"Should we take comfort knowing the god of forgetting will also be obliterated by time?"

I've tried for a bit now to put my thoughts into a shape, but cannot. Besides the somewhat janky walking/biking camera, this game was very nice to play. It was nice to visit beautiful locations and capture the sights and sounds with my camera and recorder.

Spiritually this game also feels in line with what I spend a lot of time thinking about. The nature of memory, trauma, remembering, forgetting. Living, here, now, in the moment. Spending time with others. Forming new connections. Building community. Passing things on to our descendants. Letting go of the past. Remembering the past. Driving change. Going with the flow. Experiencing Nature.

I think I will continue to think of this game for a long time.

Season is at its best when dealing in broad emotional strokes and focusing on player expression, which for me were both prevalent and strong enough to get me to spend 8 hours in its world in a single day. Framing the camera for perfect photos, capturing audio, and ultimately arranging a narrative of each area in a scrapbook, especially if you buy into the premise of telling the world's story for future generations, is a tantalizing offer. Minor moments reminded me of Sable, though as an expression of a character's journey this doesn't quite live up to that.

Unfortunately, I think a big part of why is because Season also gives a little too much attention to its own presentation of the world's story. Some of the specifics of the plot can get pretty goofy and probably shouldn't have been allowed to interfere with what makes the game work, and the journalistic objectives you're occasionally tasked with are only nice in that they add pages to your journal, not so nice in that there are large portions of them that are effectively already authored. These "mysteries" you can solve are presumably optional, and are likely intended as direction for players who aren't as comfortable with self-motivated goals [or those who want more definitive lore], but pulling on a certain string in the world and being presented with a checklist of objectives isn't a great feeling in a game that otherwise isn't terribly concerned with how you decide to portray the locales.

Which is not to say that the game's authored moments always miss--they can speak poignantly enough to ideas of loss, memory, and lived experience, most effectively in the opening sequence. And the visuals are certainly striking! I'm very glad to have had a pleasant, chill Sunday with it.

Há diversas coisas que amei em Season: A Letter to the Future, mas uma das principais é que ele não tenta ser um jogo divertido.
Season é contemplativo e reflexivo. Todas as discussões, filosofias e ideias apresentadas podem ser aplicadas não só no nosso mundo, mas no nosso dia a dia. Como enxergamos o tempo? O que é o futuro? Tradição ou progresso? O que significa deixar tudo para trás? O define uma "mudança de época"?
Seu ritmo é bem lento, há poucas ações que o jogador pode fazer, mas a narrativa amarra tudo de forma maravilhosa e emocionante, tudo isso apertando o botão do gravador, tirando uma foto e pedalando uma bicicleta.
Com tudo isso dito (e muito não dito), já coloco Season: A Letter to the Future como um dos meus jogos favoritos de 2023. Joguem!

Unfortunately, Season does little to emphasise the nature of journeys outside of animating vast beautiful landscapes that conform to meanings that impress, homogeneously, the overwritten narrative laboriously pounded into your ears. The talkiness of the story, dully delivered by some sleepy performances that suffer from totally absent direction (or convincing character motivation), completely eats up any sense of player empathy with the characters; the vistas become postcards with absent scrawl on the back, written by a backpacker convinced of the cosmic significance of staying in hostels and eating "local cuisine" served out of tourist traps.

Normally I say, "verbs, not vibes" for designing the delivery of how a game should feel in conveying its tonality, but the aggressive nature with which Season commodifies its world through the gathering purpose (poorly framed as archival bedrocking, something which totally goes against the current efforts of archival practices wresting free of the nature of highly authored "cornerstones" of import in many institutions of the past) it builds all interaction around the vague, ethereal nature of journeying - literally, leaving things behind - is wasted on the acknowledgement of the game as a product. It's not the developers fault that game clipping and sharing is now a highly commercial enterprise external to games as art, but given the antiquity of that facet of community nowadays, they should have realised the optics and feel of such a scaffolded feel when moving through their spaces.

Spaces being here a very general term. The game is sidewalks: paths are enclosured, and any trying to feel less like a zoo animal will immediately bring more to mind the feeling of playing Super Mario Bros than Sable. You can follow motion through forward or back, but regardless of what you feel is pushing you in a direction, the developers do not allow the desires of the player nor of a player narrative to create expectation, payoff, or ambiguity of the journey outside of the highly rote, terribly cliched, experience.

