You have been given the power of the seasons, little seed! Now go out and see the beauty of nature!
Reviewing Seasons After Fall is a conundrum. Is it a game? Well, not exactly. Is it an animation?
Well, not exactly. What is it then? Well, it’s more of an experience with repetitive interactions, and it might simply be a therapeutic puzzler. Yes, that might be it. I think.
When you boot up Canada-based Swing Swing Submarine’s third game, you immediately are informed that this will not just be the average platformer you expect it to be. After the logo of the developer, you are given notice that this game was made with the support of the Parisian-based ‘centre national du cinema et de l’image animee’. When you see that the French center of cinema and animation backs up this game, you are in for a treat.
Seasons After Fall is a highly atmospheric light puzzle experience, in which you play a little fox controlled by a sprite or ‘little seed’ as the game calls it. You are on a quest to collect the essence of the Guardians of the seasons, so you can bring back the natural cycle of things to the forest you live in. Throughout the game, you can ‘change seasons’ instantaneously to solve puzzles and explore the world around you. Quite original, isn’t it?
The story is as easy-going as the difficulty and pace of this game, and should be considered as a means of providing more framing to the game, rather than something that makes you sit on the edge of your seat. From the beginning, you basically know how the game is going to evolve, but that is not the point of Seasons After Fall. As I mentioned before, it is more of an experience, comparable to for example Journey (2012). You are urged to slow down, pay attention to your surroundings, goof around a little bit, and soak up everything that is game can offer you.
The strongest aspects of this game are the visuals and sound design. ‘Seasons’ offers graphics that resemble some of Studio Ghibli’s films, especially The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013). It is very rewarding to toy around with the changing seasons and to watch the world around you respond to that. Every aspect of the world looks a bit rougher on the edge, as if the designers decided to use broad strokes of paint rather than minute details.
But does the game offer more than mesmerizing graphics, an original starting point, and light puzzles? Sadly not. After I had spent some time playing – or experiencing – this game, I started to feel a bit bored, really. The story does not twist and turn, although it has the potential to do so. As the little fox, you also have to pass the same areas multiple times. Sure, you experience the entire game across the four seasons, but after a while, this gets rather dull too.
Conclusion:
As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, Seasons After Fall is a conundrum. It slips and slides between an animation, an experience, and a game, and it is difficult to turn this into a straightforward review, and draw a straightforward conclusion from all of this. Perhaps the way to explain it is the following: this game had me hooked on its visual style and slowed-down, by times even therapeutic moments. It made me think of little things, and dream of bigger things. It changed my emotions as I changed its seasons. It had more impact on me than I had impact on the events in the game itself. And that’s saying something.
