Well.... It's so cute. It's cozy. It's fun. To a point. Then it gets a bit over the top in tediousness. The crafting gets very bogged down in lots of travel and such. You need an insane amount of stone for instance, so you are always breaking rocks. I love this kind of thing usually, my favorite game in the universe is Minecraft, but the requirements for making some things just go way beyond what you would expect. Usually, for instance, you get planks out of logs. In this game, you have to collect logs to get a plank.... ??? But aside from the crafting, I really enjoyed it. I still have some achievements to get but honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of all the constant harvesting so I think I might stop here for a while and start up Grow: Song of the Evertree. :) All in all, definitely recommended, just keep in mind there's a bit of fun 'work' to do if you want to achieve everything! :)

I was confused about Yonder prior to playing it. It looks cozy, there is something appealing about it, yet I wasn’t sure what it was trying to be. I’ve now spent 21 hours to 100% it for an answer. It’s definitely not a farming game, the game at its core is you being an explorer, crafter and trader. You slowly discover new areas and towns during your travel. You meet NPC along the way who will have enough quests for you to do. The game is mostly structured around these quests and exploring the land in any order you wish. You’ll need objects for quests or you’ll need them to create something important (like fast travel points etc). You can have up to 6 farms, capture animals, mine minerals or go fishing but all of that is in the service of giving you what you need for trade or completing a quest, it’s not the focus. Yonder feels like Breath of the Wild in terms of exploring, only our character, which you can customise freely, is more concerned about business. You don’t have a currency to buy stuff, you trade whatever you have with objects of similar value. There are tons of traders with different items or even the same items but they might be cheaper or more expensive depending on the region. You can craft a lot of stuff yourself but trading might be the better option in many cases too. The game also has lots of collectibles and things to discover that are all tracked in your journal. You can think of 26 sprites, 16 animals, 17 fish, 55 cats, lots of seeds to plant etc. All the elements mentioned create an engaging world worth exploring and experiencing despite some of the issues it has.

Let me start by saying how the game does an excellent job of making the world feel lively and interesting. The animals do their own thing, there is a day and night cycle, different weather conditions, different towns with a lot of them focusing on certain professions, certain animals/fish showing up in certain times/seasons etc. It’s helped that the game looks absolutely stunning in terms of environments. I’ve put everything on max and it feels like I’m looking at a full motion video sometimes. It’s the lighting effects, the use of colours and how I can see areas from a very far distance while keeping most of their details. The character models look a bit goofy (not the strongest point) but they work and fit with the rest. The game has some fantastic soundtrack, I can still hum along with certain parts. Exploring and doing various activities is fun and therapeutic for being consistent and simple. It turned into an addiction for a brief while. Fishing is actually very good in this game. It’s pretty engaging in a good way. You can save at any moment and the game auto saves too. The game is pretty charming in terms of dialogues even if there aren’t many memorable characters. The game is pretty polished. I don’t remember experiencing any bugs. Most of the achievements are great.

The problem mostly comes from the intentional slow pace due to some design decisions affecting different gameplay elements. For instance, the game has 3 different means of fast travel but they’re still not enough combined. 2 have you walking long distances to use them and one requires materials to craft and even then, there aren’t enough points to minimise the walking you’re still going to do. You can’t craft multiple objects, you have to do it one at a time. The animation of breaking stones takes too much time. While I enjoy seasonal animals/fish/collectibles, it’s not fun when it’s tied to achievements. I had to wait over an hour until it was Summer to get the last cats I was missing. At least seasons change every 7-8 days, so it could have been worse. More tools and flexibility to affect the season would have been welcome. All those examples are the game’s way of telling you to slow down and just enjoy the game. I get what they were getting at but it went too far sometimes. Lastly, the jumping is not satisfying when you’re jumping away from instead of jumping towards. I needed some time to get used to it and it’s still not ideal.

This is still a great game that leaves a positive mark. I got it on the recent Steam sale for around €2-3 and I’m surprised at the amount of enjoyment I got out of it. It’s definitely worth playing if you’re looking to get lost in a world through exploration, trade, crafting and various other less important activities. Just don’t expect a farming game and you’re good to go.

You know what..... in my near 40 I finished this game without killing anyone even without punch, kick or shoot in the face once. Thats a good game especially if you got it with -90% and tired from consort Radahn and Messmer.