I am not surprised that Nintendo's new Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is charming. Nintendo's had that aesthetic down for a long time. But I was surprised to experience the new ways that the company enacted that charm.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a platformer, but with the essence of a science experiment. You've got to jump, flutter kick, and bop enemies to get through the levels. But you also have to ask, What happens if I try this? Platforming is more an element of the playground Nintendo's set up for its players to theorize and test how all sorts of creatures and items work together—or against each other—in novel ways.
Nintendo sets up this premise by introducing a talking book with a monocle. It finds its way to Yoshi's island as Kamek and Bowser Jr. run amok inside. Mr. E—the mysterious book—has Yoshi hop into its pages to see what's going on, explore habitats, and, crucially, make discoveries about the worlds etched on its pages. It is a game, and there are goals: You need to make discoveries and collect items to progress from page to page, but the discoveries aren't exactly listed out for you to try. You've just got to start messing around. Yoshi, known for eating things, obviously must taste each creature; Mr. E will note everything's flavor on his pages. Loopdecoop, the hula hooping chickens, are a little chewy yet still refreshing, while the blue Tumballs (essentially pill bugs) are much too hard to chew.
Each of the levels in Yoshi and the Mysterious Book are set up, mostly, around a new creature— so in the Swirm level, where you play with snails that expand basically into diving boards in all directions, you'll be experimenting with that mechanic. But the levels do somewhat build on each other in that creatures cross over from page to page. What happens when you throw a little flower guy at the Swirm? It boings, of course. Some of these discoveries play a role in how you reach the end of the level, but often it's just for fun.
There are 12 levels in total, and six of them are technically the "main" game, and four more come after that. The final two levels are much different, but still have the ethos of the rest of the game; the first of the two last levels drops the platformer part almost entirely and is centered just on discoveries. In the first of these, Yoshi measures the size of different creatures. Another one has him track how fast they can move. The second of the final two levels are challenge levels: These are the only bits that lean heavily on skill. Protect the apple from the Little Mousers who want to eat it, or complete this horrible, awful, bouncing level. (More on that later.)
One of the best levels in all of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is one where you get access to every creature. That's because there's one animal, the Bewilder Bird, which can transform into anything else you've encountered and studied already. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book sets you free into this level to put what you've learned to the test. It's delightful, and the sheer variety of the creatures means there are plenty of different ways to complete a task. If you need to reach something up high, you can get on the back of a Goonie (round seagull) or blast through the air on a Hauger (hog that's a drill). That Hauger, though, is also good for digging through soft grounds, like sand or dirt—but there's other options if you prefer.
The majority of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book makes great use of the science experiment idea, but some levels are worse than others, largely because of the weaker creatures. The Springhopper, for instance, which is the creature used in the last challenge level, nearly broke me. Its gimmick is so simple: It bounces like a pogo stick, and the angle you're aiming it at determines where it goes. But the physics were unwieldy. I understand that it's a challenge level, and it's meant to be hard. But it's so much harder than the rest of the game that it feels jarring, just totally miserable. It's a real bummer that this is how the game ends! (Normally, I would simply stop playing a level like this. But I also played Yoshi and the Mysterious Book to write guides, and I could not stop. Brutal!)
The places where Yoshi and the Mysterious Book shines the brightest are where it feels most like a science experiment. There are pieces of the game in which I thought to myself, certainly this will not work. Most of the time, it didn't. But some of the time, it did. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is so open to surprise, something I don't feel often when playing video games these days.
