Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Reviews
Despite its lovely aesthetic and heavy worldbuilding, the messy plot and inability to show nuance or interesting developments make this an ultimately dull experience.
Harmony: Fall of Reverie is a beautiful title with a heck of a story, but the lack of any real action and its disjointed, but very promising decision system could definitely be a deterrent to a lot of people.
Whilst looking nice, the game is overly complex and pretty boring. If you don’t care about the story, characters, mythology, or plot branches which are on display from the start of each act, this soon becomes a slog to play through.
I’ve really enjoyed some of DON’T NOD’s games and found a lot to love in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie. Beautiful art, a fantastic soundtrack, two interesting worlds, and an intricately designed system designed to really make your choices matter are all worth exploring. Ultimately though, thinly drawn characters and too often feeling like I was being forced down a specific path instead of getting to enjoy the choices the game is designed around kept me from falling in love with Harmony.
Harmony: Fall of Reverie is a title that will easily please a specific public and strongly displease others. Its quality when it comes to the technical aspects mentioned in the text are undeniable but its heart, which is the plot, is weak. Those less demanding with choices and consequences may appreciate the trip with less turbulence.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Another double-edged sword is the brevity of the game. While we'd argue that a lot of visual novels pad out the running time and get a little long in the tooth, the eight hours we spent with Harmony weren't enough to effectively flesh out the world or the characters. That said, the story moves at brisk pace, and we never found ourselves bored even if we were sometimes a little confused.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie may have an original setting and good art style, but its uneven pacing and arbitrary gamification of player choice removes much engagement from the narrative.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie comes through as a mixed bag for several reasons, but the art style isn’t enough to make up for the way choices work.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is an experimental visual novel with relevant social themes and an unorthodox concept of narrative navigation. Though there are many elements that deserved more polishment, I'd still say the sum of its parts leads to a positive result and it's worth diving into this story.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Above all else, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is an interesting game. A blend of visual novel and magical relationship adventure, it's an intriguing mix that for the most part works extremely well. It may start to struggle when its simple design approaches fail to match the intricacy of its plot threads, but overall it holds its own.
The most delightfully surprising thing about Harmony is that using the Augural board never feels clinical, given that the choices you make throughout attest to the game’s belief that logic and empathy aren’t mutually exclusive. You almost always know what the rewards are for each of your choices, so picking an option that, say, doesn’t yield egregore, the crystalized energy that fuels each Aspiration and serves as a sort of skill check for certain nodes, demonstrates a real commitment to helping others, not for one’s own sake, but for the sake of others.
The art direction of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is something to be applauded for, and the animated cut scenes made me wish there was more. Although you can replay a chapter as long as you didn’t finish it, the fact that you cannot replay other scenarios upon first-time game completion is a real bummer. Some pacing issues here and there made me groan through winded parts, but most of the time, I was anticipating the next part of the story.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie feels like a game that works best for players who are curious about the visual novel genre but want more recognizable game mechanics and a few restrictions to help them along. The Augural makes choices simple enough if you're trying to go for a specific outcome, but the story and character reactions make you second-guess your approaches. The game looks and sounds wonderful compared to many of its contemporaries, and while it might not make you a convert to the genre, it is an interesting adventure that you'll want to go through, provided you can get over the constant world-flipping and a few story quibbles.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a visual novel with an unexpected depth, perhaps the Don't Nod's truly artistic videogame.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie contains DON'T NOD's best narrative since the excellent Life is Strange. The fact that you have to manage two realities at the same time is well established, and you can quickly see the consequences of your choices. The multiple possibilities offered by the Mantique system make the game extremely replayable. Many will miss the lack of real action, however, as the game consists solely of choosing which actions to perform. The game's distinctive style is very well executed and lends it a great deal of charm. Despite a few long stretches, you'll have a great time in the company of Polly and Harmonie.
Review in French | Read full review
Harmony shows off DONTNOD's narrative chops with unconvential storytelling, unique deicison mechanics, and stellar character designs.
An exciting and unusual story-driven game in which you can look into the future and figure out in which direction you want to lead the narrative. A lot remains a mystery until you get to certain scenes, but the ability to plan ahead is unusual enough for the genre that Harmony leaves a great lasting impression.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Harmony: Fall of Reverie is a fascinating and experimental exercise in how to write a branching narrative in a way that keeps the player occupied with more than just the occasional binary choice. The way it handles the path the player takes as they progress, especially with the mechanic of gathering crystals, is like nothing else that I have ever played. While it is a shame that the loading screen issues drag the experience down a bit, for fans of narratives in video games and the unique ways only a game can tell them, Harmony is well worth a look.
Blending an absorbing tale across worlds, with a novel but mechanically-engaging interpretation of player-choice, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie sets a new standard for Don't Nod with what might be their best, most rewarding work to date.