Ary and the Secret of Seasons Review Summary

Beautiful graphics and a charming story with great voice acting are undermined by bugs and clunky combat; buy on sale only.

Beautiful and charming graphics: Many reviews highlight the beautiful, stylized, and cute visuals. The art style contributes significantly to the game's appeal and atmosphere.

Enjoyable and fairy-tale story: The story is described as fun, enjoyable, and fairy-tale like. Players find it beautiful, interesting, and worth experiencing.

Game quality and concept praised: Players consistently describe the game as good, entertaining, and well-conceived. The overall experience is seen as enjoyable and worthwhile.

Great voice acting and cutscenes: Players commend the voice acting and well-animated cutscenes. However, some note that voice acting is scarce where present.

Well-designed platforming and puzzles: The platforming sections and puzzles are generally well-received, being fun and well-designed. Puzzles are balanced, not too simple or frustrating.

Game is buggy and unplayable: Multiple clusters report numerous bugs, glitches, and unfinished states that severely impact gameplay. Players describe the game as a buggy mess, riddled with issues, and borderline unplayable.

Combat is clunky and unpolished: Combat mechanics are consistently criticized as janky, stiff, awkward, and lacking player feedback. The system feels unpolished and unexplained, making battles boring and unsatisfying.

Game lacks polish overall: Players note the game is rough around the edges, crude, and unpolished across all aspects. This general lack of polish contributes to a poor overall quality impression.

Controls are imprecise and annoying: Controls are frequently called awful, crude, and imprecise, with no quick map button and awkward button mappings. This affects core navigation and combat usability.

Price not worth quality: Multiple players feel the price is too high for the game's quality, describing it as overrated and not justified. This suggests value concerns.

Season-changing puzzle mechanics: A defining mechanic is the ability to change seasons, which alters the environment and affects puzzle solutions and traversal. This unique feature is highlighted across several reviews and adds depth to exploration and problem-solving.

3D platformer with action-adventure: Reviews classify the game as a 3D platformer combined with action-adventure elements, including puzzle solving and role-playing aspects. This blend creates a varied gameplay experience.

Puzzle-heavy gameplay core: The game strongly emphasizes puzzle-solving, with puzzles present throughout its dungeons and exploration. These puzzles are described as thematic and suited for older children, indicating a moderate difficulty level.

Combat with defensive actions: The game includes combat featuring counter moves, parrying, and dodging, alongside enemy and boss battles. This combat system complements the puzzle and platforming elements, providing variety.

Exploration and adventure focus: Exploration is a key component, with players engaging in adventure and discovery. The game is described as an exploration game with open-world aspects, though it is not fully open.

Bugs and technical issues: Many reviewers mention encountering bugs and performance problems, indicating a widespread technical quality issue. These range from minor bugs to more problematic crashes and autosave failures.

Save system problems: The save system is unreliable, with autosave failures leading to progress loss and lockouts requiring a restart. A player noted the autosave system failing, while another had the game get stuck during autosave.

Graphical glitches and clipping: Players experience graphic glitches, visual issues, and environmental clipping, alongside description of the game as riddled with bugs. This points to rendering and collision problems that affect immersion.

Sound and audio issues: Various audio problems include sound lagging behind cinematics on higher settings, missing background music, mismatched NPC audio, and cutscenes playing without audio. Some players had to lower visual settings to fix sound issues.

Positive performance and minor bugs: Some players report generally stable performance, minor bugs only, and that the game runs well on Steam Deck. This indicates that experiences vary and that the game is playable for some.

Buy on sale only: Multiple reviewers consistently advise purchasing the game at a discount, often emphasizing that the full price is not justified. They recommend waiting for a sale or finding a steep discount to get a fair deal.

Recommended overall: Several reviewers recommend the game positively, citing its overall quality, charm, or enjoyment. They suggest it as a worthwhile experience, especially for fans of the genre.

Not worth full price: A significant portion of feedback states that the game's price does not match its value. Reviewers feel it is overpriced and not worth purchasing at the current price, even suggesting waiting for a heavy discount.

Price sensitivity: Several reviewers emphasize that the game's value is heavily tied to its price. They suggest buying at a steep discount or not at all, indicating strong price sensitivity.

Mixed opinions: Feedback is divided, with some reviewers recommending the game enthusiastically while others hesitate due to issues. Overall, the game receives both praise and criticism.

Community fair range: $5.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 10.0h.

Story completion: 11.0h.

The game begins with significant friction from tutorial-like design, boring combat, and repetitive exploration, but puzzles improve midgame and certain boss fights offer enjoyable mechanics, leading to a later onset of fun.

Friction: tutorial-like early game; boring combat; tedious backtracking; repetitive environments; unrewarding exploration; boring infodumps and quests.

Unlock drivers: puzzles improve midgame; boss fights with puzzle mechanics.

Casual Light Adventurer: Casual, prefers light puzzle-adventure, saves manually, ignores minor bugs. Motivation: Relaxing exploration and puzzle-solving in a colorful world. Stance: sale.

Frustrated Achievement Hunter: Methodical, multiple playthroughs, careful navigation to avoid deaths and glitches. Motivation: Unlocking all achievements despite game-breaking bugs. Stance: no buy.

Price-Conscious Skeptic: Evaluates games critically, prefers polished experiences, waits for sales. Motivation: Finding value for money; comparing game quality to alternatives. Stance: deep sale.

Steam Deck: The game suffers from significant control precision issues and technical bugs like collision problems and abrupt black screen transitions, creating high friction for Steam Deck playability. Positive aspects exist but are overshadowed by these core issues.

Frequent Zelda comparisons: Many reviews compare the game to The Legend of Zelda series, often citing 3D entries like Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, and note similarities in dungeon design and gameplay feel. Some also mention old RARE N64 games and other titles like Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Pricing concerns raised: Several reviews state the game is not worth its full price, suggesting it should be cheaper or bought on discount. Full price is described as steep, with recommendations to pay only a fraction of the cost, especially given quality issues.

Comparison to classic games: Reviews compare the game to Super Mario 64 for camera control and Banjo Kazooie, Zelda, and old N64 games, noting similar issues like camera problems.

Achievement system details: The game features 38 Steam achievements, mostly easy, but includes a speedrun achievement and a no-death run achievement. Most achievements unlock in the first playthrough, but a second playthrough is required for the speedrun achievement, which is noted as a drawback.

Playtime around 7-12 hours: Reviews report playtime ranging from 7-9 hours for the main story to 10-12 hours for a full playthrough, with one reviewer completing 100% in 7 hours on a blind run. Length is considered moderate, though one outlier claims 40+ hours.