Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Review: A Captivating Tale of Choices and Narrative

When it comes to Story Narrative Games, Don’t Nod Entertainment is popular for games like Life is Strange and Tell Me Why which create a perfect image of characters and their relation in the player’s mind to connect to the narrative. Well, the new addition to the Story Narrative Games from Don’t Nod Entertainment is Harmony: The Fall of Reverie which is a 2D Adventure Visual Novel game. Now, Visual Novel games are not everybody’s cup of tea but if a narrative is well-written and the ending of the story is completely in the players’ hands then it becomes interesting.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Review

The story is about a girl named Polly who comes back to her town, Atina on the news of her missing Mother. Polly starts investigating her missing mother and soon finds out that she has God Powers like her Mother, Ursula. Soon she transports to another world, Reverie where all the societal virtues live. These personified societal virtues are known as Aspirations in the game and they play a very important role in the story narrative.

There are 6 Aspirations in Reverie that Polly will get to meet and greet and eventually, she will be making her decisions as well on who will rule the world of Reverie. The Aspirations through which Polly would get to choose one are Bond, Truth, Chaos, Power, Glory, and Bliss. All of the Aspirations will show you the painful reality of remodeling societies, communities, history, and other entities. Polly would have to make the decisions by understanding their perspective and herself. Choosing a side of an Aspiration will affect the other Aspirations of Reverie so there are many turnouts of the story.

Selecting a path will offer you a respective token of the aspiration which can be used in later options as the story progresses ahead. After going through a number of dialogues with an Aspiration or a random citizen in Atina, you will be taken back to a screen where you will see a complex flow chart of the story. It unveils the possible outcome of the story for each possible choice and it is also where you will get to make your choices. Seeing the possible outcomes of the interaction can make you want to select another choice but it is a one-way story and every choice matters. You can select the other path for the story but you would have to replay the game which is good as it increases the replayability of the game.

The art direction of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is absolutely stunning. All the 2D animations and the cutscenes in between the story are to the point and it enhances the experience of the story. If you like the Visual Novel type games then you would absolutely love the art direction for Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.

The actions in the game are limited due to Visual Novel style but if they have added more of the movement for the characters that we talk to and change their positions throughout the game then it would be more impactful. However, this thing is not that big so it can easily be overlooked by all the players who enjoy a good story narrative game.

The cast did a really good job in voice acting the character of the game. The emotions can be felt throughout the conversation that has been taking place between the characters. The characters fill in with the voice and fulfill their purpose throughout the story. The sound and audio of the game is pretty relaxing as well. The theme of the game is simple and the birds chirping audio that plays in the background of the conversation is also appealing to the ears.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie (SCORE 9/10)

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie fulfills all the required aspects of a Visual Novel. From the introduction of the characters to storytelling and an ocean of choices that will narrate the story depending upon the made choices, all are well created. The complexity of deciding the path for the story can be exhausting at first but it can be adapted pretty quickly.

We Score this game 9 out of 10 because we absolutely enjoyed the story that was narrated throughout the game. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is available on PC and Nintendo Switch and it is coming to PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series X/S on June 22, 2023.

A PC Code was provided by the devs for the Review.