Obviously, there are some people that probably won’t enjoy Yonder too much. If you want action and adventure, of course, it’ll probably bore you, and if you want a fast-paced story, you’re not going to find that here. But if you’re just looking for a delightful game that allows you to explore to your heart’s contest, Yonder is exactly what you’re looking for.

If you're tired of shooting guns and swinging swords Yonder offers laid back palate cleansing cuteness in this open-world adventure.

Yonder is as calming as it is addictive. I had thought I was happy with the amount I had played, only to come back the next day and complete even more quests. At just shy of $40 it's a little more than I'd want to pay for a game based around exploration, despite how wonderful the world being explored was. That hasn't stopped me from showing the island of Gemea off to all my friends though. Like a kid with the latest set of Pokémon cards, they're not really interested, but I'm going to make sure they know all about Yonder: The Charming and Calming.

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is an enjoyable enough adventure, but it’s missing a hook to get players invested. The game wants you to get lost in the economy and exploration it offers, but in just performing these menial tasks for their own sake it fails to create any moments where the entire experience is more than a series of distractions.

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a fun, friendly and visually stimulating sandbox with a world that invites you to relax and have fun. But the lack of variety in the chores to do, through simplistic and not very deep mechanics, ultimately affects the game in a negative way.

In the end, Yonder is undeniably a fantastic game to sit back and chill with. If you're looking forward to some exploration, collection, and light building and farming elements, then Yonder is definitely right up your alley. However! There should be a heavy emphasis on "light" in the sentence up above! This is not the next Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley. No, this is a game with few puzzles, no combat, and filled to the brim with fetch quests and item collection. Yonder isn't without its charms, to be sure. But deep and engaging game play (and story) definitely isn't one of them.

One cannot comprehend who Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is meant to serve. Exploration is a chore based on frame rate issues and less-than-stellar graphics. Questing sucks because there is no real sense of progress or accomplishment. Farming and crafting is similarly pointless as there just isn’t a heck of a lot to do. I will confess to giving up after only a couple of hours in hopes that I was the recipient of Alpha code.