A spirit sets out to save a forest and solve a mystery in the process, and possesses a young, curious fox so they can find four animal guardians.  Each guardian is in charge of a season, and once you find them, you’ll gain a special fragment that’ll allow you to control the seasons at will.  Using this power, you’ll switch seasons to open paths and bypass obstacles in this 2-D plaforming jumping puzzler.  Seasons After Fall is available to download on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

Sometimes you’ll just control the spirit and can fly around.  But most of the time, you’ll be inside the fox.  As the fox, you can run and jump.  Press another button to bark, which can get certain creatures’ attention so they’ll run away from you, or activate guardian spirit fragments to change the seasons.  You see, when you first get a new fragment, you won’t be able to use it right away.  You’ll have to guide it back to the sanctuary, but you can bark at it to use its powers.  Once you have gathered enough seasons, you will be able to switch to them at will by pressing the R trigger button to bring up a menu.

Changing the seasons will help you open paths that you couldn’t reach before.  Some of these puzzles make sense.  Like changing to spring so the rain can raise water levels, or turning it winter so you can walk on frozen lakes.  But some puzzles defy logic.  Like making sure it’s winter so you can step on a plant’s roots so it spits out a giant snowball.  Wait…what?!

But the logic-defying puzzles aren’t the only problem in the game.  Goals and objectives, and the ways to solve some of the puzzles, are often very unclear and vague.  And you do an awful lot of backtracking.  In fact, that’s most of what you do.  And with the lack of any enemies, it can get kind of dull.  But the graphics are beautiful and the sounds are relaxing.  So if you like puzzle platformers, you may want to give this a try anyway.

Kid Factor:

Nothing too violent here.  You can chase these bugs with sponges on their back to water, and then change it to winter and freeze them, and the expanding water makes it look like the bug explodes.  And at one point in the game, it looks like the fox dies and you control its spirit.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may need help with the tougher puzzles and jumps, though.  Seasons After Fall is rated E for Everyone.

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