Review: Ylands: Nintendo Switch Edition is meant to be a grand adventure, but it left me asking, “Why lands?” instead

When I first saw Ylands: Nintendo Switch Edition, I wondered for one second if it was a Nintendo title because it looked straight out of the Nintendo Wii era of gaming. This should be high praise, but I think it ended up setting my expectations a bit too high.

While the graphics tug at nostalgic strings, the controls are ultimately what kill this game. Spoiler alert. 

Ylands: Nintendo Switch Edition – The game that makes no sense

Before I get into my analysis, I want to talk briefly about the user interface. Opening Ylands: Nintendo Switch Edition, you get three options: adventure, which starts you on your journey; creative, which will let you build your own islands; and a store that seemed pretty self-explanatory. 

However, when I opened up the store, it was empty. Granted, I was playing prior to launch, but the game was a week and a half out from release. So, why was this feature completely empty? If it was meant to be for players to buy things with in-game currency, it should already be filled. 

Sadly, I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be a storefront for microtransactions, otherwise, why would it need to wait for launch to be filled? I’m hoping that I’m wrong, but it just doesn’t make sense otherwise. 

Secondly, the creative map is fine, but there’s no online function. This game has stated several times that it’s safe for children and they’ve made sure of it by keeping the game offline. 

That’s fine; I’m all for security measures being in place to protect younger players. Except that creative doesn’t really serve much point when you can’t upload things to a gallery or create maps to share. 

It’s just a sandbox and that feels…empty and unrewarding. 

So, what’s left? Disappointing shop and lonely creative mode – would the adventure mode be just as unfulfilling?

I can safely say that I was blindsided when I entered adventure mode. Imagine my surprise when I’m dumped unceremoniously into an Egyptian tomb. There’s some minor tutorial with keys, but ultimately you get no reason why you’re in this place.

It was made up of only a few rooms, and a few enemies, and at the end, there was a pretty bitchin’ sword that you could grab. With sword in hand, I busted through a wall and – imagine my surprise when – there was just some woman chilling in this room.

Random women chilling in tombs isn’t usually a good sign…

Apparently, I’m trying to prove myself to CAG, but we’re not told what CAG even means. All she does is say that I might be worthy and that I need to go to the frozen frontier. 

Tell me why I’m literally transported from this tomb where I’m dressed like Indiana Jones and then suddenly bundled up Hoth-style riding a polar bear through the frozen tundra. The bear’s name is Archie and you ride him for about 20 seconds to your destination if you don’t get distracted by the car.

I did.

In the middle of the snowy landscape, you come across a dated car that can not only drive over the snow but has the top down. What purpose did it serve? Hell, what purpose did Archie serve? You ride either mount for less than a minute to a sheer cliff face where you climb up two ladders and into a cave.

By the way, climbing a ladder isn’t something that was keyed into the graphics. You literally are at the bottom of the ladder and then teleport to the top.

Inside the cave, it’s lushly decorated and the same woman is there, congratulating you on passing the test. You’re now a member of the Classy Adventurers Guild (or CAG for short).

If you thought our time hopping was done, you’re wrong. We get a brief flash of “2 months later” before we’re dropped on a ship and told we’re set free to adventure on our own. The game prompts you on how to work the sails and there’s an island right next to your boat. 

Likely, you’ll try to stop at the island like I did, but you’ll soon learn that your controls are stuck in the on position and you have no choice but to sail by the island. This, apparently, was meant to happen.

It’s a feature, not a bug.

Day turns to night and you’re told to be careful because there’s monsoon weather ahead. No matter what you do, your ship will run aground on some reef and you just have to stand there while your ship sinks.

That’s it, lights out. When you wake up, you are on a deserted island and must survive. 

Why was I shown a cool sword? Why did I ride Archie? Where did that car come from? Why was I given a ship with broken controls?

I get that this was likely meant to be some sort of prologue, but it kind of set up some expectations that weren’t met. I wanted to raid the tombs, I wanted to explore the tundra, and I wanted to explore that island.

Now, I’ve got nothing and must survive. If I’m honest, the trailer made it look like there was much more exploration and excitement – which may be true later, but not without some heavy grinding. It’s entirely my own fault for not doing more research, but man, was I surprised it was just a survival game. 

Over the next two hours, I’d fight with controls, place items where they couldn’t be picked up, and ultimately be frustrated. This game is just not fun.

I slogged through making the small ship, but I’ll be honest I never got off the first island. Maybe I’d eventually get to be Indiana Jones, Han Solo, or Captain Jack Sparrow, but right now I was the Tom Hanks of the sea complete with a pet rock that I named Wilbur since Wilson would be too cliche.

Ultimately, the system this game works on is a bit tedious. You have some basic things you can build, but to construct more you have to research a ton of things to open up all the branches. 

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like I had an inventory limit, so I liked that, but the game just lacked life. Add in the controller struggles, and it just wasn’t fun. I literally got to the point that I could leave the island and just… didn’t even feel like it. This isn’t the feeling you want to instill in your player base. 

“Why?” seems to be the recurring theme here.

Frankly, I need more interesting things from a survival game. It can’t just be gathering items and then making things. There has to be a hook and there wasn’t one for me here. 

The graphics tugged at nostalgia and the music was fine, but the gameplay lacked heart when I wasn’t struggling with the controls. This game suffers from what a lot of PC-based games do when they move to a console.

There are just too many button configurations to remember and, generally, they aren’t intuitive to the console. Typically, you’ll find that 90% of games will share the same basic mapping for a console. One button jumps, one hits, and they do that for the convenience of the player.

PC to Console games rarely understand that nuance and will program them in some random configuration that makes sense to the Dev, but not the seasoned console player which takes time to get used to.

Overall, Ylands: Nintendo Switch Edition has potential if you like survival games and will play them no matter what. But, for me, it was selling an image it just didn’t deliver on.

If you want to try Ylands: Nintendo Switch Edition for yourself, it’s available on Steam for free or Nintendo Switch for $24.99. 

I’d like to say that you get DLC included to make up for that price difference, but you can still buy DLC packs on Nintendo Switch. So, I don’t know why you’d choose the console over the PC.

If you want to see a review of a game we enjoyed, you can check out our coverage of Duck Detective: The Secret Salami.