{"id":1943433,"date":"2026-05-19T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1943433"},"modified":"2026-05-19T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:00:00","slug":"yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book-review-the-loveliest-most-playful-series-of-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1943433","title":{"rendered":"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book review &#8211; the loveliest, most playful series of surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"reviews\" data-article-group=\"review\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\" data-review-value=\"4\" data-review-style=\"stars_whole\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/reviews\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Reviews<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Yoshi and the Mysterious Book<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Yoshi and the Mysterious Book review &#8211; the loveliest, most playful series of surprises<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">There&#8217;s no place like tome.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-1_gtBWjMb.jpg?width=690&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing six Yoshis of different colours peering down at you from above, blue sky visible between them\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-1_gtBWjMb.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"690\" height=\"388\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Nintendo \/ Eurogamer<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Christian Donlan avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/christian-donlan.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Christian Donlan avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"christian-donlan.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"reviews\"><br \/>\n                    Review<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/christian-donlan\">Christian Donlan<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Contributing Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-05-19T13:00:00+00:00\">May 19, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book-review?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          15 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"77aea594-bbe3-4132-8c09-e72a66e78c66\" data-name=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\" title=\"Follow Yoshi and the Mysterious Book\"><br \/>\n  Follow Yoshi and the Mysterious Book<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<div role=\"img\" class=\"review_rating\" data-style=\"stars\" data-variant=\"whole\" data-size=\"large\" data-value=\"4\" data-max=\"false\" aria-label=\"Rating: 4 stars out of 5\">\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"star disabled\"><\/span>\n  <\/div>\n<section class=\"synopsis\">\n<div>An intriguing response to one of Nintendo&#8217;s greatest ever games.<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>Yoshi and the Mysterious Book might be the loveliest surprise of the year so far. It certainly is for me. Going in, I don&#8217;t think I was expecting too much. There&#8217;s the slightly forgettable title, for one thing, and then I&#8217;d picked up the idea that, since this wasn&#8217;t a Zelda or a mainline Mario, I could probably give it a miss.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"aside right\">\n<h2>Yoshi and the Mysterious Book review<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Publisher:<\/strong> Nintendo<\/li>\n<li><strong>Developer:<\/strong> Nintendo<\/li>\n<li><strong>Platform:<\/strong> Played on Switch 2<\/li>\n<li><strong>Availability:<\/strong> Out 21st May on <a href=\"https:\/\/store.nintendo.co.uk\/en\/yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book\">Switch 2<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Gosh. Wrong. The latest Yoshi game is definitely aimed at younger players &#8211; there&#8217;s no real peril and you can&#8217;t die, and most difficulty spikes come from a very occasional inscrutability in terms of what you should be doing next &#8211; but I think there&#8217;s a surprising amount here for players of all ages. There&#8217;s that idea again &#8211; surprise, surprising. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a bit of a treat.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit I was confused at first. Yoshi&#8217;s latest adventure takes visual cues from Yoshi&#8217;s Island, that SNES masterpiece that created its world out of folded cardboard and pastels. The new game dials back the papercraft a little in favour of chunky 3D assets, but the edges of each level still dither away into sketching, and Yoshi&#8217;s animation has been given a frame-dropped feel that makes it feel, on occasion, like the output of a flickbook.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s a trailer for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book to show it in motion.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=shPEsAIMvL8\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It was those sketched level edges that initially confused me. Yoshi&#8217;s Island was a mind-meltingly inventive platformer, but it was also an A to B affair for most of the time. You start at the left of a level and head for the right. But when I got to what I took to be the end of a level in Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, something interesting happened: that is, nothing at all. I couldn&#8217;t march off the screen and onto the next challenge. I was still in the level itself. The game clearly had a different idea of how a level should end.