Welcome to our review of Yono and the Celestial Elephants, one of the most anticipated indies this month!
When this game was first announced, I was smitten! I found out this game was made by only 1 person, Niklas Hallin, the guy responsible for this very cute Zelda-like adventure game. Yono is all about an elephant!
Ready your trunk! It is time for adventure!
Yono is a little elephant and this game is all about exploration, solving puzzles, visiting places, talking to people and in the end, battling a very scary boss. The Zelda influence is big in this one, the overly cute worlds and characters make it feel more like a children’s game rather than a full-fledged Zelda, but that is not something that really disturbs from the fun of this game.
You start off meeting a strange little red-haired girl called Sundara, she tells you about the prophecy about elephants only appearing when the time is right. The story leads you through the tutorial, where you learn the basic skills of Yono, my personal favorite is the headbutt, though using your trunk to spout water on things, that is quite cool too!
Once you pass the basic tutorial, you are in one of the towns, where you talk to the residents, you learn about needing to visit the queen who would fill you in all about the current state of affairs, so you start off to go meet her at the castle. Alongside Sundara and a goofy kid you pick up along the way, you only have them present in the towns. Outside towns, like most games of this genres, you will face enemies and puzzles.
The enemies are in the same style of the rest of the game, a little spooky or scary, but overly cute nonetheless.
The puzzles so far, I am a few hours into the game when I wrote this review, are surprisingly simple to solve, but they do provide a certain joy when you solve them. I especially like the ones where you need to find keys in other parts to solve a puzzle.
Any bad points?
Yes, there are… I found the controls to be below par for the majority of moves and I often found myself misaligned to perform actions. Like having to reset my position in front of a boulder in order to break it. Sure, this does not prevent me from having fun, but it did sometimes annoy me a little.
In conclusion, I think this game is not for everyone. It is an easier approach to the genre, but you will still get a feeling of achievement upon solving puzzles or beating enemies. I am amazed by the fact this is really made by 1 guy. Great job! Is it for everyone? I do not think so, only beginners of the genre will fully appreciate it!
I originally really looked forward to this game and I do not consider myself disappointed by the bad points, at least not enough to change my feeling of joy when I think about this game. My rating stands at 80%.
I will admit that the controls do need some improvement and if this were to be implemented, I think I would bump it up to 90%! But for now, 80% it is!
