レビュー

• gamedeal user

  Jun 29, 2017

  This is a final review after getting 100% of achievements. TL;DR: Enchanting, but unfulfilling. Definitely worth getting on sale. WARNING. This review contains minor spoilers. Only a couple of them though, and they're not critical, so don't fret. Pros: + Simple, but majestically arranged and animated artwork + Gorgeous string quartet soundtrack with only a single weak spot (explained below) + Intriguing world + Wonderful voice acting + Carefully crafted backdrops (all map segments are fully realized in all four seasons, which is incredible!) + Cool season-switching method + Cute fox protagonist Cons: - Potential of the world is bearely touched - Poor story, silly conflict, underdeveloped characters - Terrible fast travel methods, hence... - Backtracking, backtracking, backtracking - The Sirocco puzzle (also knows as the cicada puzzle) - Lack of a desperately needed minimap - Lack of goal progress indicators - Ending that explains nothing and doesn't feel like an ending - Minor control issues Let's get the obvious things out of the way. The colors and the handling of artwork are stunning. The effects are beautiful, too. Drawings themselves are nothing to write home about, but it's actually better this way, because you're not supposed to focus on stills, you're supposed to focus on movement and how different it feels in different seasons: the crunching snow, the warm breeze, the playful rain, the thick hotness. The forest is beautiful, the seasons are distinct. Some of the sound tracks reminded me of glorious Arcanum, and not just because both games employed string quartets. However, the Seasons After Fall OST is more diverse and... more playful, I guess? It certainly firmly stands on its own. The one dip is the track that plays during one of the most annoying parts in the game—talk about convergence of missteps—the cicada puzzle. More on it further down. The voice acting in the English version! Goodness, how I loved the Seed! Both voice actors did a great job. Bravo to them. Now... The thing about short games (and this one is pretty short, albeit not as short as Inside or Little Nightmares) is that they rarely have depth. It just doesn't fit in the few hours of gameplay. And it's usually fine, as they're there to provide a bite-size serving of entertainment with a possible tiny philosophical punch somewhere in the middle and at the end. Seasons After Fall doesn't have any depth in any department. The seasonal mechanics are underutilized and have few instances of combinations. Navigation is both convoluted and straightforward (part of a larger problem explained in the next paragraph). Character relationships and motivations are either simplistic or nonexistent. The story and conflict are kindergarten-level. Without spoiling anything, just... don't expect too much from them. Seasons After Fall has a problem a lot of artsy games have: attempting to bolster immersion by minimizing the UI, the developers undershoot and overshoot with explanations to the player of what they're capable of and what's expected from them. The cicada puzzle is a major example of that. My personal advice: look it up online once you get to it. It's not difficult, it's just poorly explained. This UI minimization fever leads to unnecessary inconveniences and inconsistencies. For example, if you decide to go without a minimap, you're limiting yourself to simple level layouts—otherwise a lot of your players will probably get lost and frustrated. At the same time, they can't be too simple, 'cause navigating and backtracking through them will be boring. The inconsistency here is that you still have obvious UI elements like the season switcher, the tree markings, the flower plot counter. Yet you don't have a minimap. And by the time you've understood and memorized the arrangement of levels and don't need the minimap as much, you're in the section of the playthrough that's 80% backtracking. It's basically artificial extension of play time by means of confusion and repetition. I may re-play the game sometime in the future, but only for the visuals and the music. And boy, are those great! Great enough to lift this game from a 4/10 to a 7/10. P.S. For all you 100%-achievement-seekers, look up the 'A Bird' achievement beforehand. It's stupid.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 25, 2016

  It was a beautiful game. The art value was decent to look at , not the typical 3D rendering we're used to today , but still easy on the eyes if you can appreciate art for its truer form. The storyline is pretty solid. ( and a bit sad. ) I won't say anymore as I really don't want to mention any spoilers. I thought at first the game was pretty easy. The way it started out , I seemed to fly through it and thought to myself it was going to be a pretty quick game that I'd accomplish fast. WRONG! Sure , it started out pretty fast paced and seemed simple enough for what it was- at the start. But as the game progressed , and the storyline progressed , the tasks needed to be done got a bit more difficult. Would I recommend this game to a friend and or a stranger ? YES! Just for the storyline itself. It was really well written in my opinion. The narration was also good... And as I said , the art form / layout that it's executed in is pretty to look at. Overall - I rate it 10/10
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2016