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is because of the overall conceit. In this game, Yoshi&#8217;s tasked with filling in the blank pages of an anthropomorphic encyclopedia. Each double-page spread of the book (when I worked mostly in print, I never quite lost the thrill of referring to these as DPSs) is a new area, and each level comes from one of the creatures in these areas. So you drop into Remote Isle, say, and you decide to learn as much as you can about the goonie birds, those lozenge-shaped gulls from &#8211; I think? &#8211; Yoshi&#8217;s Island itself.<\/p>\n<p>Learning about a creature isn&#8217;t a question of moving from left to right, although this is still a 2D platformer and there is a lot of platforming. I&#8217;d say the main difference is that rather than marching forward all the time, you&#8217;re trying to explore the potential of everything you find in the world. So what happens if Yoshi tries to eat the goonie bird? What if Yoshi throws an egg at it? What happens if it bounces into the fire? Where might it nest?<\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"image_wrapper\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" data-autosize=\"bounds_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"loading spinner large\"><\/span><\/p>\n<nav class=\"pagination--hoverable\">\n<div class=\"previous\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Previous\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-left.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"next\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Next\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-right.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<div class=\"details_overlay\">\n<div class=\"counter\">\n<span class=\"current\">1<\/span> <span class=\"of\">of<\/span> <span class=\"max\">4<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"details\">\n<div class=\"button-wrapper\">\n<button aria-label=\"Toggle information\" class=\"toggle button outline\"><\/button><br \/>\n<button aria-label=\"Close fullscreen gallery\" class=\"close button\"><\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"thumbnails-wrapper overflow-shadow-x\">\n<div class=\"thumbnails\">\n<button class=\"thumbnail active\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-9.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal over crates against a pink and purple rocky background\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-9.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal over crates against a pink and purple rocky background\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-9.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-10.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal on grass-topped cliffs\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-10.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal on grass-topped cliffs\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-10.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-2_RD9KG2p.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal through the air in frnt of a strange looking rock formation in the clouds\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-2_RD9KG2p.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal through the air in frnt of a strange looking rock formation in the clouds\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-2_RD9KG2p.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fullscreen_info\">\n<div class=\"caption\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nCaption          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nAttribution          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-gallery-caption\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"advert_container\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A couple of things here. Firstly, if you&#8217;ve played any of the Yoshi platformers over the years, the move-set is basically the same. Yoshi can grab things with his tongue and swallow them to turn them into eggs. Eggs can then be chucked about for fun and profit. The glorious, strained flutter jump is still intact, as is the ground pound, and Yoshi can hop an item onto his back, where he once carried babies Mario and Luigi, to then use it when the time is right. Maybe it&#8217;s a flower that will allow Yoshi to sprout flowers when he walks. Maybe it&#8217;s an apple someone else wants to eat. Maybe it&#8217;s something that will bash down barriers.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Secondly, you need to see all this stuff at your disposal as parts of a chemistry set. It&#8217;s a real &#8220;try this with that&#8221; game. Sometimes, you&#8217;re simply trying to understand the properties of the creature you&#8217;re investigating. Sometimes you&#8217;re trying to reach it &#8211; cue barriers and platforming. Sometimes you&#8217;re trying to find out how it interacts with the world. Sometimes you&#8217;re tracking down its family. From these simple ideas, levels erupt as a series of discoveries.<\/p>\n<p>Hit each level&#8217;s big discovery &#8211; one that gives you a clear understanding of the creature &#8211; and you&#8217;re back to the DPS again and you can either track down a new creature or mop up any discoveries about the last one that you missed. This is brilliant because as you learn more about one creature, it often opens up opportunities with other creatures. The whole ecosystem slots together in enriching ways.<\/p>\n<figure data-count=\"2\" role=\"group\">\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing a book open with a magnifying glass on some water on the left page\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-11.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing a book open with a magnifying glass on some water on the left page\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-11.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing the book open to a view of a level, with the highlighted area in bright colours\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-3_eseGoJf.