And as a capstone, the animatic cutscenes have some of the worst examples of stealing the component parts of comics to "cut costs" I've ever seen in a game. The lettering is atrociously mechanised, creating a horribly ugly script that has no life or wit to its line, yet it draws all attention to it by being placed in awful MS paint ovals that consider not at all the composition of the frame they are put in. The models at rest in each 'frame' are not composed on beats of the scene, but at dim relaxations of muscle, taking all life out of the image, rendering the screen a puppet show lost for a puppeteer.

Season is a beautiful, contemplative experience, where the moments between gameplay are often more impactful than the gameplay itself. It's in that quiet time, spent biking through the woods and reflecting on what you've just seen, that Season truly comes to life.

Its only real failure is in feeling comparable to better games. I was frequently reminded of other titles like Outer Wilds, Firewatch, and Paradise Killer, all of which have an extra bit of magic that Season is lacking.

Still - this is a good game, and I will be thinking about it for a long time.

I think I've now found some of the words for talking about this game. So I’ll now make an effort to describe why Season: A Letter to the Future might actually be my absolute favorite video game concurrently. An effort I’ll probably return to sometime in the future.

As a person deeply interested in the topic of the archive, the base premise already resonates with me. I think the way a society preserves its history, memories and legacy is very indicative of how that society is structured and which values it upholds. History is not a given, it’s a process of writing and re-writing, at least loosely informed by the archives that hold traces of the past. But those traces aren’t a given either. Whose history does a society decide is worth recording and safeguarding? Whose history is neglected or even getting erased? The archive belongs to the ghosts - but we need it to know who we are and where we came from. There’s an intangible feeling of sadness and loss that comes with these questions, especially when talking from a queer perspective. I’m non-binary – and I do rarely find myself anywhere in what the west calls its history. Season: A Letter to the Future sits somewhere in this entangled mess of historiography, softly and calmly singing its own song.

You'd think that gamifying the process of writing about history would result in a game that you could "100%", in which you could collect all the collectibles and “win” at historiography. But Season isn't that. It's as much a game about what you do not or cannot record as it is one about what you end up recording. The tools you are given to do so are a camera, a microphone, and handwriting (or rather: handwritten prompts). What you record with them is stored in a notebook, which you can freely customize – one page per area or topic is all you are given. It’s way too little to store every information you find. The player is put in the position to center what parts are important to them and what aspects of the current season they want to preserve. They also have the power to assign moral judgements to some events, influencing if and how the next season will remember what happened. The game also adds a clever twist to its setting: It’s set in the context of already having happened. It starts with a person already reading the “finished” notebook. The parts of the game you play are narratively already in the past – this re-focuses who else might be reading the book in the future and what they are taking away from it.

Season is also about what can’t be recorded or written down, about a lot of small or big moments and their atmosphere. The roadtrip-setting of the game is one filled with endings without closure, fitting for a game about recording history. In that aspect, it’s not just about history, but also about living in it. About the people you meet and their right (not) to be remembered. But also about the people you can no longer meet, about the absences felt in this game’s world – which is brilliantly crafted. Through careful sound design, it manages to have a tangibility to it that few games will ever reach. A tangibility that makes you feel the absences even more intensely.

Season’s writing is also incredibly strong and poetic. It uses every inch of its dialogues and monologues to think about history, memory and the emotional depth that reside in those concepts. It’s beautiful. And I think that is the note I want to end on, for now. I don’t want to get into spoilers yet, as I think this game benefits from having no idea what happens next – it’s a roadtrip, after all. But I’ll return to this space, sometime in the future. Because I have so many more words to find and sentences to form about Season: A Letter to the Future.

A truly beautiful experience I won't soon forget.

Thinking about forgetting, about mortality, about the impermanence of life, and how precious and important it is to me, of how much pain can be felt in losing it, and how much beauty there is in truly taking the time to SEE it...

Thank you for this.

In the words of the writer, "it's never too late."

Preserving culture is invaluable to humanity, as traditions can remind us of our past in ways that can inform our future. But not all cultures get that luxury since some naturally die or are purposefully killed. Season: A Letter to the Future explores and gamifies that concept; a novelty in the medium, but one that is let down by its anemic world and lack of purpose or urgency.

Read the full review here:
https://www.comingsoon.net/games/reviews/1260100-season-a-letter-to-the-future-review-ps5-wortth-buying

I think everyone should play this game.

I don't know how to talk about it, though. How to say "I cried at least ten times not because the game was sad — though it sometimes was — but because it was so tender, so loving, so unique" without sounding like a pretentious asshole. I don't know how to talk about Kochi, a little boy who shares his memories of his father with you because there's no way to put that love to letters. I don't know how to talk about the line "It's the two hardest things to hold in your head. They were just boys, and they killed my family" without dissolving into tears.

