#harmony the fall of reverie

[gebo4482]

Harmony: Fall of Reverie by Chloe Veillard

[wormdramafever]

Loved this video!

[owlmiki]

bliss.

[teamkrissy]

If you dweebs liked Astarion from Baldurs Gate 3, you might like a slightly less horny version of him in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

[miyakuli]

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

Harmony is a visual novel set in a dystopian future where MK, a mega corporation, fully controls the small island of Atina. A young woman named Polly will suddenly be granted powers of precognition while becoming the link between our world and the world of deities, called "Aspirations".

If this VN brings very good ideas in terms of mechanics and shows a very neat artistic direction, some details make it miss the title of essential imo.

❤ An original gameplay in the VN world; the power of precognition is visualized in the form of a flowchart called "Augural" where you can see almost all the branches in advance and the resolutions of the chapters. As a result, we can very well try to unlock the choices to reach the conclusion that we want. We could then believe that the game fails to surprise us but it's not so because seeing the future is one thing, but directing it is another; it is not always so simple as that to achieve our ends because the Augural has its own rules despite everything. As a result, I really found this mechanism ambitious and singular. ❤ Very well written characters all different from each other (the Aspirations are however much more endearing than the humans I think) and excellently dubbed! ❤ A magnificent artistic direction; the cinematics are incredible, the animation of the sprites is dynamic, the backgrounds are colorful and lively etc… ❤ A very good replayability given the many branches and several endings to unlock.

+/- The story is nice overall with its share of strong moments, but far too Manichean: the wicked, inhuman mega-corporation that is "thirsty for blood" even if it means sacrificing the population? I would have preferred a little more complexity in there. +/- The musical atmosphere is good but no more, not striking enough in my opinion.

✖ The last chapter is disappointing; we suddenly move away from the main characters to have a more global vision of the world, but suddenly it makes everything too impersonal and removes almost all the dramatic and emotional tension has built up so far. Also, the last scene I had before the credits seemed super abrupt, leaving me wanting more. ✖ If the idea of the Augural is excellent, the scenes that result from our choices are often very short, which makes us constantly come back to it, and that chops the story too much for my taste. I might have preferred less routes with longer scenes. ✖ At present, there are no "skip" options for scenes already played, which can be a bit of a pain to restart a game for the time being.

Harmony brings a little freshness to the Visual Novel landscape with its distinctive gameplay, but lacks just a little more maturity and fluidity in its storytelling. Still, it's a good game that I could easily get into again, like a good dream :)

➡ My personal VN ranking (in french) ➡ My Steam page

[the-night-puncher]

I wasn't totally sold on harmony fall of reverie and the whole augural system, but I started act 2 and it's starting to get a lot more complicated and I'm really loving it now

Oh boy I'm gonna spend a very long time on the augural agonizing over all the choices

[hardcoregamer]

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Could Be Dontnod’s Most Mechanically-Intriguing Title Yet

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie may not be the most expansive take, but it needn’t be. Pleasant voice work, a fine narrative balance between real-world life and other-worldly fantasy, along with a central focus on making allegiances — to the point of questioning one’s own real-life traits — and it stands to reason that this could be Dontnod’s most mechanically-intriguing title to date.

Read more!

[bubblyshortie]

some no-commentary gameplays and clips of games I've uploaded on youtube

from GRIS

from Ace Attorney

from Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

from Cloud Gardens

[sporadicchaosprincess]

The Augural - Let's Play Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Blind Part 1

[imperotenebre]

Harmony The Fall of Reverie PS5 gameplay 4K - prime impressioni

Bello ma vecchio

[first-impressions-gaming]

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

Developed & Published by DON’T NOD

Release Date 2023

Tested on Xbox Series X

MSRP 24,99 USD

The critics and art enthusiasts often state (or claim) that the art and the artist is separated, not whole. I beg to differ when it comes to the artists, of whom masterpieces I adore, and I’ll criticize Harmony as a game and Don’t Nod as a developer rightfully. 

Harmony is first and foremost a text-based, dialogue-focused narrative game, which has voiceover only in conversations between characters, meaning that voiceover is absent in the protagonist’s thoughts and descriptions as such. The character’s avatar are animated and moving when they’re speaking, yet there’s something off with the avatars, their graphic style do not match with the background and environment, and they are low-quality and jittery when you look the background and the avatars back and forth, this is something I couldn’t wrap my head around, these two elements don’t feel in harmony (pun intended), my another nitpick is the overall presentation during conversations: In the first picture you read that “a tall silhouette…surrounded by…fish dancing in the air.” And the presentation of this description is Power (the character mentioned by “silhouette”) and a random picture containing fish of various colours inserted next to it. I just…don’t know what to make of this? Is this a game developed by an amateur and just inserted a .jpg file on the center of the screen? How childish, how unprofessional is this? I’ve zero intention to hurt anybody involved in this game, still I don’t understand the design-wise choice behind this. The usual thing any player would expect is that the fish revolving around Power, instead of this cheap looking visual.

