Clouds & Sheep 2 Review

Do you remember that song that goes Sunshine, Lollypops and Rainbows? That’s all that was going through my head as I booted up Clouds & Sheep 2. Floating in from developers Handy Games comes the sequel to; you guessed it, Clouds and Sheep.

Now I will preface this review with the fact that this is a mobile game ported onto the PlayStation. It’s undeniable from the opening menu where there are 2 buttons available, the big play button and the settings cog, all the way to the in game gameplay. With that out of the way, is Clouds & Sheep 2 the sheep farming simulation that you’re missing from your life?

In one word, no. Clouds & Sheep 2 is obviously targeted towards a younger audience but I fail to understand how a child would be interested in running their own sheep farm for more than 5 minutes, particularly later on in the game when you are required to have all hands on deck. Game play is limited to say the least, control what would be your finger in the mobile game with the left analogue stick to move around your side scrolling land and try to keep your sheep happy. You can do this by poking them and seeing what they require at the time, throwing them up and down into the sky, pulling on their tails till they roll halfway across the map. Trying to manage your sheep farm can become a tedious bore, throw one sheep and try to earn more stars to keep your farm running smoothly, all whilst trying to find the fountain of youth.

Graphically Clouds & Sheep 2 is admittedly adorable, the sheep are bright and luminous as are the clouds and the land you occupy. The way you create baby lambs by combining clouds together with the hearts created by the sheep is again adorable but all this adorableness lasts for a short time before you realise the brightness hides a dark, tedious grind of a time.

Clouds & Sheep 2 doesn’t translate terribly well from a mobile port, mobile games are designed at their heart to take 15-20 minutes of your day from you before you come back to check on your progress the next day, that’s exactly how this feels like it should be played, I can’t personally see anyone willingly taking hours from their day to keep their sheep farm in tip top shape, even with the tasks assigned throughout gameplay.

I think Clouds & Sheep 2 doesn’t know what it wants to be, at times it’s akin to a city management sim, and others it tries to be The Sims: Sheep and at other times steps right out of the box and wants to be a Saturday morning cartoon show. It tries to be all three and sadly falls at the first hurdle. Clouds & Sheep 2 is an entertaining experience for young and some old, but only for 10 minutes before these poor lambs are put out for slaughter.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Switch code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.