Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is an interesting title that can easily be classified as a visual novel. Developed by DON’T NOD, this title is aimed at the casual playerbase who loves a good story. A choice-based mechanic can be seen throughout the game, and will affect the final outcome of the storyline. There are a lot of things that work in its favor, while there are some other areas that could have received some more attention.
Harmorny: The Fall of Reverie is a title that visual novel enthusiasts will probably enjoy. Having said that, here’s my take on it.
The visuals compliment the storyline in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie
Even though it’s a visual novel, completing Harmony: The Fall of Reverie will take you a solid 8-10 hours. What’s interesting is that the visuals that you see in the game, in terms of the artwork and the world design, often compliment what is happening in the storyline.
For example, when you come across the Aspiration known as Chaos, the character itself is designed using some chaotic themes. The color combination chosen for this character is fairly diverse, and the same can be said for the background artwork as well.
This holds true for all the other Aspirations that you will come across in the game. The title, as mentioned before, is driven by choices, and at the end of the day, the choices will affect the final outcome. If you haven’t already guessed it, there are multiple endings. While that does add some amount of replayability, I felt that the choices weren’t that impactful enough.
I won’t go into much detail about the choices because that is spoiler territory, but they could have had a bit more weight. If you love games that have a strong storyline, you will love Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, but then again even the story falters at times.
The title is divided into seven parts – a prologue, an intermission, and five different acts. Every choice that you make is represented by nodes in the Augural. While you will be given the option to choose between most of them, you will also come across certain Inevitable Nodes that you will have to play out.
As you progress through the different nodes, you will come acros a Revocation. This behaves a lot like a point of no return because it blocks out the other nodes within its vicinity.
Each act deals with an Aspiration and has a theme that resonates with the Aspiration in focus. The artwork is on point. Every character is beautifully designed. The same can be said for the background as well.
Don’t get me wrong, the visuals are somewhat basic so to speak. But sometimes, it’s the basic things that look beautiful. The designers didn’t go overboard when it came to designing how the game would look, and that is something that worked in their favor.
As for the gameplay mechanics, not much has changed since the preview. You can sit back and just use a keyboard to make your choices. You can also use a controller or even a mouse if you wish to. Since there’s not much movement involved, you can just sit back and watch the story unfold infront of your eyes.
The audio elements are the major highlights of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie
Since there’s not much going on in terms of the gameplay in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, the developers had to make sure they got the other elements correct. Although the story could have been slighty better, the remaining components were aboslutely on point.
What they did with the visuals was replicated beautifully with the audio elements as well. The ambient sound that you hear when you’re in the Augural adds a level of mysticism to the entire setting, which is befitting given that Polly, the protagonist, has the ability to see the future!
Not just that, you will be making those game-defining choices when you’re in the Augural, so the mystical audio does make sense here. The voice acting is also stellar. It gives the characters a new life, and does promote the narrative as well in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.
In Conclusion
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a choice-driven story-based visual novel that is recommended for all enthusiasts. While the game misses the mark when it comes to the storyline and the choices, it does well with respect to the audio-visual elements.
Despite its flaws, this title wasn’t boring at all. The story progressed at a gentle pace and wasn’t too overwhelming. Given that it has a replayability factor associated with it, I will definitely come back to the title over and over again, just for the alternate endings. Even if not for that, I’ll keep coming back for the soundscape that the game offers.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie
Reviewed On: PC (Code provided by DON’T NOD)
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam
Developer: Metalhead Softwares Inc.
Publisher: DON’T NOD
Release Date: June 8, 2023
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