Let’s move onto the second instance: in this scene Bliss is explaining “act overview” page to us, the page where we can see our choices throughout the act, and just like the first picture, the picture is simply inserted there with zero effort to make it appealing to the eye. I’m not a game developer and not a designer in any way, yet I can see that, as a player, these two examples are such a sore to eye. These visuals are straightforwardly inserted and put on the screen with none to zero mind to make them in line with the interaction, conversation, environment and character designs. I cannot find any words to criticise these, these are simple terrible, horrendous and one of the worst design-choices I have laid my eyes upon in recent eyes.

You may say “what about the plot?”. The protagonist, named Polly, is an adult woman who travels to Atina to find her missing mother but the only thing she is to find a necklace of hers. Upon touching the necklace, she teleports to a different dimension, Reverie. This place has sort of a core element, called Heart, which’s losing its power gradually, the characters in that place, called Aspirations who are deity-like creatures, claim Polly’s mother’s disappearance is connected to diminishing power of Heart in some way. Aspirations are clearly inspired by mythological gods and goddesses with unique and contrasting features, these are Chaos, Truth, Bond, Power and Bliss. Each of them interacts with one another and with Polly and they can also visit the earth and they are invisible to other humans.

Don’t Nod, the studio behind the game, is well-known and famous for their choice-based narrative games that impact the player by progressing with the player’s input, just look at Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2. In that franchise, you make your choices during interactions and you are keeping your focus intact, however Harmony has this inefficient choice screen, called act overview, each time you get to make a choice the interaction pauses, the screen pens, you make a choice, then it returns to interaction based on the made choice. This breaks and harms the flow constantly because you are directed to the game said screen every other couple of minutes, in other words the dialogues do not last that long. It feels unnecessary and does not help the gameplay in any way. I honestly don’t get it, why would implement a non-feasible mechanic and ditch the working formula?

It seems that the developers wanted to show off overview screen to give  you the sense that the narrative branch is extending and progressing through your preferences. The screen is so cluttered that it’s fascinating how challenging it is to navigate. The primary reason behind it being difficult to figure out that the game shows you ultimate ending of the act you are in right at the beginning. For example, there are three endings to choose from in the second act and each ending is associated with an Aspiration and you need to collect point for specific Aspiration during the act by selecting choices backed up by the Aspiration. All in all, you are making decisions in line with the ending you prefer, this does spoil the story since you are taking action based upon the ending, thus eliminating any surprise element.

In the clip below, you can see I’m at the beginning of Act 2 Chapter 1 and you can just navigate to the top (where endings are located) and see there are 3 alternative endings and each of them require points for Aspirations. Playing the act in parallel with the ending in your mind feels mind-boggling and does not enhance the flow of the game one bit. Personally I would prefer LiS-type progression where I am making choices in-interaction and just like to see where it takes me. Harmony kills this originality and tries a wholly different approach but it does not work out at all. During my 90-minute gametime, I had the patience to wait for the game to “wow” me at least once, but it never happened. The dialogues don’t last that long to get into the story itself, and when you are exchanging with other characters or Aspirations, they are shallow and at surface level. Where are the intrigue and mystery of the opening sequence of Life is Strange? It is gone, long gone, never to return. 

Don’t Nod, a team I’ve adored since I played LiS at the beginning of the pandemic, lets me down so heavily with these questionable changes, mechanics and direction that I am nowhere to recommend this mess of a game to anybody, this has to be said.

[gebo4482]

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie by Chloe Veillard

[nintendokids]

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie caught my eye on the Nintendo Direct this week and I wanted to touch on it a little. This is a game developed by Dont Nod, which are the folks who created several strong narrative games, including Life is Strange, one of my all time favorites. This one has a cool artistic style and the story concepts that we do see here have my attention. I like seeing creative developers like Dont Nod trying new ideas. I hope people don’t sleep on this one. It looks promising.

This one will go on my play list this year.

-Christian

[marshvlovestv]

In honor of me having so much video game music downloaded on my phone that I ran out of storage and had to buy a new phone. My favorite track from each video game OST I have!

Bastion: Brusher Patrol (Such a bizarre clash of styles, I can't help but love this one. Shout-out to the part that sounds like Darren quietly scatting in the background.) (Also special shout-out to Build That Wall, probably my favorite vocal track in any Supergiant game)

Celeste: Scattered and Lost (I am such a normie for this choice but face it this track absolutely slaps.)

Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Song of the Wielders (I love how this song has actual lyrics but I still prefer to sing along with the Simlish version that Pizza and Chicory sing.)

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: Illusion (First of all I love how every character in this game has their own theme I go feral for that kind of thing. Kurielle is probably one of the characters who stood out to me the least but by god is her theme gorgeous. I love the vocals and how a later track includes a sneaky reprise.)

Cuphead: Dramatic Fanatic (Tap dancing :D)

There are literally thirty of these so I'm doing a read more

Death's Door: The Grey Crow (A heartbreaking boss fight scored with the appropriate amount of anguish)

Deltarune: Cyber Battle (This melody is so underrated and ya know what, so are the characters associated with it. Sweet Cap'n Cakes forever.)

Elsinore: Donne, The Boat Boy (I love this song because it's associated with Lady Guildenstern, aka the best character in gaming full stop, but it's also just a fun little sea shanty that I think they made up for this game so I love that. Also has a lyrical version.)

Evergate: Police (Okay so the level with the police drones is one of the more frustrating ones in the game but the music is hauntingly beautiful so I give it a pass)

Going Under: trust fall (Marv is easily one of the most hateable video game antagonists of all time but damn if his boss theme doesn't slap)

Hades: Last Words (The rolling and the tolling of the bells bells bells bells bells)

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie: Reverie Ascendant (Lena Raine does these medley tracks so good man)

Hollow Knight: Dung Defender (By far the catchiest song about poop on my entire phone)

Ikenfell: Rose Thorns (So the insanely long final boss fight against Oxley overshadowed Aeldra's boss fight in my memory for a long time, but when I watched another playthrough and bought the OST I realized "Oh her theme bops SO much harder than his ever could")

Inscryption: A Final Duel (A hardcore remix of The Scrybe of Magicks, aka one of the only melodic tracks on the album and therefore the one every YouTube video about Inscryption uses in the background. I prefer the epic version just a bit more because honestly that Magnificus setpiece is the best moment in the game)

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass: Fun, Sunny Day (A fun and silly track as the title suggests, elevated even more by the context in which it plays in the game. The area music alternates between this and the more somber Rainy Sunday to illustrate that Jimmy mother is bipolar [very cute and silly game])

Omori: Bready Steady Go (Like the absolute dipshit I am I actually completely missed the optional Orange Oasis when I played this game myself. Every Let's Player finds it somehow, though, and when they fight the Unbread Twins I invariably stand up and dance along to the boss music.)

One Step from Eden: Perpetual Motion (It's just a good-ass track y'all)

Ori and the Blind Forest: Conundrum (In a soundtrack of sweeping orchestral pieces, this more subdued version of theme that only plays during one small puzzle section might seem a weird choice. But I've always really liked it)

Ori and the Will of the Wisps: Kwolok's Malaise (Kwolok's leitmotif is perfect for a giant frog and the boss remix takes it to it's logical conclusion)

Paradise Killer: Go! Go! Style (This track makes me feel like I'm having a sugar rush. The whole OST does actually but this one especially)

Pyre: Path to Glory (It's just got a really unique vibe to it. I like it)

Scarlet Hollow: Avery (Chill and really beautiful. Avery themself is kind of a sleeper character at this point but I can't wait for Brandon to remix their theme when they get assimilated into a giant plant monster)

Slay the Princess: The Princess (Okay full disclosure I've only played this game once so I don't have the full context for a lot of the tracks on this OST. Maybe hearing them alongside their respective princesses will make me like them more, but for now the title theme is too iconic to beat.)

Sounds of Sympathy (the OST for the game anthology Essays on Empathy): Zen and the Art of Transhumanism (In the Essays on Empathy documentary, fingerspit talked about how she prefers writing obscenely long tracks so the loop doesn't get annoying. Unfortunately for her my favorite track on this album is only three minutes long. It's a lovely little bop.)

Spiritfarer: Mind Palace (I played Spiritfarer before any of the character updates were released, so I didn't get Daria's mind palace sequences in my game. And I mean, they look very platforming-heavy so I'm okay with that, but god this is a gorgeous piece.)

Transistor: Impossible (I think this is Royce Bracket's boss theme? I don't know when any of the tracks on this OST specifically play in game. Regardless of all that this one gets me pumped.)

Unavowed: One Man's Power (I couldn't find a video of this one, but it's gentle saxophone solo that plays when Logan Brown is introduced. I think it fits is character really well and just sounds really nice)

Undertale: Death by Glamour (Best song for best character, enough said)

Wandersong: Moonscape (God knows this game gave me a lot of great options to pick from, but I settled on this one because it's so uplifting.)

[staarbles]

i just think they're neat