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing the book open to a view of a level, with the highlighted area in bright colours\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-3_eseGoJf.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<\/figure><figcaption><span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Nintendo \/ Eurogamer<\/cite><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to spoil too much of this stuff, because Yoshi and the Mysterious Book really is a chain of lovely revelations. But I particularly loved a kind of creature that stuck to things and changed their behaviours, and I loved another creature that was part chewing gum and part trampoline. The game has dozens of these things. It&#8217;s a real menagerie. All this with bosses and puzzles and endless lovely little jokes and asides. Levels, meanwhile, encompass everything from forests filled with hollow trees to beaches with pirate ships resting in nearby caves. It&#8217;s a game filled with playgrounds.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"3\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is wonderful if you&#8217;re a kid, I reckon. But if you&#8217;re an adult, particularly one who was old enough to encounter Yoshi&#8217;s Island back in the day, it&#8217;s something else. Physics has always been the secret ingredient in Mario games, but Yoshi&#8217;s Island really expanded on all that stuff, exploring the kind of material physics of its world that you&#8217;d later see in games like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/angry-birds\">Angry Birds<\/a>. With the SNES hardware, Yoshi&#8217;s world was one in which enemies could be squashed or squeezed or bent out of shape. It wasn&#8217;t just a Newtonian world anymore, but one in thrall to Young&#8217;s Modulus. (Someone explained this to me once, but I won&#8217;t mangle it here. It is very Googleable, however.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"image_wrapper\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" data-autosize=\"bounds_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"loading spinner large\"><\/span><\/p>\n<nav class=\"pagination--hoverable\">\n<div class=\"previous\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Previous\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-left.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"next\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Next\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-right.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<div class=\"details_overlay\">\n<div class=\"counter\">\n<span class=\"current\">1<\/span> <span class=\"of\">of<\/span> <span class=\"max\">4<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"details\">\n<div class=\"button-wrapper\">\n<button aria-label=\"Toggle information\" class=\"toggle button outline\"><\/button><br \/>\n<button aria-label=\"Close fullscreen gallery\" class=\"close button\"><\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"thumbnails-wrapper overflow-shadow-x\">\n<div class=\"thumbnails\">\n<button class=\"thumbnail active\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-6.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal down a lush, warm green hill\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-6.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal down a lush, warm green hill\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-6.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-5_x94zHUT.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal across flotsam in the water\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-5_x94zHUT.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal across flotsam in the water\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-5_x94zHUT.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-7.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt='Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing brigth celebratory rainbows and sparkles with the text: \"You caught them all! Brilliant!\"' height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-7.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt='Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing brigth celebratory rainbows and sparkles with the text: \"You caught them all! Brilliant!\"' data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-7.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fullscreen_info\">\n<div class=\"caption\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nCaption          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nAttribution          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-gallery-caption\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"advert_container\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"aside right\">\n<h2>Yoshi and the Mysterious Book accessibility options<\/h2>\n<p>Players can choose between three control schemes and &#8220;hasty&#8221; and &#8220;patient&#8221; egg-tossing. Rumble can be adjusted.\n<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>So, weirdly, when I think back to Yoshi&#8217;s Island, I don&#8217;t think of A to B levels so much as I think of something that works a lot like Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. Both are games of experimentation, of interacting with the environment and discovering everything that it can do. A watermelon can be a gatling gun. A dandelion seed can be a psychedelic drug. That yellow stuff that cakes surfaces can be dug through, but you can also get stuck in it. Wow!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m tempted to say that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn&#8217;t so much a sequel, then, as it is a game inspired by what it felt like to play Yoshi&#8217;s Island. It&#8217;s a game about the imagination and strange rigour that Nintendo always brings to its platformers. It&#8217;s a surprise. It&#8217;s a delight.