DS, New Yoshi's Island) or find a set of powerful objects before the bad guys can (Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Woolly World, Yoshi's Crafted World). What matters is being helpful to this weird book.

Gameplay: Navigating Pages and Pages of Strange Critters

The entire game takes place within Mr. E's pages, arranged into chapters that depict specific environments, such as woods, water, and mountains. Each chapter is organized into individual sections that serve as the game's stages, with each stage focusing on a specific creature Mr. E wants information about. Yoshi leaps into the stages and interacts with the creatures and their environments, while Mr. E takes notes on these interactions and awards stars that unlock additional chapters.

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Each creature is unnamed at first, so you can either go with Mr. E's suggestion (the canon name) or give them whatever wacky name you come up with. This can get very funny, depending on your maturity level and sense of humor.

The levels are surprisingly short, designed more as a curated sandbox than an obstacle course. In fact, there isn't a goal location to reach. Instead, each stage has a specific main objective. This objective isn't shown when you enter the level, but you'll find it via exploration and puzzle-solving. It also serves as the culmination of the creature investigation. For example, one level focuses on you studying a strange bird with a very sharp beak that gets lodged into wood stumps when it falls off branches. It just so happens that a few wooden bullseyes are conveniently located around the stage. It's not hard to figure out what to do from there.

Tight Platforming Controls and New Puzzle-Solving Goals

Controlling Yoshi through these 2D stages feels much like previous Yoshi platformers. The dino can run, jump, flutter in the air, ground pound, swallow enemies, and throw eggs, all standard parts of his toolkit. However, there's one major addition: He can now whip his tail forward to flip creatures and objects onto his back and carry them. This is vital for researching creatures and solving puzzles because it lets him interact with the creatures and the environment much more directly. For example, carrying a lizard on Yoshi's back and running by walking flowers lets you capture the plants from the bubbles it blows. If the lizard eats an apple, the bubbles get bigger, and if the lizard gets muddy, the bubbles sink instead of floating.

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Oddly, for a Yoshi game, laying and throwing eggs is one of the least interesting things to do. If a creature is small enough to swallow and not spiny or sticky or otherwise resists Yoshi's tongue, it will be turned into a green egg that's the series standard. Throwing them at different objects affects the environment and helps you solve puzzles, but the eggs are now a relatively minor mechanic.

Throughout Yoshi's safari, there's one thing the dino won't do: get hurt. Yoshi isn't damaged by sharp spines or beaks; he simply remains stunned for a moment. Even falling into a pit just makes him pop up back on the ledge he jumped from, no worse for wear. There's no health to monitor or lives to count, and very rarely any kind of fail state.

In the very rare instances of direct danger, like encountering a particularly nasty beast with huge scythe claws, getting hit only leads to the screen fading out and Yoshi reappearing at the start of the stage. You'll probably more often manually restart stages yourself if you miss the opportunity to observe a particular behavior or can't solve a specific puzzle because a creature was destroyed or scared away.

(Credit: Nintendo/PCMag)

The idea of an invincible Yoshi running around a storybook filled with non-linear stages might strike terror into longtime fans who recall those exact same points applying to Yoshi’s Story on the Nintendo 64. Unlike Mario's revolutionary outing on the N64 with Mario 64, Yoshi's turn on that system was underwhelming at best, with unfocused and bland platforming. That isn't the case with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. Every creature Yoshi encounters presents new, rewarding gameplay concepts and tools for exploration and experimentation.

Small Stages With Plenty to Do

For all the mechanical variety, my biggest complaint about Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is the size of the stages. They're almost all tiny, sometimes spanning only a half dozen screen widths. The spaces are usually layered, with areas to explore above treetops and underground, but it can still feel claustrophobic, even with that verticality.

Though the stages are small, there are many of them, with six different ones in each of Mr. E's 10 chapters. This gives Yoshi and the Mysterious Book a satisfyingly long length, taking about as long to play through Super Mario Bros. Wonder (around eight hours). There's a good amount of postgame content, so unearthing everything takes a fair bit longer. You access interesting items after the credits roll (no spoilers!) that will inspire you to jump back into stages you already beat.

A Colorful, Mostly Conventional Presentation

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book looks good, in the way that all Nintendo games involving Mario and his friends do. All of the stage elements, creatures, and Yoshi himself are rendered in a 3D visual style similar to that of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. However, there are occasional visual flourishes, like the beginning and end of each stage resembling sketches, and the backgrounds featuring light pencil lines and watercolor effects, hinting that the game takes place in a storybook. This might actually be the first Yoshi platformer to not fully embrace a unique arts-and-crafts aesthetic in quite some time, considering how much Yoshi's Crafted World and Yoshi's Woolly World leaned fully into their papercraft and yarn conceits, respectively. 

Even without a big, consistent gimmick, the graphics are bright, colorful, and friendly. The action is smooth, with the Switch 2 not hiccupping when juggling dozens of small critters. This isn't surprising, since nothing seems particularly graphically taxing. In fact, I question whether this game needs to be a Switch 2 exclusive, since it takes fewer big swings with graphical change-ups and effects than Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which has Switch and Switch 2 versions.