This is most likely to be a forest/woods-themed level, because it's much easier and visually dramatic to show the differences between, say, spring, summer, fall and winter when the leaves (or lack of) on the trees are different for at least three of the seasons. Compare that to, for example, tropical or desert regions, which are unlikely to even have snow in the winter.
See also Seasonal Baggage. Very likely to result in Dual-World Gameplay. Compare and contrast with It's Always Spring, Forest of Perpetual Autumn and Endless Winter, which is when one particular area is in a locked season while the rest of the game world is not.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Adventure Games
- New Pokémon Snap: The Elsewhere Forest, with foggy woods where the seasons change depending how Espeon was interacted with before entering a new area, allowing the player to see the seasonal variants of several Pokemon. The end of the chapter has a glade where all four seasons can interact—and if done in the right way, all four variants of Sawsbuck and Deerling can interact together for one of the challenges.
- Piglet's Big Game has Tigger's dream, the penultimate level. It is set in a plethora of four different seasons, and finding certain keys that correspond to each season is required to open up the wagon in the carnival section to help Piglet locate Tigger's missing stripes.
Action Adventure
- Ary and the Secret of Seasons: The world of Valdi is centered this way, where each region is divided based on the four seasons.
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: Swinging the Rod of Seasons while standing on a Tree Stump causes the seasons to change, making various paths open and close (water freezes and leaves fall off certain trees in winter, Blast Blooms that launch you higher awaken in spring, lakes dry up and ivy grows in summer, leaves cover pits and stone mushrooms soften in fall, et cetera). Due to the plot, the default season varies depending on which area of the overworld map Link's on; after beating the game, except in a linked game, the map defaults to spring (except in the mountain areas that are always in winter).
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has just the Fishing Hole, whose season changes as you exit and re-enter in the same session. The season affects which fish you can catch and where they hang out, but the biggest use of this gimmick is lure-catching the adult Hylian Loach* in the summer, when lily pads grow in the northern area.
Beat Em Up
- Chipmonk! is set across all four seasons, where you spend spring, summer and autumn beating up rats, porcupines, gophers, moles and assorted rodent enemies to confront the ruthless grey squirrel king who stole the entire land's food supply hoarding it for himself for the winter.
Driving Game
- Choro Q HG 4 has a seasonal change, so the atmosphere changes in every town depending on the months.
- Forza:
- Forza Horizon 4, set in Britain, features seasonal changes as a key gimmick, with a seasonal change occuring every real-life week. This substantially changes the look of the world as well as some actual gameplay elements: Rivers are shallow in summer and fast-flowing in spring, while winter brings icy roads and deep snow.
- Forza Horizon 5, set in Mexico, brings back this mechanic in a more subdued form. The map no longer snows over in winter (aside from on the very peak of a mountain), but the water levels of lakes and rivers, the likelihood of seeing rain, and how lush the desert is, are all based on the current season.
- Hill Climb Racing: The Seasons level changes its background and setpieces corresponding to another season every few hundred meters.
- Mario Kart 8 has an Animal Crossing-themed DLC course which changes seasons each time it's played.
- Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing: Transformed: Seasonal Shrines, the Shinobi-themed course, changes seasons in each lap; spring for lap 1, summer for lap 2, autumn for lap 3. It cleverly disguises the change by having a brief outing through a cave near the beginning of each lap.
Fighting Game
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl has Yoshi's Island as one of the playable stages. During a match the stage changes scenery and colors between all four seasons, also changing the music. Nothing besides the graphics, colors, and music changes, having no effect on actual gameplay. This stage also appears in the 3DS game and Ultimate.
Platform Game
- Banjo-Kazooie: The ninth and final world in Gruntilda's Lair is Click Clock Wood, a very large level that uses this trope, and it's forest-themed. A giant tree, with inhabitants such as a squirrel who collects nuts for the winter and an eagle who's slowly growing up, serves as the focal point.
- Fox N Forests: One of its core gameplay mechanics is that Rick can use magic to temporarily change the seasons to get past obstacles.
- Glyph: This Celeste mod features the eponymous map, Glyph, which has Madeline explore a surreal, maze-like forest. Touching portals found throughout the level will teleport her to versions of the forest in different seasons, starting with spring before shifting to summer, winter, and finally fall. Beating Glyph unlocks the "Season-Sides", four bonus levels that extend each season's gimmick over an entire stage.
- Kirby Super Star: Grass Planet Floria has four different variants based on the seasons, which you can switch between by entering the doors sprinkled throughout. Each variant has slightly different geography from the effects of the weather (e.g. frozen water), so you need to cycle through them to proceed through the level and get the Copy Essences.
- Mickey Mousecapade: This NES game features a woods-themed level that merely uses a Palette Swap to differentiate between spring (pink blossoms/leaves on trees), summer (green leaves), fall (brown leaves), and winter (white leaves, white snow instead of green grass, and the path now looks like ice). Doors take the player between seasons.
- Seasons After Fall: The protagonist (a disembodied spark possessing a fox) can change the weather and plant life by merging with fragments of the seasons to reach new areas.
- Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Mushroom Hill Zone Act 1 is filled with green plant-life. Almost immediately after starting Act 2, everything becomes orange. Near the end of the level the grass and trees turn a dull yellow. At the end of the level, you destroy a weather control dish and things return to being lush and green in time for the Boss Battle.
- Super Mario Galaxy: Honeyhive Galaxy is filled with green grass, bees, and spring foliage. The later-unlocked Gold Leaf Galaxy is the exact same terrain but in autumn, as everything is covered in orange leaves.
RPGs
- Fable II gives us the Knothole Island DLC which gives us the titular Knothole island which is experiencing seasonal lock. It is up to the player character to find the secrets of the island and eventually you can set Knothole to be a different season.
- Harvest Moon: All of the games pass through the four seasons, primarily affecting which crops can be planted, but sometimes also influencing access to different locations. For example, Harvest Moon SNES weeds cannot be picked up in winter, when they are covered in snow, and the fishing hole is frozen over.
- Pokémon Black and White and its sequels have the region of Unova in which the season changes every real-time month. The effects of this include gaining/losing access to secret items and locations, changes in wild Pokémon rarity, and variances in the game music. An entire evolutionary line was introduced for these games that changes appearance based on the season, though this has no effect on its actual stats.
- In Secret of Mana, each area of the Upper Land Forest represents a different season.
Stealth-Based Game
- Thief II: The Metal Age: One mission has Garrett revisit the Maw of Chaos, which this time has an arboreal area divided into four sections, each resembling one of the four seasons.