<\/p>\n<p><em>A copy of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book was provided for this review by Nintendo.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div role=\"img\" class=\"review_rating\" data-style=\"stars\" data-variant=\"whole\" data-size=\"large\" data-value=\"4\" data-max=\"false\" aria-label=\"Rating: 4 stars out of 5\">\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"star disabled\"><\/span>\n  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<div role=\"img\" class=\"review_rating\" data-style=\"stars\" data-variant=\"whole\" data-size=\"large\" data-value=\"4\" data-max=\"false\" aria-label=\"Rating: 4 stars out of 5\">\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"star disabled\"><\/span>\n  <\/div>\n<section class=\"synopsis\">\n<div>An intriguing response to one of Nintendo&#8217;s greatest ever games.<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>Yoshi and the Mysterious Book might be the loveliest surprise of the year so far. It certainly is for me. Going in, I don&#8217;t think I was expecting too much. There&#8217;s the slightly forgettable title, for one thing, and then I&#8217;d picked up the idea that, since this wasn&#8217;t a Zelda or a mainline Mario, I could probably give it a miss.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"aside right\">\n<h2>Yoshi and the Mysterious Book review<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Publisher:<\/strong> Nintendo<\/li>\n<li><strong>Developer:<\/strong> Nintendo<\/li>\n<li><strong>Platform:<\/strong> Played on Switch 2<\/li>\n<li><strong>Availability:<\/strong> Out 21st May on <a href=\"https:\/\/store.nintendo.co.uk\/en\/yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book\">Switch 2<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Gosh. Wrong. The latest Yoshi game is definitely aimed at younger players &#8211; there&#8217;s no real peril and you can&#8217;t die, and most difficulty spikes come from a very occasional inscrutability in terms of what you should be doing next &#8211; but I think there&#8217;s a surprising amount here for players of all ages. There&#8217;s that idea again &#8211; surprise, surprising. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a bit of a treat.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit I was confused at first. Yoshi&#8217;s latest adventure takes visual cues from Yoshi&#8217;s Island, that SNES masterpiece that created its world out of folded cardboard and pastels. The new game dials back the papercraft a little in favour of chunky 3D assets, but the edges of each level still dither away into sketching, and Yoshi&#8217;s animation has been given a frame-dropped feel that makes it feel, on occasion, like the output of a flickbook.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s a trailer for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book to show it in motion.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=shPEsAIMvL8\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It was those sketched level edges that initially confused me. Yoshi&#8217;s Island was a mind-meltingly inventive platformer, but it was also an A to B affair for most of the time. You start at the left of a level and head for the right. But when I got to what I took to be the end of a level in Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, something interesting happened: that is, nothing at all. I couldn&#8217;t march off the screen and onto the next challenge. I was still in the level itself. The game clearly had a different idea of how a level should end.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is because of the overall conceit. In this game, Yoshi&#8217;s tasked with filling in the blank pages of an anthropomorphic encyclopedia. Each double-page spread of the book (when I worked mostly in print, I never quite lost the thrill of referring to these as DPSs) is a new area, and each level comes from one of the creatures in these areas. So you drop into Remote Isle, say, and you decide to learn as much as you can about the goonie birds, those lozenge-shaped gulls from &#8211; I think? &#8211; Yoshi&#8217;s Island itself.<\/p>\n<p>Learning about a creature isn&#8217;t a question of moving from left to right, although this is still a 2D platformer and there is a lot of platforming. I&#8217;d say the main difference is that rather than marching forward all the time, you&#8217;re trying to explore the potential of everything you find in the world. So what happens if Yoshi tries to eat the goonie bird? What if Yoshi throws an egg at it? What happens if it bounces into the fire? Where might it nest?<\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"image_wrapper\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" data-autosize=\"bounds_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"loading spinner large\"><\/span><\/p>\n<nav class=\"pagination--hoverable\">\n<div class=\"previous\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Previous\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-left.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"next\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Next\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-right.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<div class=\"details_overlay\">\n<div class=\"counter\">\n<span class=\"current\">1<\/span> <span class=\"of\">of<\/span> <span class=\"max\">4<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"details\">\n<div class=\"button-wrapper\">\n<button aria-label=\"Toggle information\" class=\"toggle button outline\"><\/button><br \/>\n<button aria-label=\"Close fullscreen gallery\" class=\"close button\"><\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"thumbnails-wrapper overflow-shadow-x\">\n<div class=\"thumbnails\">\n<button class=\"thumbnail active\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing you popping bubble-like objects against a rocky backdrop\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-8.