Ary and the Secret of Seaons is an adventurous game and platforms developed by eXiin and Cactus Fish, which takes its character from some classic experiences while introducing some of its own ideas, and I will introduce you more to this experience during this review.
The story takes us to the world of Valdi, whose various regions live permanently in one of the seasons of the year with the presence of a guard of the four seasons guards in each region, the experience will put you in the role of Aryelle or Ary for short, who recently lost her brother Flynn, which caused the depression of her father, who works as a guard for the winter season, Scientist Valdi witnesses many strange events with huge crystals falling from the sky that change the seasons and with the guards needing to fulfill the call of duty and meeting to find a solution to this crisis Ary answers the call in the place of her father. The story of the game is directed in general to young audiences, as it has a childish character, but at the same time it tries to surprise you by presenting several ideas and sudden changes, and it is an attempt that fails to come out in the end with a weak and chaotic story, and although similar games do not focus on the story, this experience focuses on it although it is one of the weakest Its aspects.
On the technical level, the game does not try to dazzle you graphically, but rather focuses on presenting a beautiful world with its cartoonish graphics. It succeeds somewhat in this attempt, but it still requires some refinement in some details, the game also suffers from some annoying technical problems, so touching the corpses of the enemies causes you harm as well as Ary may become hidden at times and some elements in the environment may overlap and there are many things that require reform in this regard, on the auditory level, the game offers a set of good tunes and some of them I like.
The gameplay is very simple and includes movement buttons with the attack, block, and avoidance button. The distinct idea in the game is your ability to control the four chapters through special stones that enable you to change the chapter within a specific environment and each chapter has a dedicated button on the D-Pad and the game benefits One of these capabilities is to present many varied puzzles that will require you to focus on one or more specific seasons, for example activating the winter season will cause the water to freeze or the emergence of some ice structures, while the spring will cause the growth of plants that will enable you to climb to reach higher areas.
The game carries a clear inspiration from the classic legend of Zelda games, as the adventure will take you to several trenches in which you will get a new tool that will be relied upon in solving puzzles. Perhaps the puzzles and the various ideas associated with it are the entertaining part of the experience, unlike the battles that we found the game is very simple and lacking Diversification and challenge. We overlooked many battles in the experience, as they are not compulsory and do not add any value to them. The confrontations of the leaders provided some good ideas that benefit from the idea of controlling the seasons.
Finishing the story took 9 hours and the game offers some side tasks that require you to collect some things, and these missions are not a strong motivation to spend more time on the experiment, but it may occupy some for an additional hour or two, in the end Ary and the Secret of Seasons is a good experience, Focusing on the story was annoying due to its poor level and the battles were very boring and primitive, but the puzzles at least offer some good and varied ideas, an experience that will suit young people rather than older players.
Positives
- Beautiful cartoon world - good choice of melodies - entertaining puzzles with a variety of ideas
Negatives
- Many technical bugs and need for more refinement - rudimentary combat system with boring battles lacking in challenge