Stories about fate are often nihilistic by nature. The very idea of fate suggests we have predetermined paths to walk downཧ, and can either submit to them and accept that nothing we do ultimately matters as it has all been decided by a deity above us, or rebel against that notion and try to seize control via destruction, which may have been our fate all along. Fate, at its heart, is a hopeless concept. How fitting then that I often felt bereft of hope while making my way through Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.
There is a lot in Harmony that I should like, that I want to like. There are even quite a few ingredients that I do like. But that only makes the disappointment in how it comes together all the more crushing. Across both of its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life is Strange games and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tell Me Why, there's a lot to love about Don't Nod's approach to choice-based storytelling, and this time around there's a more colourful, animated art style that makes it pop. I thought at first it was this shift from 3D and exploration to 2D and visual novel formatting that was taking me some time to get used to, but it seems more like the studio's decision to 'rebrand' while keeping the name and only slightly tweaking the logo and grammar has been akin to cutting Samson's hair.
You play as Polly, who discovers in the game's opening that she has the powers of a god and is part of the Pantheon of Reverie, much like her mother Ursula. In the normal world, Ursula has gone missing, and Polly must use her new godlike connection with the pantheon to discover where her mother has gone, and unravel the secrets of the world. But in time, I found my interest unravelling along with the allegedly compelling secrets I discovered.
There is a fascinating world here, and a good game could emerge from these conditions. The normal world is set in a near future where a single company - not Amazon, definitely not Amazon - controls everything, is the only viable job option, and has drones constantly flying overhead. Meanwhil🉐e in the pantheon, each god has a story to tell and a personality to uncover. The gods have fairly literal designs (Power is a strong, angry man, Chaos a masc but suitably genderless being in a broken crown and face paint), but still manage to have some semblance of originality - this is especially true for the gods with less obvious manifestations, like the colourful and carefree teenage girl representing Bliss or the elderly and organised old man representing Bond.
However, Harmony paints itself as a choice-based narrative game, which should be Don't Nod's forte, and yet the two ideals get in each other's way. The choices work on too complex an equation to aid the narrative, and the narrative drifts when you don't feel in control of it. At times, the choices are simple - you call up Not Amazon and the call centre woman recognises you as an old school friend. You can lie to her and give a fake name, hoping it works, or admit who you are, despite the wrinkle it places in your existing plan. That's a straightforward choice, but as you get deeper into the conversation, you'll find certain choices are blocked because you don't have enough Power or Bliss or Bond tokens which you might have earned from an earlier, almost entirely unrelated conversation.
After each interaction - which can often be a line or two of dialogue rather than the whole exchange - you return to a conversation flow chart stylised like a constellation and decide where to head next. Unfortunately, the over-reliance on the token system means it feels like any choice is taken away from you, and the story isn't strong enough on its own without the interest afforded by agency. The gods have some intrigue, especially Chaos and Bond, but they're supporting players in a story that just doesn't have a lot of juice.
Searching for your mother, who is secretly a goddess, while discovering she was in an open relationship, not to mention juggling all of the family drama that comes with it and the futuristic dystopia, should be compelling. It isn't. I'm not sure I have deeper analysis than that on the narrative front. There's no character with the flair of a Chloe Price, a Tyler Ronan, a Sean Diaz. The characters are unlikeable in a multitude of ways, and while many are this way deliberately, that still doesn't make me want to spend any time with them. They often act in ways convenient for the plot or spin off in odd directions to cause a rift which Polly then must choose to fix, except the choice has probably been made depending on whether she sided with Bliss or Truth earlier in a much lower stakes conversation.
The biggest redeeming feature is the artstyle, where the vibrant cartoon depictions help add a sense of panache to the gods, even if the 'normal' characters seem fairly generic. If the writing made me feel a greater connection with these characters, maybe I'd see something deeper in the art. Even without a standout design though, it's an intriguing direction and I hope we see it again in a more realised game.
Harmony: Fall of the Reverie is too connected to its core concept of steering the future based on fate and factions, and this idea means players must abandon both the choice and the narrative in this choice-based narrative game. It's not exactly a formula for success. Despite some interesting designs and a potentially compelling tale at its heart, there's nothing harmonious about Harmony.
Score: 2.5/5. The publisher provided a PC code for this review.