While we here at Honey’s Anime love Minecraft or Stardew Valley, we also hate how sometimes we can find ourselves sighing after hours of work gets ruined by one poor enemy attack. While those games have a relaxing element to them, neither allows for perfect freedom as you’re forced to manage something to either be successful or stay alive. Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles by developer Prideful Sloth changes the game with a title that puts a focus on relaxing while adventuring. Does this work though? Does Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles play like the adventure game it tries to be? Our review down below awaits for those who need those questions answered!

Akin to titles like Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles allows for free exploration and open world adventure. Choose what to do, when to do it and how to do it when you play Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles. Fish for hours, manage your farm or help the islanders from an evil force known as the Murk. You are never forced to play Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles in any one specific way allowing for liberation in every sense of the word. There is no death or enemies to fight in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, only places to see and goals to accomplish!

A young adventurer with a mysterious compass finds themselves wrecked on an island when a strange storm hits the boat they were traveling on. This island dubbed Gemea is a rich and beautiful place that seems full of different genomes and those who thrive in each one. However, a evil force—dubbed the Murk—has begun polluting Gemea and its inhabitants. It’s up to the adventure to ally themselves with spirits and other islanders to fight the Murk back and restore order! Let your compass guide your hand in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles!

Here at Honey’s Anime, we love ourselves some games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon and so on. These games allow us to create our own lives within worlds that ooze with things to do and quests to accomplish. As time passes though, a lot of other developers try to mirror the elements found in the games we’ve mentioned above with some resounding success and failure in equal measure. Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles by developer/publisher Prideful Sloth is the latest open world adventure title that released originally in 2017 for the PC but now has come to the Xbox One. Was the long wait for console owners worth it? We’re going to answer that in our review of Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles for the Xbox One!

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles has players assume the role of an adventure—male or female—as they end up on the island of Gemea. Here the players are basically given free reign for what they want to do. Will you help find the lost ship crew, save the farm nearby and or help an old man get a fish that he’s been craving? Your options in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles are endless and it’s truly a chain breaking experience. Though does this freedom lead to good gameplay in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles? The answer is a resounding yes.

Similar to titles like Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, the world of Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is filled with items to collect and sights to see. As you progress through various quests, you’ll gain a wide array of tools such as a hammer, pickaxe and even a fishing rod. Each tool allows you to interact with the environment in some way or another—find a rock break it with the hammer for smaller rocks or cut grass for materials---and ultimately helps you gain more items for crafting purposes. You can also become a wandering trader who sells his/her wares for items from other vendors. Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles doesn’t tell you to do that or this, it lets you feel truly like an adventure and that’s a rare feat only seen in titles like Minecraft. Though, if you do find yourself needing guidance, you can use the adventurer's mystical compass which acts a tracker for guests. Pull it out and a giant beam of light will guide you to where you need to go next.

What also helps Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles feel constantly engaging and never boring is the fact that Gemea is no small island. There are several large environments for players to engage in that range from open valleys to icy landscapes. Along the way, you can find new places to build settlement-like environments—farms basically—and people to help out. There’s also spirits which can be found—they aren’t scary by the way—that help you defeat the Murk and give you access to new areas or quest related paths. There are no enemies to fight or life systems to manage. You’re free to run around day, night and during bad weather without any consequences. This might seem like a weakness to Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, but it allows the game to constantly be relaxing rather than be full of tension or moments of fear that you might die from hunger or lack of resources.

Lastly, in terms of visuals, Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles looks simply gorgeous. While Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles relies heavily on simple designs for character models and creatures, the whole game has a cute theme that made us smile and swoon in equal measure. The various genomes also share in this theme with landscapes that feel alive and taken straight from a child’s mind. There were times we’d just look at a mountain in the distance or at the ocean’s calming waves and realize two minutes passed without us doing anything.

Minecraft, Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley have all done the world of adventure/open world games justice in some form or another. We would now like to add Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles to that amazing list as this adventure game is truly a captivating and peaceful title for all ages. While players might not fight against hundreds of zombies or various enemies, Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles relies on smart crafting systems, solid exploration and truly simple—but fun—adventure gameplay that never aggravates or annoys. Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles allows you to feel as if you’re in control as you can run around all day just doing farming related things or advance the story by performing various quests across the huge island of Gemea. Every second of Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles made us feel relaxed and those seconds turned to minutes and then to hours…that’s how hooked we got while playing this amazingly beautiful adventure title. Xbox One owners rejoice! You’re finally getting Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles and you owe it to yourselves to pick it up when it releases this February!

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles basically is the prime example that open world adventure games don’t need to be reliant on fighting or extreme building to be fun. While Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles doesn’t allow for super creative monoliths to be made or lets you battle various beasts, you won’t care as you just enjoy a fun and laid-back journey that never demands you to do anything. We give a rounding applause to developer Prideful Sloth for Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, this is legit one of the best adventure/open world games we’ve played in years! Are you excited now to try out Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles when it releases for the Xbox One? Comment below to let us know and for more reviews and gaming related articles be sure to keep stuck to our hive here at Honey’s Anime.