Review: Ary and the Secret of Seasons

What we liked!

• The style and gameplay: The style of the game is very cute and colorful.  It looks a little bit like Pixar made a game. This makes for beautiful scenes and cutscenes. The cutscenes are completely voiced, and in such a good way, that it makes it really enjoyable! The characters in the game are nicely worked out and there are REALLY cute sheep guarding the city. Which is an absolute plus for me! Don’t start counting them though! You might fall asleep, haha 😛
• Boss fights: After the tutorial, there is still more to learn, and u slowly learn this throughout the game. And all you learn in the open world is needed in the boss fights. Dodge, jump, change the season, use your special attacks. Everything is used and I really enjoyed that. When you get the first boss it will be a little hard. At least it was for me because it was not clear for me what to do. But I like a little challenge, so after a few deaths, I got him! It is really a plus for me that it’s not just an easy button-bashing boss.
• Puzzles: In almost all the puzzles you will need to use your season spells. This is sooo enjoyable! A guy is freezing cause of the cold, and you want to talk to him? Use your summer spell, and warm him up! You can’t reach the edge because there is a slime guarding it? Freeze that little jerk and use the ice cube as a jump point! And that’s only some of the things you can do! Some might take a while to figure out but its all worth it! Use that big brain of yours!
• Story: The story starts off kind of cheesy and childish. But, without spoiling too much, I can tell you that this gets way better! You start off with the cutest cutscene ever, where a little girl is playing with her dolls. Her name is Ary ( Aryelle ). You find out that her brother is missing for a week and presumed dead by your parents. But while your village is being raided, one of the raiders has the sword of your brother! You take the sword back, take the winter stone from your father, and start your adventure! Will you find your brother? And what happened to him? Come and find out by playing the game!

Somewhere between

• Controls: I started playing this game with a keyboard and mouse since that is how I play most of my games. But I couldn’t help but feel that it got stale after a little while. Especially the combat. So I tried using a controller. After some setting up, by changing key bindings, I can really recommend using a controller! It feels like this game is made for a controller, and in my honest opinion, it should also recommend it, like I have seen other games do.  The game is however playable with keyboard too. It can just by preference, but I normally never feel the need to use controller, so thought I would mention this, and give my opinion.

What we disliked

• Mob progression: The first two hours (if you don’t do side quests) you will be fighting the same enemies. I think this is a little too long, it got me bored. I was just looking forward too the new puzzle or more story, and these hyenas where just standing in the way. I really think this could evolve faster. However, when it does, the enemies are fresh and different. There is finally some ranged enemies later in the game, and you also get more options of fighting them, with a new weapon!