It's easier to talk world-building and visuals and mechanics. This game has perhaps the most interesting world in any game I've played recently. The societies and values are so much like ours and yet not like ours at all. The mixture of modern aesthetics with old-world mysticism feels so wonderful and lovely. It's explicitly post-apocalyptic but also not. It's SO gorgeous to look at, and the style is so so unique and the models are so so gorgeous.

The walking is sometimes clumsy, and you can get stuck — the game knows this, and the pause screen has a helpful button for unsticking you. The bike - riding, assuming you don't end up wedged in a corner, feels good and tight and not tight at all, much the way actually riding a bike is, I spose. But the gameplay focuses less on moving through the world and more on recording it. There are a few things in the world that you must record to progress, but by and large what you record and why is purely up to you. My journal was filled with photos and sounds that were mine, meaningless nothings that don't matter, but maybe they do, because I saw them, because I recorded them, because I am a part of the world and in seeing and recording I make the world part of me. If you want fast, kinetic gameplay, this isn't it, but the game and the story wouldn't be served by gameplay like that. The gameplay is perfect for telling the story the story wants to tell.

And — it's funny, because gamer-brain initially made this very thing hard to enjoy. I wanted clearer marks of progression. I felt like I'd failed each time I took a photo that wasn't plot relevant or recorded a song that didn't change the worldstate. I was frustrated I wasn't moving fast. Games train us in all sorts of ways, and the leading games in the world now might create beautiful worlds, but they don't really want you to look at them. They want you to find the right tool, the right answer, the golden ending.

And if there's a right tool, there's a wrong one. If there's a golden ending, there's a bad one. If the world is beautiful but not meant to be seen, then the people in the world aren't real, they're enemies or allies or NPC fodder. And this game eschews all that. It's a game where the magic isn't in winning, it's just in seeing and being and loving. It was disconcerting and refreshing, how the game never "takes a side" — it observes the world, and the protagonist has the occasional curious thought about the extreme actions taken by others, but there's no judgement in the thoughts. There are no villains, just people, doing what they can to escape and survive. The game doesn't ask you to come down hard on one side of it's internal debates about rightness, wrongness, memories — it doesn't stop you, but the way the game lets you observe is so wonderful. I've seen other say the ending feels abrupt, but it's the only way for it to end, I think. Abrupt, like the end of the world, but still loving, still whole.

When I finished, my first thought was that I wanted to replay immediately. It's a short game, and I wanted to try the other dialogue options, learn more about this world and these societies that are so similar and so alien to mine. I wanted to see the other ending. But at the same time...this game isn't like that. It's not a game to devour fast as you can, to scour and scum through to achieve maximum content. It's a game that feels a little like climbing into a warm bath. It envelopes you without swallowing you and without you swallowing it. It's just...comfy, and buoyant, and sometimes you sit and you listen to the water and you feel like you're more in the world than you ever have been. I will replay it sometime, probably sometime soon, but...I want to sit with it longer first. I want to let my fingers prune and unprune. I want to let the Season end, and appreciate what it left me with.

I guess, if the game has a moral, a meaning, something you need to take from it, it's something simple: to love even in a world that is passing away, and to take comfort that this end of the world is neither the first or the last. Something new to love will come after, as it always does, and as it has again and again and again.

Season: A Letter to the Future is a unique and thought-provoking game that centers around the concept of collaging as you progress through the story. The main feature of collaging sets this game apart, allowing players to create captivating visual and audio representations of their journey. Similar to Red Dead Redemption 2's artistic side feature, Season takes collaging to the next level by making it the core gameplay mechanic. This opens up a world of possibilities, not limited to just pictures and drawings but also encompassing audio recordings.

The game's exploration of collaging and its underlying philosophies, such as the transformation and preservation of memories, is truly inspiring. It made me reflect on the experiences in my own life that I could have beautifully captured in a book rather than mere smartphone pictures. Moreover, collaging in Season has the potential to enhance artistic abilities, with opportunities for drawing, photography, storytelling, painting, and more.

Visually, Season boasts an aesthetically pleasing art style with an oil paint aesthetic that covers the entire game. The attention to detail is commendable, from the way the main character's sweater flows in the wind to the stunning shrine areas that create a spiritual ambiance. The character designs throughout the story are deliberately exaggerated, making each NPC feel unique and relatable, both in appearance and origin.

The dialog between the main character and the environments she encounters is soothing, thought-provoking, and filled with philosophical questions. I found myself pondering the same things as the protagonist, fostering a strong sense of connection. The emotions portrayed between the main character and her mother are relatable and add depth to the narrative.

