What if you could peer into the future and make decisions based on what you see? What if your decisions had a long-reaching impact on those you’re close to and the fabric of reality itself? Polly recently returns to the Mediterranean island of Atina, where she grew up, hoping to find her missing mother. Instead, she finds herself in this situation and standing on the threshold of two distinct-yet-interconnected worlds. Her choices could spell doom or salvation for both in DON’T NOD’s Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a choice-heavy game with a visual novel style. It presents a thought-provoking narrative set against a colorful backdrop that still represents a somewhat disconcerting near future where a mega-corporation may have more say in people’s lives than they know. Players take on the role of the main character, Polly, who is unexpectedly thrust from our human world with familiar rules into the fantastical Reverie, home to godlike beings known as Aspirations.
Aspirations represent different aspects of the human world: the bluntly straightforward Power, the peaceful and community-minded Bond, the innocent and energetic Bliss, the knowledgeable Truth, the currently missing Glory, and the mischievously enigmatic Chaos. Polly takes on the role of Harmony in Reverie, allowing her to see potential outcomes and branching points and help one Aspiration or another gain more influence in their realm. There’s more to it, however, as whatever affects the human world impacts Reverie and vice-versa. To uncover the truth behind everything and potentially keep her community safe (perhaps even the entire world), Polly must carefully balance branching decisions and actions.
Right away, at the start of the preview build, you’re given access to an Augural story map. The Augural lists objectives for the story point that you-as-Polly are currently in, showing different actions to take as well as potential outcomes. It isn’t an all-knowing tool, though. You can’t backtrack once you’ve made a decision. There’s no way to undo an action and try again, plus the distant future is often closed off from your sight. You won’t be able to catch a glimpse too deep into the future until you advance further along a given course.
The Augural is your main gameplay component in Harmony, allowing you to view scenes as you come upon them. It even keeps helpful dialogue logs of past scenes should you need a refresher on what happened during them. First, you’ll have to pick differing paths in the Augural when the game prompts you. Sometimes this is as easy as simply choosing one action over another, such as talking supportively to a character rather than critically. In turn, you’ll further move down a particular story path.
Other times, progression through the Augural can get tricky. The Aspirations are vested in what happens in the real world and sometimes vie for influence over Polly’s decisions. Specific actions you make increase an Aspiration’s influence in the form of crystals you can acquire. For instance, decide to act as Bliss suggests, and you may net yourself a Bliss crystal. Specific points on the Augural are blocked to you unless you acquire enough crystals to activate them, and you can either gain or lose crystals depending on what you choose at a branching point. This component helps to tailor the crux of the decision-making portion of the game. For instance, do you go with something Truth suggests because it might lead to a later outcome you’re curious to see? If so, you need to use your decision-making approach to secure the needed resources.
Acquiring crystals also has a direct influence on the power balance of Reverie. You can keep the Aspirations on roughly the same playing field or lean toward particular Aspirations becoming stronger by acquiring more of their crystals and seeing their more favorable scenes. This power play promises to have a long-lasting impact on Reverie and significant future outcomes in the human world. Unfortunately, significant chapter outcomes are often blocked until you acquire the prerequisite Aspiration crystals to unlock them. At the end of story chapters, you can only access one potential outcome of those you may have unlocked to advance the story.
Story points on the Augural, called nodes in the game, often open or become closed based on your decisions. As a result, there are occasions where you must see numerous narrative points before Harmony allows you to advance. The first few acts feature simplistic maps with some player decisions to help ease you into the process, but later map trees branch out in several complex ways based on even the most minute of decisions. It’s fascinating to see how your decision influences what happens in the next scene. The game certainly encourages replayability if you want to uncover every narrative path available.
I am intrigued by the amount of choice given to help move the story along in distinct ways. Polly and the diverse characters she interacts with in the human realm are compelling and believably written. The Aspirations themselves are a fascinating bunch, neither truly good nor evil, and simply wanting to ensure that their world’s existence continues despite the struggles of the human one. Even the sometimes seemingly adversarial Chaos attempts to help Polly out in their way. The decisions you make during the story preview all have realistic outcomes with good and bad points. You’ll never feel entirely sure of any path you take, as there’s always reasoning behind why another could be just as viable. It’s complex without being overwhelming, and the malleable narrative scope is fascinating. I kept going with whatever action I felt most substantial based on the paths I’d opened, discovering a compelling yarn waiting to be untangled.
Visually, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a gorgeously vibrant VN. I love the animated cutscenes and how expressive character animations are when characters talk in a more traditional visual novel setting. Harmony isn’t a static game with still art by any means, and I love the pops of color and attention to detail in the character designs and backdrops. In addition, the graphics help vividly bring the story presentation to life, and the Augural’s UI is easy to navigate and understand.
Harmony’s sound effects get used well, and the background music helps readily set the stage. The voice acting for all of the characters is phenomenal throughout the demo. I’m also particularly impressed by how polished the script work is at this early stage, especially with the many branching points throughout the preview. The game is controller-friendly and appears to save automatically at very regular intervals.
I’m impressed with my deep dive into the opening acts of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie. It’s a solid beginning for what promises to be a highly choice-heavy visual novel experience. Plus, it boasts quite an interesting premise and a core cast of characters with a lot of heart and depth. Now I’m eager to see what the future will hold when Harmony: The Fall of Reverie releases in full in June!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.