IT Home May 19 news: Nintendo's first-party game "Yoshi and the Mysterious Book" will be released on May 21. The game's media review scores have been released, and it received a score of 81 on Metacritic (based on 64 media outlets).

IGN gave this game a score of 6, stating that the game lacks creative depth and has insufficient motivation for replay:

"Yoshi and the Mysterious Book" is a typical "love-hate" Nintendo-style game. It is not a complete failure; on the contrary, it often shows stunning creativity and eye-catching ideas, but the problem is that these good ideas often just start to shine and are then hastily abandoned by the game itself. It is more like an observation manual filled with research reports on strange creatures than a truly evolving adventure.

This game is a puzzle-oriented platformer. Players control Yoshi as they study different creatures in various open-ended levels, discovering their characteristics through actions like "licking," "carrying," and "throwing." The game records these findings as "discoveries"—for example, a certain flower-like creature changes color after eating an apple, or a monster wielding a sickle cannot see the player when hiding in the grass. Beyond creature traits, the discovery system can also be triggered by hidden routes in the map, special items, or even the way a level is completed.

The game's biggest highlight is its endless stream of creatively designed creatures. These quirky little animals are not only cute in appearance but each comes with unique mechanics: there's a green creature that blows bubbles, a jellyfish that acts like a water jetpack, a bubblegum monster that splits wildly, and a boar that can be ridden for a dash. Even more absurdly, players can name these creatures themselves, giving the whole experience a very "children's picture book laboratory" vibe.

Moreover, the early level design is truly fresh. The game doesn't simply ask you to rush to the right; instead, it sets specific goals around each creature. For example, the bee level requires retrieving stolen flowers, while the fisherman level has players catch the biggest fish. The constant "discovery" prompts during exploration keep delivering rewards and feedback, making it easy to get hooked.

But the problem is that the creative depth of "Yoshi and the Incredible Picture Book (耀西与不可思议的图鉴)" is clearly insufficient. Many creature mechanics are just briefly shown and then abandoned, with no further exploration. Especially in the mid-to-late game, there is an excellent mechanic that could have supported the core gameplay of the entire work, but it only makes a brief appearance and is quickly discarded, which is quite regrettable.

Additionally, the physics system of some levels is not stable enough. Operations like spinning tops, surfing waves, and bouncing walls often fail due to strange hit detection, which is actually uncommon in Nintendo platformers.

An even more fatal problem is the lack of motivation to replay. Since the core fun of the game almost all comes from "first discovery," once the content on the map is basically unlocked, the levels themselves lack truly replayable parts. The developers clearly want players to repeatedly return to complete the discovery list, but the actual experience is like popping bubble wrap — it feels great the first time, but afterward it's just mechanical labor.

Overall, "Yoshi and the Incredible Picture Book (耀西与不可思议的图鉴)" is still a quite likable work. It features imaginative creature designs, a relaxed and cute atmosphere, and many small ideas that make you smile. But unfortunately, the game never truly develops these inspirations into a more complex and deeper gameplay system. In the end, it feels more like an inspired experimental showcase than a fully polished excellent platformer.

IT Home (IT之家) provides a brief summary of the game's plot as follows:

One day, a strange talking book suddenly appeared on the island where Yoshi and his friends live. Its name is "Mr. E's Encyclopedia (E先生百科全书)". It contains information about various strange creatures, so Yoshi decided to jump into the world inside the book to investigate.

In the game, players can interact with strange creatures using Yoshi's abilities such as stomping and swallowing, and discover their different attributes. Some can make flowers bloom, some can spit bubbles. Each new discovery opens up a new exploration route and brings more new creatures.

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