Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a sprawling open world adventure game with a cute cartoony look and a very chill vibe. You wouldn’t necessarily believe the latter from the start of the game though. While on a cruise, your ship gets hit by a storm and you end up shipwrecked on the island of Gemea. You’re forced to explore a gloomy cavern, where you’ll be prepared to fight skeletons, zombies, or maybe some pirates. Instead you’ll gain a cutesy sprite companion as you make your way to the nearby village, where the game starts to reveal its nature to you.
Taking heavy influence from games like Animal Crossing, Havest Moon, and Zelda, Yonder is a game that has you searching for the cause of a nasty murk that is threatening the land. The only thing that can clear this murk are cute little sprites and, as luck would have it, you are the only person in recent memory that can talk with and control them. Along the way to discovering the cause of the murk, you’ll do numerous errands for local townspeople, you’ll start a dairy farm, you’ll go fishing, and you’ll join a number of guilds that will teach you how to craft all manner of items to place in your world.
What you won’t do, is fight anyone. There is no direct villain or antagonist because Yonder is a game of discovery, with the murk being the primary obstacle.
There is no consequence for failing to clear the murk in a set amount of time. And I believe that some people will be more than content to just build up and take care of their farm never feeling the need to venture out and do more. But for those looking for a little more than just a happily simple farming simulator, the main quest will lead you around the environment showing off all the different areas and giving you need characters, with new requests, to interact with.
Along the way you’ll pick up every stick and stone you can get your hand on. You’ll chop down trees for more wood. You’ll break down boulders for more rocks. You’ll mine mineral deposits for valuable ore. And then you’ll combine all this stuff in to cool crafted materials that you’ll either use for various purposes or trade for items you directly need.
Speaking of trading, the economy is something I was never able to come to grips with. Everything has a price value but the economy seems to operate on a barter system where I’ll trade you 50 wood for your clay pot or something similar. I’m not against a barter system and it works well early on when all you have is sticks and stones but, a few hours in, I had so many materials that trade became a chore and I wish I could just outright sell stuff and get a currency for it.
The good news though is that the backpack seems to be bottomless. I’m not sure how exactly my little character was lugging around multiple trees worth of wood, an entire mine’s worth of minerals, enough stone to build the pyramids, and enough flours to open up a florist shop. Never mind the stone archways and pillars I was lugging around to build cool bridges. But somehow I just kept picking stuff up (or acquiring it from chests and quests) and it all kept cramming in to the bag because video games don’t all need to be about realism.
Yonder’s mix of very simple but very addictive mechanics works wonders for it. And so does its visuals which are chock full of color and whimsy. The day/night cycle results in some beautiful looking vistas as the sun catches things just right as its rising or setting. Also, cities and towns are captivating at night as they light up the night sky from afar. All in all, It is a wonderous little package that offers something for almost anyone.
It is also nice to have a fantasy type adventure that doesn’t rely solely on you killing monsters or defeating the big bad overlord. Sure, maybe something of the sort would have made the main quest a little more fulfilling but it would also take away from its very peaceful and happy presentation and to me that is the biggest selling point for the game. We could all use a few more games that are just peaceful and happy experiences.
This review was written with material provided from the developer for the Nintendo Switch. For more on our review process, please read here.
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