Seasons After Fall Review (PS4)

It’s without a doubt that Focus Home Interactive's Seasons After Fall is a gorgeous game. It’s also easy to consider similarities when regarding the visual style to Ori and the Blind Forest, as its gorgeous pastels remind us of Moon Studios' masterpiece from 2015. However, Seasons After Fall is its own unique piece of elegance, as the game takes you through a relaxing and subdued adventure throughout the seasons of the year.

The sumptuous visuals aren’t the only thing which Seasons After Fall manages to impress with, as a mellow musical score reflects the mood of each four seasons with eloquence. The OST will definitely be going into our listening catalogues as it's very pleasantly composed. Overall, the music attributes itself to the same style reflected of the hand-brushed visuals, and push the game into its own corner of characteristic.

If you’re looking for a challenge, Seasons After Fall is not your type of game. This is the type of game to wind-down with after a hard day’s work, not when relishing the obligation that many sidescrollers have towards player skill. The engagement comes from the animations and music, not from executing a tricky jump or by strategically fighting against an enemy. You will breeze through Seasons After Fall, even with its backtracking akin to various other Metroidvanias.

What Seasons After Fall does for the Metroidvania genre is understated, as the environments you explore change in a way which hasn’t really been conceived since Symphony of the Night’s upside-down castle. Its depictions of nature and how it changes amongst every single season is incredibly unique and should be commended. While most of the game’s sequences could be considered fetch quests surrounding rather simple puzzles, it’s this simplicity that allows you to appreciate and notice the meticulous design of the game.

If there’s anything to knock Seasons After Fall on, it’s that the latter half the game becomes quite repetitive. The allure of the art and music can only be absorbed so long before its wonder becomes depleted, and as we headed into our fifth and sixth hours of the game, we eventually became quite fatigued as Seasons After Fall just kept going. If it weren’t for the otherwise splendid story which featured excellent voice-work, we doubt we would’ve pushed through the last couple hours at all with any overbearing enjoyment.