Ary and the Secret of Seasons - Easy Allies Review.

Coming from indie publisher Modus Games and a pair of Belgian studios, Ary and the Secret of Seasons is a Zelda-esque adventure that allows you to harness the power of the seasons, changing the elements on a journey to save the world. It's a promising concept, but once you actually dive in and start playing, shallow combat and rampant technical problems overshadow its potential.

You play as Ary, a young girl who lives in the snowy region of Yule, spending her time daydreaming about adventure. One day, Ary's world is turned upside down when a mysterious force reaches her home and suddenly transforms the once wintry region to spring.

With the rest of the world's seasons also thrown into chaos, Ary sets out to assist the Guardians of the Seasons and restore balance to the world. The overall story is pretty straightforward, but there are some nice twists and turns and additional plot threads to keep things interesting, like the mystery of Ary's missing brother.

There's also a decent number of characters to meet along the way like the seasonal Guardians, but the only ones to leave any sort of lasting impression are Ary and Prince Crocus. There's some intermittent voice acting featured during larger narrative moments, but most of the time, characters just say a few words when you talk to them.

It’s a fairly common practice in lower budget or text-heavy games. However, some of the VO here is extremely bizarre, including random screeching or yelling. It feels very out of place, but at least it provides some unintentional laughs. There’s a decent-sized world to explore with multiple zones, monsters to fight, and puzzles to solve.

While this sounds good on paper, Ary feels like it's still in the beta phase rather than a finished product. It's riddled with technical issues. Things like inconsistent framerate, screen tearing, and pop-in are constants throughout the 8 to 10-hour campaign.

And that’s just the start. Numerous other problems we encountered include bugged NPCs, loading into black screens, the camera getting stuck, Ary getting teleported after speaking to characters, and music not playing. Over time, patches may help to smooth out the experience, but in its current state, $40 seems like a hefty asking price.

Despite its bright color palette, the world feels lifeless and incomplete. Areas are mostly giant empty regions with only a few optional tasks to do like grabbing notes or doing a boring side quest. There are a few towns to visit where you can purchase gear and upgrades, but even the biggest settlements feel artificial and devoid of life due to inhabitants feeling like hollow husks rather than living people.

One of Ary's most interesting ideas is its implementation of seasons. Basically, you unlock the power to manipulate the seasons on the fly. The ability is pretty insignificant in combat, but it’s very important in terms of puzzle-solving and exploration.

For example, with winter, you can freeze water to run across or make platforms to climb. Meanwhile, spring can be used to create branches for you to climb on. Later, you can also use a slingshot to shoot seasonal effects to specific areas, which adds some welcome depth to the game's puzzles.

Combat plays a fairly large role in the game, but unfortunately, it's not good. Your movement and attacks feel stiff and imprecise, and the vast majority of enemies require no strategy outside of mashing the attack button. Thankfully, there are a few instances when your seasonal powers come into play like melting ice shields but these come up very infrequently.

You can also unleash Solstice Powers in combat which have different effects, depending on the season. For instance, summer unleashes a ring of fire, while winter protects against devastating blows. It's nice to have the seasons tie into the combat, but they're so unnecessary that it’s easy to forget about them entirely.

Ary's strongest aspect by far is its temples. There are four in total, each based on a specific season. They're very reminiscent of dungeons in the Legend of Zelda series, with puzzles to solve, enemies to fight, and a boss at the end. However, some aspects repeat way too much, like moving giant balls around or carrying a blue orb to a red one.

The boss battles also aren't very good and feel like wasted opportunities. One in particular just has you fight a few waves of normal enemies. It's disappointing, but going through each temple is still fun, thanks to some puzzles where you get to really experiment with your powers.

Ary and the Secret of Seasons feel like it's not ready for release yet. It's frustrating because there are occasional moments of promise in areas like its temples and puzzles, but the overall experience is brought down by sloppy combat, a stale world, and numerous technical issues.

If the developers take some more time to polish things up Ary could be a decent adventure, but in its current state, you're better off waiting. Easy Allies Reviews are made possible by generous viewers just like you. If you like what you see, check out patreon.com/easyallies to help us make more.