Visual novels are not for everyone. Not only does it require a large amount of reading, but some people may not enjoy the occasional selected input of dialogue. This seems to be the problem Harmony: Fall of Reverie, the new game from Don’t Nod (better known as Life is Strange), is trying to address. At first glance, Harmony looks like just your typical visual novel, but when you actually play it, you’ll discover a fascinating gamified progression and progression unlike any other game I’ve played in the genre. You’ll find branching narratives with decision-making methods.
In Harmony, you put yourself in the shoes of a young woman named Polly who has returned to her home island of Athina after many years away. When her mother Ursula goes missing, she is reunited with her stepfather Laszlo and her granddaughter Nora to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. But things get a little complicated for Polly when she finds her mother’s necklace that takes her to another dimension, the magical world of Reverie. The reverie is inhabited in living form by a group of beings known as desires, specific human emotions and concepts such as bliss, chaos, truth and power. These beings inform Polly that she is an oracle called Harmony and her job is to collect mystical energies called “eglegores” to provide them with power. However, Reverie seems to be dying for some unknown reason, and Polly must muster her will to save it and, by extension, the real world. The mystery deepens when there are signs that the Mono Concern, the corporation that has full control over Atina, is also implicated in Reverie’s fate. The story is told well with fully voiced acting for every character, and the character designs (especially the aspirations) make it memorable for everyone right from the start.
The story is told in the form of a visual novel with a branching narrative that spins out through an in-game flowchart that depicts Polly’s newfound ability to see the future. While seemingly simple, this flowchart is actually a very complex series of nodes in various forms. Some nodes are fine and just start the scene without any prior requirements. Some nodes can only be accessed after completing certain previous nodes. Some nodes are “inevitable”. In other words, we need to run those nodes the moment the lock is released. These are just a few of the different types you’ll encounter along your journey. In some cases, you need to collect a certain number of Crystals of Aspiration to access the node, and some nodes reward you with more crystals, or even give you a portion of your crystals. Sometimes they steal it. Collecting these crystals is important not only because it determines the options that will be limited later on, but also because it determines which aspirations to give to Egregore at the end of each act, which determines the events that follow. increase. good. The act of collecting these crystals is a fascinating way to move the story forward, either intentionally focusing on a particular desire or simply following your heart and determining where it goes. you know you have to.
Unfortunately, no discussion of Harmony can be complete without mentioning its biggest problem: the loading screen. Each time the game needs to load a new scene or move to a different background, the player is presented with a loading screen, which is often very long. This is a big problem, as entering one area can mean showing one dialog box and then navigating to another area with yet another loading screen. At the beginning of the game, this exact scenario is repeated several times in succession. Similarly, every time I move from a flowchart to a new scene, I have to load the flowchart, and sometimes these scenes become his 2-3 lines of dialogue before going back to the flowchart to select the next scene. may be returned. Load it again. Having to sit and wait for the next part to load each time really disrupts the storytelling flow of the game. That wait is still worth a few seconds, but if it happens multiple times in-game, that wait starts to add up. for a few minutes. When a visual novel has something to interrupt the story, this is often kind of disappointing and quickly starts to get boring.
Harmony: Fall of Reverie is a fascinating and experimental exercise in how to write branching narratives in a way that keeps players occupied with more than the occasional binary choice. The way the player handles the path they take as they progress, especially the mechanics of collecting crystals, is unlike anything I’ve played before. It’s a shame the loading screen issue detracts from the experience a bit, but for fans of video game stories and the unique ways only games can tell, Harmony is worth a look.
