Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Nintendo Switch Review

Nintendo is no stranger to revealing exciting new indie games at one of their many showcases, whether it's a Nintendo direct or indie world presentation, there is undoubtedly something to catch the eye. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie was revealed with a conspicuous teaser that featured a gorgeous art style coupled with dazzling animation and enough intrigue to captivate any narrative role-playing game fan. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie comes from French game developer Don’t Nod, best known for the award-winning Life is Strange franchise. The game follows in the footsteps of narrative-driven experiences before it, such as the critically acclaimed The Walking Dead games from Telltale.

 

You are Polly, a programmer who goes to study abroad and returns home to the fictional city of Atina after eight years to hear the news that her mother has gone missing. While searching for her mother, Polly stumbles upon a magical necklace that transports her to Reverie, a world in shambles. Once arriving, she is met by an aspiration, immortal beings who are incarnate in humanity’s feelings, desires, and intelligence. Polly, or in Reverie, Harmony, was chosen as an oracle and served as the bridge between the ethereal realm of Reverie and the material world of Brittle, where humanity lies. Reverie and Brittle are two sides of the same coin.

When there is disarray in one world, it affects the other, and vice versa. In Atina, there is much unrest amongst the citizens due to ever-increasing gentrification on behalf of Mono Konzern, a once humble company turned conglomerate that serves to encroach on the citizens' way of life. You must decide how you handle this situation. Will you side with them because they provide all the citizens with the necessities of life while simultaneously intruding on all aspects of their lives? Will you bite the hand that feeds to make a difference in the community and the world at large? That is only a sample of the many possible outcomes.

This causes strife among the aspirations of Reverie. Some will be at odds with one another, but unity amongst all of them is key to restoring Reverie and the material world of Brittle as well. One, in particular, is more meddling than the rest, but that is for you to decide. A mysterious energy, known as egregore, is integral to both worlds and is not easily describable as it is referred to as everything and nothing at the same time. This energy flows freely between the two realms and gives power to the aspirations.

 

The aspirations observe humanity from a distance and can only interact with them through their dreams and inspiration. They can also travel to Brittle but cannot be seen by anyone except Polly. They will talk to her as she interacts with the other characters. As an oracle, Polly gains clairvoyance and uses her newfound ability to see future events via the Augural, which serves as the game board where you will make decisions that have effects on future outcomes. You must be careful how you respond to certain events, as it can potentially lock you out of those outcomes.

Depending on the decisions you make, you will gain or lose crystals pertaining to a certain aspiration. For instance, Bliss embodies protection and child-like innocence, so events that net you bliss crystals are typically ones where you are more empathetic towards certain characters, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that will improve the situation. Characters might need to hear the harsh truth in a scenario to tip the scales in favor of more favorable outcomes. Harmony: Fall of Reverie features many branching pathways in the story that lead to high-replay value, making the game a real bang for your buck.

There are possibly hundreds of ways you can play out the story. By the time the credits rolled around, there was no feature to replay chapters, which seemed to be a huge oversight on the part of the developers. To witness all the many outcomes in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, you would have to restart the game from square one. One playthrough took roughly ten hours or more, so if you want to potentially see how every interaction plays out, be prepared to sink an unfathomable amount of hours.

You can only see so far ahead on the Augural, so if the string of decisions you make leads to an unfavorable outcome, you are able to restart a chapter as long as you haven’t completed it. Being a visual novel, ensuring you are up to snuff with the game’s terminology is essential to enjoying the overall narrative. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie will throw many terms at you in the course of a playthrough, making it easy to forget some. Luckily enough, an in-game glossary is provided in the form of the codex and is easily accessible at all times. It is especially handy in the middle of dialogue, where you can quickly refer to it and jump straight back into the story.

At the surface level, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a tale of a woman finding her footing with her personal issues, her friends, loved ones, and other confidants, as well as dealing with pressure from her demanding position as an oracle. At its core, it tackles a variety of themes like the gentrification, as mentioned earlier, grief, love, loss, and a host of other real-world issues. It makes for a relatable and very human story. One that makes you feel the weight of every decision Polly makes, for better or worse. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is not without its faults.

Chapters can drag on for much longer than they should have, with some segments having many needlessly small parts that could have been included in others. This effectively took me out of the story at times when you had to return to the Augural, what felt like every five seconds. This didn’t happen all the time, and I was genuinely engaged for most of the story. An engaging narrative is more integral than ever to games such as Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, where there is no actual gameplay to fall back on. Don’t Nod did not falter in ensuring the dialogue had a well-balanced diet of humor and seriousness.

 

Some end-game dialogue, in particular, gave me quite a good chuckle. The most striking thing to me was the mature rating slapped on this game. A passing glance at Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, and one would easily mistake it for a teen-rated experience, and it's not hard to see why. Only a handful of moments have some characters using curse words and discussing sexual escapades. The use of curse words was warranted to add a stronger impact to certain encounters.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie excels with its stunning art direction and gorgeously animated cutscenes. Characters are also extremely expressive and well-detailed. Certain aspirations will have unique ways of expressing their personalities, such as Power, who will shake the screen whenever he appears, gritting his teeth and beating his palm with a clenched fist to boot. This is amplified further in cutscenes. You can feel the weight of every interaction. Certain environments are in 3D to make the world feel more alive and are nice to gawk at.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie also features a soundtrack filled with chill vibes in all the right areas. The first time Polly arrives in Reverie, you are transported to a mystifying area dubbed the Nexus that features a tune that will take your ears to a place of musical delight. When serious issues are presented, such as loss, a melancholy piece plays to reflect the mood, encapsulating that feeling. The soundtrack never reaches a level deemed over the top. It’s not a memorable soundtrack by any means, but it fits when it needs to.

 

By the time the end credits rolled around, I was pleasantly surprised with my experience with Harmony: The Fall of Reverie. It is far from a perfect story, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Certain decisions I made did not always work in Polly’s favor. Sometimes it made it unbearably worse for all the characters involved and led to tough conversations, feelings of resentment, and even depressive bouts. Through all that, I achieved an ending I was more than happy with. The way serious topics were dealt with added a very human layer of expression to this world and really stood out.

The art direction of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is something to be applauded for, and the animated cut scenes made me wish there was more. Although you can replay a chapter as long as you didn’t finish it, the fact that you cannot replay other scenarios upon first-time game completion is a real bummer. Some pacing issues here and there made me groan through winded parts, but most of the time, I was anticipating the next part of the story. Overall, Don’t Nod adds another solid entry to their line of narrative role-playing games. As their first attempt of this experience in visual novel form, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie should delight fans of the genre.
 

Michael Nicolosi (@ChipmunksMikey)
Editor, NoobFeed