Yoshi And The Mysterious Book: The Kotaku Review - Kotaku

The game sends an invincible Yoshi into a magical creature encyclopedia instead of using traditional platforming systems like taking damage or dying. It presents levels organized around individual creatures, where Yoshi learns by experimenting with the creature and the environment. Players start with simple actions such as eating, egg attacks, ground-pounding, picking up, carrying, and throwing, then expand into using creature-specific powers in creative ways once the creature’s behavior is understood. Creatures can be named by the player, including familiar Yoshi enemies, adding humor. While many levels are enjoyable and the picture-book style stands out, the experience leaves a central emptiness that prevents full engagement.

"This is developer Good Feel's third go at trying to establish a new identity for Yoshi, the somewhat sidelined Nintendo platforming mascot who's been adrift amid a sea of, like, five other Nintendo platforming mascots. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book eschews the traditional platforming scaffolding altogether, getting rid of such things as "taking damage" or "dying," and sends an invincible Yoshi into a giant, magical, creature encyclopedia to...read it, I guess, and tell him (the book) what he (the book) says about all the little dudes listed inside."

"This takes the form of a series of levels, one per creature, in which Yoshi must learn all he can about the being in question by messing around with it and the environment to see how it reacts. In most levels, this consists of a fairly simple set of initial actions: try to eat it, hit it with an egg, ground-pound it, try to pick it up, carry it around, throw it, etc. Then, once you've established roughly what a creature is and how it works, you can start bouncing around the level and trying to use its powers in interesting ways."

"But while I love its picture-book aesthetic and a lot of its levels were a good time, there's a hollowness at the center of this egg that I just can't get past."

Read at Kotaku