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-9.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal over crates against a pink and purple rocky background\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-9.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal over crates against a pink and purple rocky background\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-9.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-10.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal on grass-topped cliffs\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-10.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal on grass-topped cliffs\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-10.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-2_RD9KG2p.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal through the air in frnt of a strange looking rock formation in the clouds\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-2_RD9KG2p.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal through the air in frnt of a strange looking rock formation in the clouds\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-2_RD9KG2p.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fullscreen_info\">\n<div class=\"caption\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nCaption          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nAttribution          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-gallery-caption\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"advert_container\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A couple of things here. Firstly, if you&#8217;ve played any of the Yoshi platformers over the years, the move-set is basically the same. Yoshi can grab things with his tongue and swallow them to turn them into eggs. Eggs can then be chucked about for fun and profit. The glorious, strained flutter jump is still intact, as is the ground pound, and Yoshi can hop an item onto his back, where he once carried babies Mario and Luigi, to then use it when the time is right. Maybe it&#8217;s a flower that will allow Yoshi to sprout flowers when he walks. Maybe it&#8217;s an apple someone else wants to eat. Maybe it&#8217;s something that will bash down barriers.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Secondly, you need to see all this stuff at your disposal as parts of a chemistry set. It&#8217;s a real &#8220;try this with that&#8221; game. Sometimes, you&#8217;re simply trying to understand the properties of the creature you&#8217;re investigating. Sometimes you&#8217;re trying to reach it &#8211; cue barriers and platforming. Sometimes you&#8217;re trying to find out how it interacts with the world. Sometimes you&#8217;re tracking down its family. From these simple ideas, levels erupt as a series of discoveries.<\/p>\n<p>Hit each level&#8217;s big discovery &#8211; one that gives you a clear understanding of the creature &#8211; and you&#8217;re back to the DPS again and you can either track down a new creature or mop up any discoveries about the last one that you missed. This is brilliant because as you learn more about one creature, it often opens up opportunities with other creatures. The whole ecosystem slots together in enriching ways.<\/p>\n<figure data-count=\"2\" role=\"group\">\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing a book open with a magnifying glass on some water on the left page\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-11.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing a book open with a magnifying glass on some water on the left page\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-11.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing the book open to a view of a level, with the highlighted area in bright colours\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-3_eseGoJf.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing the book open to a view of a level, with the highlighted area in bright colours\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-3_eseGoJf.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<\/figure><figcaption><span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Nintendo \/ Eurogamer<\/cite><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to spoil too much of this stuff, because Yoshi and the Mysterious Book really is a chain of lovely revelations. But I particularly loved a kind of creature that stuck to things and changed their behaviours, and I loved another creature that was part chewing gum and part trampoline. The game has dozens of these things. It&#8217;s a real menagerie. All this with bosses and puzzles and endless lovely little jokes and asides. Levels, meanwhile, encompass everything from forests filled with hollow trees to beaches with pirate ships resting in nearby caves. It&#8217;s a game filled with playgrounds.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"3\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is wonderful if you&#8217;re a kid, I reckon. But if you&#8217;re an adult, particularly one who was old enough to encounter Yoshi&#8217;s Island back in the day, it&#8217;s something else. Physics has always been the secret ingredient in Mario games, but Yoshi&#8217;s Island really expanded on all that stuff, exploring the kind of material physics of its world that you&#8217;d later see in games like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/angry-birds\">Angry Birds<\/a>. With the SNES hardware, Yoshi&#8217;s world was one in which enemies could be squashed or squeezed or bent out of shape. It wasn&#8217;t just a Newtonian world anymore, but one in thrall to Young&#8217;s Modulus. (Someone explained this to me once, but I won&#8217;t mangle it here. It is very Googleable, however.