Yonder: Cloud Catcher Chronicles Review (PC/PS4)

This game was covered with a provided code from Prideful Sloth in purposes of review for this game, a humble thank you to them!

Yonder: Cloud Catcher Chronicles is what you would call those games that will catch you by surprise. Its charming, cute world is begging to be explored. I am getting ahead of myself. Yonder: CCC is a blend of Harvest Moon meets The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with zero combat(visual cue). You have a choice between a boy or a girl, who obtain a magical compass that reveals quest objectives who of which expand on a island called Gemea. You move across eight different biomes, all having different resources or materials for all sorts of recipes. Recipes the keyword as in this game basically you are constantly making those, or doing fetch quests for the locals. The pilot which is pretty good for this style of game is set up where you are a young explorer who must help the locals clear out some nasty stuff called Murk. This Murk is basically some nasty dark fog that surrounds structures or spots on the wide world of Gemea. So your asking me what is there to do in this sort of game, and is it even good? Lets break it down and let me give my opinion out on this game.

The core of its gameplay is its large world that you explore. Syncing in stuff such as quests, farming, cooking, joining guilds. So on, so on. You start the game standing on a sailing ship. Captain Pullin asks you to adjust some sails and before you know it… Crash! You awaken in a cave from a drift, where you begin exploring this new land of Gemea. Along the way I discovered themed Sprites that if you collect a lot, you can clear out the Smug. Smug along many things are clear-able, and add to your on going collectible list. Which is what this game seems to amass in. At first I assumed besides clothing you were stuck with a stock looking character to wonder around with. Actually I was far from being anything in terms of being right. After I seen a wig/hair I squealed for a good five minutes. Seeing I could obtain ocean blue, and a Goku like hair due. Seeing the devs were Dragon Ball Super fans, I tipped my fedora to them and their clever grace. I will not tell you how many hours I have taken just wondering around and picking up sticks and stones confused about anything related to crafting, until I came across a few villages explaining I could join a large yawn ball cult. Among clothing, you can do woodworking, mining, cooking, and fishing. Did I mention you can micro-brew beer? Yep. You can also run a small farm and attract animals, extracting furs, or milk from them. Plus if that seems like hard work and you have food, you can hire farm hands to do all this for you from distant towns or locally.

Crafting in this game is dreadfully simple with just having to obtain a recipe from somewhere, and clicking a icon if you have the ingredients of course. Controls are wonderfully maped on PS4. The touch pad is nothing, while the d pad helps you to open the map, which is down, d pad up pulls out the compass and directs you where you need to go if you are stuck or need a refresher of finding out the quest objective. We will no doubt have those proud snobs who will say “I do not need no stinkin’ compass”. Those batch are what you call the Tom Sawyers of easily getting lost and are too proud of asking for direction from time to time, do not mind them. Quests are all over the place ether it is repairing one of many locations with materials, or doing a task for a npc in the wilderness somewhere. You have over eight biomes to explore and take a wonder through and collect… stuff.

In Closing:

Yonder: Cloud Catcher Chronicles caught me by surprise by its bold charm and adorable creatures. Its pretty and laidback world is decently sided with a assortment of plenty to do. However the experience itself would no doubtingly end soon for some collector nuts. After I would guess six hours plus you would unlock most of the map if your skilled, and collected everything, and done every quest in record time. Which I doubt many would want to spoil the game and would sit back like myself and enjoy the journey, not the destination. Overall I would highly recommend Yonder to anyone who has a love for games like Harvest Moon, and enjoys exploring like I do!

– Highly Recommended!-