Yono and the Celestial Elephants Review

by Preston Evans | October 23, 2017 10:00 am

Developed by Neckbolt
Published by Plug In Digital
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch (also available on Steam)

 

Yono and the Celestial Elephants is probably one of the most adorable games you’ll play all year long. It was developed by Neckbolt, a one man team. When you look at the overall aesthetics, it’s a job well done design wise but can Yono and the Celestial Elephants live up to its epic grand adventure?

Yono and the Celestial Elephants

Yono and the Celestial Elephants is an isometric action RPG puzzle adventure game. You play as the young adorable elephant, Yono. In this wonderful, colorful world, legendary celestial elephants who are born from stars once per millennium become protectors of the world and help solve world issues. The world is inhabited by three races, humans, the undead, and robots known as the Mekani. The human race is the dominate race and rule over Knightingale castle while controlling all races. The Mekani want their independence from the humans, so Yono is then tasked with keeping the peace between the races. Yono tries to help out where he can even though he’s unsure of the scale of his powers.    

Yono and the Celestial Elephants

Once you hop in for the first time you’ll be thinking that this is a Zelda-esque like adventure game. As you play more, however, it never quite reaches the level of gameplay as a Zelda adventure game. Yono and the Celestial Elephants has very straight forward gameplay from start to finish. There are three majors cities you can visit and explore, each one filled with side quests. The side quests are mostly boring fetch quests where you go to one person to another. It’s not really exciting or much of a challenge. In between cities are forests to travel through and enemies to fight along with solving puzzle. Enemies are very simple to defeat including boss battles. I never lost all my hearts and had to start over once throughout the entire game. Puzzle are also just way too easy and takes little effort or thinking on how to solve them.  

[1]

Fallen Legion Updated Review[3]

The controls felt good while playing on the Nintendo Switch. Playing in portable mode, Yono and the Celestial Elephants looks great and is made for the small sized portable screen as the colorful, cartoonish art style just pops out nicely. Playing in TV mode looks just as great as when playing in portable mode. My only complaint is that the Pro controller is not compatible with the game so you’re forced to use the Joy-cons controllers.

Yono and the Celestial Elephants

Yono and the Celestial Elephants is by no means a terrible game, it’s just really simplistic as far as gameplay, puzzles, and level designs go. The story reminds me of a good children’s story that wouldn’t be too complex for a 10 year old to understand. It is a short adventure lasting up to 5 to 6 hour with 100% of all sidequests completed. I feel Yono caters more to a younger audience and would be a great starter game for children between the ages 8 to 12 years old or for more casual gamers. For a one man team, it really is a job well done but there still tons of room for improvement as Yono’s grand adventure is only a subpar experience.     

Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://www.confreaksandgeeks.com/fallen-legion-updated-review/
  2. Video Games: https://www.confreaksandgeeks.com/category/reviews/video-games-reviews/
  3. Fallen Legion Updated Review: https://www.confreaksandgeeks.com/fallen-legion-updated-review/

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