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"image_wrapper\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" data-autosize=\"bounds_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"loading spinner large\"><\/span><\/p>\n<nav class=\"pagination--hoverable\">\n<div class=\"previous\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Previous\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-left.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"next\">\n<button class=\"button pagination-button\"><br \/>\n<span aria-label=\"Next\" class=\"icon\" role=\"img\" style='--icon-mask-image: url(\"\/static\/solid\/angle-right.svg\")'><\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<div class=\"details_overlay\">\n<div class=\"counter\">\n<span class=\"current\">1<\/span> <span class=\"of\">of<\/span> <span class=\"max\">4<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"details\">\n<div class=\"button-wrapper\">\n<button aria-label=\"Toggle information\" class=\"toggle button outline\"><\/button><br \/>\n<button aria-label=\"Close fullscreen gallery\" class=\"close button\"><\/button>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"thumbnails-wrapper overflow-shadow-x\">\n<div class=\"thumbnails\">\n<button class=\"thumbnail active\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing an orange Yoshi in front of a large green flower with a face on it\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-4_3lOdj0r.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-6.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal down a lush, warm green hill\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-6.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal down a lush, warm green hill\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-6.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-5_x94zHUT.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal across flotsam in the water\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-5_x94zHUT.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing traversal across flotsam in the water\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-5_x94zHUT.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<button class=\"thumbnail\" data-attribution=\"Nintendo \/ Eurogamer\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-7.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt='Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing brigth celebratory rainbows and sparkles with the text: \"You caught them all! Brilliant!\"' height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-7.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt='Yoshi and the Mysterious Book screenshot showing brigth celebratory rainbows and sparkles with the text: \"You caught them all! Brilliant!\"' data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"Yoshi-and-the-Mysterious-Book-7.jpg\" height=\"1080\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1920\"><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fullscreen_info\">\n<div class=\"caption\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nCaption          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\n<span class=\"label\"><br \/>\nAttribution          <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-gallery-caption\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"advert_container\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"aside right\">\n<h2>Yoshi and the Mysterious Book accessibility options<\/h2>\n<p>Players can choose between three control schemes and &#8220;hasty&#8221; and &#8220;patient&#8221; egg-tossing. Rumble can be adjusted.\n<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>So, weirdly, when I think back to Yoshi&#8217;s Island, I don&#8217;t think of A to B levels so much as I think of something that works a lot like Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. Both are games of experimentation, of interacting with the environment and discovering everything that it can do. A watermelon can be a gatling gun. A dandelion seed can be a psychedelic drug. That yellow stuff that cakes surfaces can be dug through, but you can also get stuck in it. Wow!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m tempted to say that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn&#8217;t so much a sequel, then, as it is a game inspired by what it felt like to play Yoshi&#8217;s Island. It&#8217;s a game about the imagination and strange rigour that Nintendo always brings to its platformers. It&#8217;s a surprise. It&#8217;s a delight.<\/p>\n<p><em>A copy of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book was provided for this review by Nintendo.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div role=\"img\" class=\"review_rating\" data-style=\"stars\" data-variant=\"whole\" data-size=\"large\" data-value=\"4\" data-max=\"false\" aria-label=\"Rating: 4 stars out of 5\">\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"star\"><\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"star disabled\"><\/span>\n  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home Reviews Yoshi and the Mysterious Book Yoshi and the Mysterious Book review &#8211; the loveliest, most playful series of surprises There&#8217;s no place like tome. Image credit: Nintendo \/ Eurogamer Review by Christian Donlan Contributing Editor Published on May 19, 2026 15 comments Follow Yoshi and the Mysterious Book An intriguing response to one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1943433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1943433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1943433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1943433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1943433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}