The September issue of Nintendo Dream includes an in-depth dev interview re: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. I’ll avoid any spoilers and only share some interesting points:
- Tezuka was involved in the initial phase. Later he was tied up with SMB Wonder, so Nogami took over the Producer role.
- The game was originally planned for Switch 1, but changed to Switch 2 during development.
- “No dying” isn’t to make the game easy, but to encourage no-holds-barred exploration.
- The encyclopedia concept only came into shape toward the end of development.
- Different chapters may not exist in the same timeline. (This explains some late game content.)
- The naming system was complex to implement, but a team member insisted on it.
- Photo of the clay models for development below
There are a lot more interesting details in the full interview. You can buy a digital copy to support real journalism on BookWalker.jp or Amazon.co.jp.
[Update on 2026-08-13] Nintendo Dream has published the dev interview on their site. There are spoilers toward the end, but the article warns you beforehand.
[Originally posted on 2026-07-21 Pacific Time]