  Seasons After Fall is a 2D puzzle platformer. In Seasons After Fall you play as a newley born seed of the forest. You're supposed to restore the seasons and the forest sanctuary itself but being just a seed, you can't really do all that without a proper body. So you possess the body of the animal closest to you, which at the time, happens to be a fox. It's possible to play using a keyboard but a gamepad is preferred. Works fine with my rock candy xbox 360 controller, I can't vouch for any other controller but I know it with that one for sure. The graphical artstyle is stunning, reminds me a lot of Ori and the Blind Forest and in my opinion is just as gorgeous. At the time of this review there is some issue with the audio mixing. If you're using the English voice over, it gets drowned out by the music sometimes making almost impossible to hear. So I recommend using subtitles until that's fixed. There's only 1 slider for the main volume and none seperately for BGM, Sound FX and Voice...yet. It also includes German and French voice overs. The gameplay is pretty solid, the controls feel tight and responsive. There's no death in the game, you can jump and bark to interact with objects. The big gimmick this game has is being able to change seasons in order to access new areas. For instance if you switch the season to Autumn, you can grow dormant mushrooms into platforms so you can get to higher areas. Seasons like Summer and Spring change how other foliage grows and raises or lowers water levels. In winter you can freeze water spouts and climb on them. Those are just a few examples. It gets considerably more complex once you have the ability to change every season. The game does have achievements and although they were broken at first, I did find some help in the forums about how to fix them but sadly I had to start the game over again to get the earlier ones I missed. There are also some unlockable extras that are earned from discovering flower patches. After you walked through enough flower patches you'll unlock pictures of what the game looked like during the years of its development. Very interesting to see how the game progressed since the first picture in 2009. It's not the game for you if you're looking for some crazy action, it's a very relaxing game to play. Sometimes a little frustrating if you haven't figured out where to go next. It's an experience that will last 6-7 hours or more depending on your skill level and whether or not you're an achievement hunter. I think this game is well developed and damn near perfect for the kind of game it is (except for the audio issues). The developers are active and helpful on the forums too. I recommend it.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 25, 2018

  After finishing "[i]Ori and The Blind Forest[/i]" I was in such a need to play something similar that I spent about 2 days finding something that would catch my attention - and I found [i]Seasons after Fall[/i]. Obviously when you play a game you find to be the best you had played in a very long time, it is hard not to be disappointed, slightly at least. [i]Seasons after Fall[/i] was not as good as Ori but this game also does not deserve to be compared, because it has its own unique elements. The graphics was awesome (it is also the most beautiful thing in the whole game), the game itself was well responsive and very creatively done. Even though this it is not as logically complex as other games can be, you actually have to use your brain which is an element I really appreciate. On a scale from 1-10, the story itself would be a "6" for me, nothing extra special but also not bad. Seasons after Fall deserves probably a 6,5-7/10 and I would recommend it.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 27, 2017

  I was looking for something like Ori and the Blind Forest and found this. At first, I was quite disappointed, since it's nothing like Ori, but I ended up enjoying it quite a lot even though it doesn't have any fighting or action sequences of any sort. It's basically a chill-out game with nice art style, where you change seasons in order to progress through levels. But absence of a map in a game with metroidvania level design is quite a big oversight. Srsly wtf?
• gamedeal user

  Aug 28, 2020

  Pros: *The game is absolute eye-candy. Beautifully-drawn sceneries that change with the seasons yet stay recognisably the same, bold colours, artful brush-strokes. * The sounds in the game are fitting. The voice acting, even though there is little of it, adds to the atmosphere of the game. * The changing seasons concept is really neat, as it not only changes the look of the scenery but is an active part of the puzzle solving aspect of the game Cons (any why it breaks my heart to thumbs-down this game): * The game design is pretty bad. You often have to revisit places you've been to already. This would not be bad in and of itself, and new areas DO open up as you progress. However: there is very little indication of *where* you need to go next. Each area has an indicator of 'completeness' but you don't know if that is referring to something you need to do *now* or something that will open up later. So I've often found myself running from the centre all the way out to the edge of the area only to realise there's nothing new to do there, and I had to keep repeating this several times over. I'm totally fine with slow-paced games, but here it felt like I wasn't discovering anything new and I was just wasting my time. I still finished the game, but the last.. 25% of it got really frustrating.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 12, 2017

