Thirty years after his first solo adventure, Yoshi remains a beloved character for younger players. Nintendo, rarely missing a beat, is capitalizing on the renewed affection for the dinosaur sparked by the Super Mario Galaxy film with a new game: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. This round, adorable creature with his glass-bead eyes will open a new chapter in his story on May 21, 2026, exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2. It promises to be one of the most charming games on the console.

Unlike Mario, who historically embodies urgency and momentum, Yoshi has always been the character of happy, carefree slowness. He represents lazy Sundays spent idling, preferring wonder to combat. Nintendo calls on him to accompany the launch of a new console. The series has never sought adrenaline but artistic originality. From yarn in Yoshi's Woolly World (2015) to cardboard in Yoshi's Crafted World (2019), Yoshi's adventures experiment with art styles like creative workshops. With Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, the series fully embraces its childlike innocence.

Yoshi in Wonderland

Nintendo has put away safety scissors and taken out its finest pencils and brushes. Gone is the tender crafting of summer camp; instead, we are given a true illustrated and interactive children's tale, reminiscent of the great hours of children's illustration—like a moving Père Castor album where characters decide to frolic between the pages. As always, Nintendo knows how to charm at first glance. Outlined contours in the distance, watercolor textures on Yoshi and creatures, warm flat colors in backgrounds like a child's herbarium, and deliberately choppy animations that recall traditional cartoons. Everything gives the impression that the characters have stepped out of a children's picture book, instantly transporting us back to childhood. This art direction, already charming in trailers and truly enchanting in gameplay, combines with the animations and small absurd, charming details that Nintendo has a knack for, consistently drawing a tender smile from us.

Because nothing is left to chance, this unique aesthetic naturally marries the heart of the game. In this new adventure, Yoshi travels inside a large children's book after meeting Mysterius, a talking book that falls from the sky. Mysterius wants to name, study, and discover everything. A living encyclopedia waiting to be filled, the book leads the dinosaur through its chapters to study every creature and mystery hidden in its illustrations. Nintendo's mascot becomes a naturalist, swallowing the world to describe, study, and record it. It's more about conducting experiments, discerning each creature's particularities and their relationship with the environment, rather than jumping on everything that moves.

Activities include collecting flowers, throwing eggs, performing simple actions like gliding, swallowing everything in sight, jumping, diving, or even carrying a creature on one's back. Nintendo always starts from the simplest premise to make the experience accessible to the youngest, but also to create a true experimental playground that renews itself with just a handful of elements. Their ingenuity never fails to surprise us.

The King of Encyclopedists

In Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, this takes the form of a ballet of interactions between fauna, flora, and everything on the field. Each creature has its own little specificities, each page to be filled. A smiling flower near fauna makes it bloom. A frog spits soap bubbles, and Yoshi floats a few meters. A singing bird becomes a trampoline; a sleepy boar becomes a real driller that breaks everything in its path. Then comes the time for experimentation. Take a flower, throw it in the mud, make a new discovery. Give an apple or a pepper to the fauna and their behavior changes, as do their abilities. Make dandelions sprout on the rock blocking the path, and finally break it. You try and make discoveries, recorded within the level with a nice pencil stroke that marks the game. In just over two hours and a few worlds, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book multiplied situations and gameplay sequences, avoiding repeating the same trick too many times. It systematically renewed itself to better amaze us and already promises to be a concentrated showcase of creativity where each chapter holds its own mechanics, secrets sewn in the margins, to be discovered by experimenting with each relatively short level.

In the great tradition of the series' platformers, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is tailored for the youngest but doesn't forget the older children who won't want to close the book without leaving a single square unfilled. To progress, situations are simplistic, easy to understand at first glance, or at second if you've had a long day at work. But to become the most learned encyclopedist, you'll need to think a bit more. One sequence, for example, required jumping on the famous singing birds in a specific order so they would play the tune of Happy Birthday. Only a few hints were discreetly placed in the environment, leaving us to read between the lines and act accordingly. A level that could normally be completed in five minutes can become a real creative puzzle, and on this point Nintendo never disappoints, not even during the single boss fight available in this preview, whose simplicity is masked by interactivity and cleverness.

We Wait for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book like Children

With Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Nintendo's hand doesn't tremble, and its pencil stroke is sharp, precise, and refined. We almost envy the youngest who will cut their teeth on such a beautiful, creative, and clever game. For older players, it's the kind of gentle treat that instantly awakens our inner child. Of course, we will have to see if the studio manages to keep things fresh over the long haul, world after world, page after page. But it already has everything it needs to be a book you want to devour in one sitting and then rush to open the next morning to discover what's next or what you might have missed. The game's structure encourages replayability, as many secrets are hidden in plain sight, prompting exploration and experimentation. The environments are lush and interactive, with hidden areas accessible only by using specific creature abilities at the right moment. The sound design complements the visual style, with a gentle, whimsical score that adapts to the action. Voice acting is kept minimal, relying on cute sounds and music to convey emotion. As a launch title for Switch 2, it showcases the console's potential for beautiful, art-driven games. It also continues Nintendo's tradition of making games that appeal to all ages, with simple controls but deep mechanics for those who seek them. The encyclopedia aspect adds a collectible element that completionists will love, tracking every creature and plant discovered. With its release still a few weeks away, anticipation is high, and based on our time with it, it will not disappoint.

Source: gameblog News