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Seasons After Fall Review: A Surprise In Summer

Published Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:58:56 -0500

Surprises are not all that common when you work in the games industry long enough, or follow news religously. Everything has a long lead time, we are buried to death with footage and news bites of every project, and even with indie games being so big now, it is even hard to be blindsided by a little gem.

Seasons After Fall however hit my computer with little fanfare. No huge media push, no huge palooza and that is refreshing. To make that even better, I am happy to report this is a really delightful little title you should look put for.

So, since you might not have heard of it, what is Seasos After Fall? To put it as simply as possible, it's a beautiful 2D Puzzle Platformer, but lets get you up to speed a little better, eh? The title starts you in the role of a 'seed' or a spirit like entity, who through an interaction with an unseen entity ends up possessing a little fox. You will spend almost all of your play time in the form of this fox, as you are sent on a journey though a dense, fanciful forest to ready something called the Ritual of Seasons. This is where Seasons After Fall's gameplay 'gimmick' (and I don't mean that negatively) reveals itself. You will soon find yourself in control of the seasons, able to change the landscape as you switch between Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall on the fly. This will open up new opportunities, causing certain aspects of the environment to morph to you your whims. It is a really neat idea and is used in some really cool ways through your 6 hour or so experience.

The most striking thing about this game though, is the its artistic stylings. It is truly a gorgeous achievement and its quality is one of the most obvious points of praise. Everything is beautifully handdrawn, with a real cohesion which actually helps your familiarity with the geography of the world. As you switch between the seasons in the game, and see the art shift from snowy, to rainy, to sunny, seeing the work put in in this department really makes it sing. It really does ring of Ori and the Blind Forest, which was something we gave game of the year last year. This hangs in that company easily and is something that would be a shame if more people didn't get to play around in.

However, while the game is a 2D platformer, Seasons After Fall differs quite distinctly to Ori. While that game was acutally quite a complex game centered around combat and new concepts, Seasons is a bit simpler. There is no combat, instead your challenges coming through traversal and puzzles. Once you figure out what the game is trying to convey to you, none of it is very hard, and as you get all the seasons under your control, it is not hard to remember what parts of the scenery change. This means progression is usually only halted by the sheer act of getting around and figuring out what the game wants from you, rather than actually spent puzzling its challenges.

'Figuring out what the game wants from you' isn't always obvious though, and it was my biggest bug bear about the game. There is no map, and no objective for the game, meaning that if you miss a key bit of information or can't decipher it when you get it, you might well find yourself aimlessly walking around for quite some time. I know there were periods of the game where I was a little unsure what to do, ran across the map to one side, to then find nothing and have to come back. It makes the path forward a little obtuse, and honestly, a little tedious at times, especilly as it can take a few minutes to get to one side of the map to the other. The game does feature a lot of back tracking through areas you have already been to before too, so if that kind of thing irks you, you might find yourself a little miffed.

All told though, these aren't issues that mar the game too much. Seasons After Fall is slight in its touches, but the time I spent with it was really delightful. The art style really carries the game far, and the gimmick of controlling the seasons has a lot going for it. Its challenges, once you decipher them, are not hard and there are no enemies in your way, but that also means this title would be a great title to play with younger ones. That isn't to put off older players who just want to engage in something whimsical either. If that is the kind of magic you are looking for, Seasons After Fall has it in spades.

Buy it if: you want to play an absolutely gorgeous 2D platformer with a real sense of whimsy, and a clever gameplay gimmick too.

Avoid it if: You need a challenge in your games, or conversely, if you hate not being pointed in the right direction.

Score: 8.0/10

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