  Pretty to look at and interesting story but the gameplay was so frustrating that I didn't even want to complete it. On top of that, it just seems intent on wasting my time. The animations are painfully slow and you're forced to watch each one of them, often in sequence, and I'm not complaining about the cutscenes, I'm talking about how you're forced to watch a boulder take 5 seconds slide into the ground so that you can pass after also reviewing the puzzle you just completed, showing you that you did infact press all the right buttons in the right order. There's also no map so you're forced to guess where you are in relation to your objective or anything else. When you activate something, you're shown a scene wherein you're shown the consequences, but once you can control your character again, it's anyone's guess as to where said scene actually occurred. There are differences between the districts that you obtain the season fragments but within each of those districts, I found that everything looked very similar which didn't help with navigation. Platforming is very forgiving but it couldn't afford not to be as the controls are extremely floaty and movement extremely slow, and it's not always clear what part of a platform is actually considered solid by the game due to its artstyle. The game is considered a platformer and I considered this to be one of the most miserable parts of the game.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 4, 2016

  I bought this on impulse after seeing the gorgeous art style and I do not regret it one bit. Seasons after Fall is an immersive 2D platformer with environments as beautiful and changing as the seasons you control. The story starts slowly at the beginning but quickly develops into an engaging tale as you run, jump and dash through stunning, changeable, environments complimented by a beautiful musical score. Highly recommended!
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2016

  To begin with, the art, style and music of the game fit together very well and it is easy to see that a lot of polishing has gone into the look & feel of the game. My [b]review will focus on the gameplay[/b] as this is why I cannot recommend the game without compunction. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The [b]gameplay itself, however, I found rather boring[/b]. The [u]first half of the game[/u] is more of a tutorial which guides you through most of the game's areas and teaches the effects of [spoiler]changing seasons[/spoiler], mostly bound to follow an NPC. This would have been fine if it were to stop after finding the first [spoiler]power of changing seasons[/spoiler]. Instead, this procedure repeats [spoiler]4[/spoiler] times, making this part of the game rather dull and boring and more of a chore. It really felt like a 2D walking simulator with basic interaction. In the [u]second part of the game[/u] you revisit all the previously seen locations again - this time wihout your hands held. However, there's hardly anything to discover/explore that hasn't already been seen/done in the tutorial-part of the game - even though you see new areas, too. Overall, I found the gameplay to be rather basic and highly repetitive. [h1]Story[/h1] I found the story rather generic (it had a few neat ideas though) but told very well (good voice acting). Story-wise, you will not encounter anyhing sophisticated here. [h1]Mechanics[/h1] While the game is advertised as a platform-puzzler, I [b]can neither recommend it to fans of the platformer nor puzzle genre[/b]. The platforming-part boils down to it being a 2D game with basic jumping mechanics - there is no concept of damage, enemies or even time-critical passages. While the setting and genre reminds of [i]Ori and The Blind Forest[/i] the gameplay here is less action-packed, i.e. none at all. The puzzle-part is rather simple, too. In fact, I can only remember one puzzle near the end of the game where [spoiler]a chain of lights had to be arranged in a way similar to the one seen few screens away[/spoiler]. The advertised puzzly aspect mosty refers to picking the right [spoiler]season[/spoiler] to progress on the current screen. It is nothing like the puzzles in [i]Braid[/i] for example. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Overall I find that this [b]might be a good game for people new to both the platforming and puzzle genre though[/b], introducing them to basic platforming-mechanics without entailing the challenge of dealing with damage-taking. With the puzzles being rather simple (this isn't a [i]The Witness[/i] or [i]Braid[/i]), it might entertain newcomers but people with some gaming-background may find the gameplay too repetitive, simple or boring - something the game's art can't compensate. [b]If you find yourself not enjoing the game after 30min I recommend refunding it, since the gameplay will not change significantly later on.[/b]
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2019

  What a lovely game [b]Seasons after Fall[/b] is! Its [b]superb soundtrack[/b], [b]unique animation style[/b] and [b]imaginative level design[/b] and [b]mechanics[/b] translate perfectly into a [i]puzzle-platformer[/i] that, although [b]minimalistic[/b], has [b]loads of charm[/b]. It is true that a [b]map [i]would[/i] have improved the overall experience[/b], but not [i]significantly[/i] so - unless you [b][i]loathe[/i][/b] backtracking, that is. With [b]no combat[/b], [b]no death[/b] and [b][i]essentially[/i] no challenge[/b], [b]Seasons after Fall[/b] invites you to [b]be present[/b] and [b]take joy in the viridity of its conception[/b]: [i]just[/i] a curious fox roaming an enchanted wilderness.