Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

Remember how "Detroit: Become Human" begins by saying "this isn,'t just a story, it's our future". Well, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a story about fighting against a company that has grown so big they can ensalve God himself (kinda literally), oppress people at their will and just do whatever they want with no consequences because unchecked capitalism creates heartless monsters and eternal growth is a cancer. One of the best VNs I've played, and definitely want to play again to see other routes.

[h2]The game is quite good, but I can't recommend it[/h2] I understand that visual novels are about the story, not the gameplay. But this is the first visual novel that leaves me with a [b]very unpleasant feeling precisely because of the gameplay [\b] The gameplay consists of choosing plot nodes and collecting crystals. At first, I even liked it - it's easier to track you choices. But inside the nodes, we won't have any interactive options - we just read. Also, the need to collect crystals introduces an element of management into the game, which is completely unnecessary. I often chose a node that I didn't want just to collect the required number of crystals. The impact of decisions from previous chapters is greatly reduced. I completed the entire game, and I almost never encountered the "responsibility for the decisions made." It turns out that you can choose whatever you want, but 95% of the roads will remain open for you Additionally, the game doesn't allow you to rewind the already viewed text, and the save system is very poorly implemented. I couldn't run two games simultaneously, as attempting to interact with other save slots triggers a new game. Despite my dissatisfaction with the game's gameplay, [b]the story is enjoyable[/b]. It's the first time in my gaming experience that I've encountered a story that explores the other side of motherhood. It also touches upon themes that are quite rare in visual novels, such as the "glorification" of deceased and the perception of it by their relatives.

For a Dont Nod game, I think the fact that it has sub 500 reviews should be enough to say that it Harmony is hardly a smash hit. In truth, a lot of these reviews argue about the story or the writing, but beyond that is the poor pacing and quality of life features that any modern game (especially visual novels and Dont Nod themselves) were solved a long time ago. At the time of writing this review, the game is only 2 years old but feels far older. Pros: - Some of the character designs are cool - Early choices siding with certain characters has interesting consequences Cons: - The artwork is horrible - The music is a single soundtrack that sounds like they bought it off some free website. It never matches the tone of whats going on at all - They pull you in and out of scenes to drag you back to the big choice map even though some of the scenes are literally 3 sentences long - It overstays its welcome - You are often forced into specific paths whether you like it or not - Story is cliche and generic - No fast forward button - No skip previously seen scenes button - No save slots, it's all autosaved - The main core mechanic of the game, the Augural (aka plot map) actually ruins and takes you out of the game itself. It's like really bad meta gaming that mostly feels awkward - Nothing is titled or conveyed well so you have no idea what kind of choices you are making - Most of the characters motivations make no sense - Queer characters are shoe-horned into it

Came for the visuals yet stayed for the plot. Very cozy and casual, love unwinding to this x 💗

I enjoyed the story of this game. At times I did feel like the number of choices I was making didn’t truly matter; like I was forced to go one way with no other option anyway. Overall I’d give this game a 8/10.

MIXED (LEANING NEGATIVE) i pushed through for the very engaging augural (~future vision~) mechanic, great visuals and music + decent writing for aspirations. but writing for the real world characters unfortunately feels very performative. the prose somehow reminds me of chatgpt's levels of vagueness with no substance, skimming over the important details in favor of repeating 'poetic' metaphors ad-nauseam, while also constantly telling instead of showing and having every real world character speak as if they're on their 100th therapy session. (e.g, a rational, but fiery activist with a team of loyal supporters says it's 'soothing' to have someone agree with them) the most intriguing real world character doesn't get too much time to shine, sadly. The dystopian narrative fails to engage compassion, because aforementioned issues make everything feel kind of fake still, I cautiously recommend this if you're interested in unique narrative mechanics