Extreme screen tearing, aliasing (an unexpected PS2 tribute), framerate drops, pop-in, flat textures, excessive load times, broken NPCs who stand around like mannequins, wonky collision detection, unexplainable deaths - Ary is early access bingo personified.Īt one point, I equipped Ary with a lilypad hat received from a sidequest that failed to appear on her character model.
There is a downside, however Ary and the Secret of Seasons is one of the buggiest games of its type that I’ve ever played, with crippling technical problems that wouldn’t have passed muster in the PS2 days, let alone in 2020.The game isn’t just buggy in the ‘day one fix’ kind of way to which gamers have become accustomed. It represents a strong central concept allowing for considerable options for emergent gameplay, particularly in the four regions’ dungeons, which offer the most fun to be found in the game by far. The d-pad buttons are assigned to the four seasons, which are represented by weather spheres that produce various effects.For example, summer and spring spheres can melt ice walls, while the winter sphere can ice over water surfaces, allowing Ary to circumvent harsh currents. The game’s central mechanic involves using the four Guardians’ ‘Season Crystals’ to manipulate the environment in various ways. Determined, she disguises herself as her brother - a plot detail that is quickly forgotten about - and sets out in her father’s stead to convene with the other three guardians, discover what happened to Flynn, and right Valdi’s meteorological blight. Following an attack on Yule by raiding hyenas who look a bit like Fisher Price versions of the gnolls from Dungeons and Dragons, Ary discovers Flynn’s sword, a sign that he may still be alive. Ary’s father Gwenn, the Guardian of Winter, is unable to attend an emergency meeting with his compatriots as he is inconsolable over the recent disappearance of his son Flynn, Ary’s older brother. Each region is watched over by individual protectors called Guardians of Seasons, who observe their lands from a massive basilica in the centre of Valdi.Īt the beginning of the game, we learn that dark machinations related to the legend of an evil mage have disrupted Valdi’s seasonal harmony, plunging the normally tropical Lammastide into cold, Yule into warmth, and so on.
The game’s protagonist Aryelle hails from the wintry land of Yule, with the other three regions being Ostara (spring), Lammastide (summer), and Samhain (autumn). It takes place in Valdi, a world split into four cultural regions distinguished by their weather. Ary and the Secret of Seasons captures at least a little of that feeling. The Mark of Kri Haven: Call of the King Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy Legend of Kay if you were a young kid at the time, they’re the kind of games that you may have some hazy childhood memories of playing, but can never seem to remember the name of. It feels a lot more like one of the myriad rough gems of the action-adventure genre to find a home on the PS2. Ary and the Secret of Seasons chases a certain nostalgia in its design, but it isn’t Nintendo’s. And while it does share certain traits with that stalwart series, I don’t think that’s really what Belgian developer eXiin is going for. If you’ve been following the progress of Ary and the Secret of Seasons for a while, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen it compared to The Legend of Zelda.
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