The camera mechanics in Season are one of the standout features. The ability to choose from a variety of filters adds a personal touch to the visual experience, and the simplicity of the filters is appreciated. The zooming and manual focusing functions are well-implemented, providing a seamless and enjoyable photography experience. While more customization options for filters would have been welcome, the limited choices ensure that players spend less time adjusting settings and more time capturing memories.

The recorder feature allows players to choose the duration of their audio recordings, adding a layer of coherence and emotional attachment. Side quests involving collaging enhance the gameplay by introducing an investigative aspect. Instead of being handed the story of a location after taking a photo, players are encouraged to explore further, answering important questions about the game's lore through their pictures.

The variation in choices while exploring is a highlight of Season, as it offers an open-world experience for most sections. The paths are designed to spark curiosity, inviting players to venture off the beaten track and discover hidden gems.

The Scrapbook feature serves as the game's main attraction, evoking nostalgia and a sense of accomplishment. The ability to review past collages triggers a pleasant mental stimulation, as you reflect on the moments you captured, the placement of photos, chosen quotes, and even stamps. However, the movement of items within the Scrapbook can sometimes glitch, causing pictures and text in the top-left corner to be displaced. It would have been ideal to have more customization options, such as selecting and resizing multiple items, allowing for greater creative expression.

While Season offers a compelling story told in a philosophical manner, the absence of mouth movement in the dialog sections is a minor letdown. Although it enhances accessibility, the lack of anthropomorphic detail makes the game feel less immersive. Additionally, more animations during interactions with objects would have added depth to the gameplay.

The biking mechanics in Season could benefit from improvements. The lack of speed reduction when deviating from the main path or going through water, coupled with the floaty feeling during uphill portions, diminishes the sense of realism.

Overall, I would give this game a 7/10.

One of the more beautiful games I’ve played, and a thing that feels like it was destined to find me at this precise moment of my life, as I grapple with the recent passing of my dad. This gentle journey through the most bittersweet and bucolic post-apocalypse I’ve seen, armed with nothing but a camera, a field recorder, and a bicycle: this is what I needed

Everything in Season is poetry. The familiar world tinged with a hint of magic. The far-reaching thoughts of the main character as she opens her eyes to the life, culture, and history of her surroundings. The understated character work and voice acting. The richly layered thematic material. Here is a game deeply concerned with memory and loss, while always keeping a hopeful, if anxious, eye toward the future. I love the tone that’s captured here so much

Games like this often focus on their writing, their art, their vibes, but Season deserves recognition for the mechanics on display as well. Whipping out a device and capturing a moment feels effortless, and the world has been assembled with such fastidious care that every shot I took felt like a minor masterpiece. I cannot overstate how important this was. Compared to a game like Umurangi, where I rarely felt like I’d actually taken a “good” picture, Season made me feel like a photographic genius. The lighting and composition always fall right into place like magic. I walked away from this thinking “gee maybe I should take up photography!” (I won’t). And although at the start of the game I was worried that assembling the scrapbook might get old and tedious, it never did. I loved finding new ways to arrange the elements of each page, I loved the mix of open-ended and goal-oriented pages, and it was a really special moment to flip back through the whole thing at the end

And then there’s the bicycle: it was such a simple and rich joy to just coast across this world. I also loved how my fingers would actually get a bit tired when biking up hills from having to pump the triggers filled with DualSense tension

I was hoping for just a little bit more from the ending, but this is dangerously close to a perfect game to me

Really really loved the world of this game, super beautiful and melancholic.
I would never like a game about coping with loss! Ever! Obviously lol
Fr tho this game is just so effortlessly beautiful, the art style is great and the world feels so distinct and lived in. There are so many little interactions and experiences to be found just from appreciating it's beauty. The characters are wonderful and I cried a lot talking with them tbh.
I don't want to say too much to spoil it but if you need some time in nature, in quiet and connecting with your past, play this game. And then go and touch grass and your community.

ALSO PLAY WITH DUALSENSE IF YOU HAVE THE OPTION I WONT SPOIL WHY BUT KEEP AN EAR OUT

A short but pleasant game about biking through a small valley, documenting its history and people to preserve for the future before the season ends and everything is swept away in a coming flood. The art style is lovely, and I was really into the meditative atmosphere with its focus on simply taking in the moment with photos and drawings. Tieng Valley is an interesting setting to explore for the time you spend in it, and I enjoyed that you’re free to go wherever you like once you arrive

If there’s one notable flaw it’d be performance since there’s quite a few FPS drops throughout that took me out of it a bit. Hopefully this can be patched but otherwise I really enjoyed it