Ary and the secret of seasons review: Bring some seasoning to your games library.
Ary and the Secret of Seasons is an adventure game revolving around a young girl named Aryelle. She lives in a small town with her family d...



Ary and the secret of seasons feels like a game with two sides of the same c. At times it is a beautiful game with beautiful lighting and colors and and other times looks dated and suffers from glitches and collisions. The character design of Ary , the enemies and some of the main NPC's are interesting but other lesser NPC's feel like cheap asset place holders with unfinished animations. This inconsistency was also present in the gameplay, especially in the first half of the game. The world you enter is very open, besides having to complete some missions in order to progress you can go wherever you wanna go but as a result some things can get glitchy and I have had to reload an old save in order to back track and redo part of the game. The story line seemed inconsistent as well in parts and sometimes skip where I was confused in what just happened. Games do not always have to hand hold too much, but having context and understanding what something does is still important.
Still the voice acting is pretty good and the overall feel of the game was enough to keep going forward for a bit longer. And after a big moment around 40% into the game everything changes. Without going too much into spoilers, this is the moment you have to collect season cores from the various temples throughout the continent. This is the strong part of Ary and the secret of seasons and where the game shines. The puzzles are complex, the temples are big levels and fun to discover. Dare I say it they remind me in a way of Zelda Breath ofd the wild. Each temple has a special tool in the beginning that are needed to make it too the end. These tools also allow you to complete puzzles in the world itself. The ability to swim, or grow vines and more are used to navigate some devious traps. At the end of the temple you will find a guardian who holds a core. Collect all four to activate the weapon you need to defeat the antagonist who has been raging havoc around the world.
The difference between the first part of the game and the latter part at distinct and even if the temple missions still have some glitches as well, the overall experience is so much better. It feels as the two parts were made separately and the game would have probably benefited from a short delay to polish it and make the part work better together. However the developer is highly involved with the community and patching out any issues at a fast rate. Just keep in mind that those patches take a bit to come out on consoles due to their approval processes.
Final thoughts
Ary and the season of secrets is one of those games that despite the issue it has delivers a great experience that is worth it to move forward to the problematic bits in order to get to the sweet delicious center. The game would have benefited from some more time in the oven or a larger team but overall is better then the sum of its parts. The temple puzzles and the guardian battles as well as the fun writing , the self aware dialog at times and neat enemy designs made the game enjoyable and at times awe inspiring. Is it enough for you? That depends what you find acceptable and how your expectations are set. In this review I hope to have made clear what to expect. For me the game makes me smile when I boot it up and take my season powers for a spin. The developer involvement makes me hopeful it will get a bit more polished and I would conciser another play through. Ary also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger message so I wonder if some DLC is in the works. I do not think this is a $60 tripple A game, but for the right price you would do well to consider exploring the world of Valdi, restore the seasons and discover its secrets.
Title: Ary and the secret of seasons
Developer: Fishing Cactus, Exiin SPRL, eXiin,
Publisher: Modus games
Release date: 1st September 2020
Platforms: PC (STEAM) Nintendo Switch,Xbox One, PlayStation 4.
Review platform: PC (Steam)
ESRB: E 10+ Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Use of Alcohol