But regardless of art style, he's always remained huggable.
As one of the announcements in the official Nintendo Direct presentation on September 12, 2025 intended to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., Nintendo revealed the next standalone adventure of Mario's green dinosaur friend:
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, a 2D platforming adventure, immediately became a real eye-catcher, with a distinct visual identity that seems to be the next in a long line of looks that the Yoshi video games have experimented with.
A History of Great Looks
Yoshi himself made his debut in Super Mario World (1990) as the inhabitant of Yo'ster Isle in Dinosaur Land, aiding Mario and Luigi in their quest to rescue both Princess Peach and the fellow members of the Yoshi species from Bowser's grasp. The long-tongued ally was quickly recognized as a breakout character and thus went on to receive first puzzle, then platforming games where he was the main star.
1995's Yoshi's Island – a Mario series prequel – follows the Yoshis as they deliver Baby Mario and Baby Luigi to their parents across the titular island (not the same as Yo'ster Isle in Super Mario World, common mistake based on a translation error). Its beautiful sketch-like pastel watercolor art made it one of the most atmospheric SNES games, later inspiring direct sequels with Yoshi’s Island DS (2006) and Yoshi’s New Island (2014), which aimed to replicate its looks.
Over the years, Yoshi games would drop the baby cast and instead focus on new stories, settings and – most importantly for this article styles: Be it the pop-up book optics of Yoshi's Story (1997) and Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (2004), the living tapestry that was Yoshi's Woolly World (2014) or the arts-and-crafts aesthetic of Yoshi's Crafted World (2014): The series has never stopped striving for original art design.
The Next Chapter
Even better: Those distinct visual identities aren't just there for show. They usually tie both into the story (with there often being some sort of curse put on the island, like it being trapped in an actual pop-up book) and gameplay (for example allowing players to unravel parts of a level made of wool).
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book continues this tradition as well: When a sentient book known as Mister Encyclopedia (Mr. E for short) falls from the sky, Yoshi is tasked with magically jumping into his pages to investigate (since the book obviously can't read itself), explaining the pencil-like outlines and painterly textures on everything. The objective of each paper-illustrated level is for Yoshi to study a specific creature by interacting with it throughout a platforming stage, slowly filling Mr. E's pages in the process.
Because of this premise, the game – set to release in Spring 2026 exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 – is also called Yoshi and the Mysterious Field Guide in some regions. All in all, the title promises to be simply adorable! If you're interested in examples like the Yoshi series, we recommend checking out this list of the most unique art style concepts in gaming.