Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is the latest game from French developer DON’T NOD. This gorgeously rendered title has become part of the excellence in game development that is the hallmark of this studio. As their portfolio grows with critically acclaimed games like Life is Strange, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, and Tell Me Why, DON’T NOD becomes the exemplar for deeply moving, socially conscious narrative adventure games. One is never truly finished with a DON’T NOD game as each takes up residence in a player’s head to revisit and rethink over time. Harmony is no exception and continues that tradition. This is our Harmony: The Fall of Reverie PC review.
Harmony’s premise
As you read the premise of this game, you may find yourself scratching your head at the seeming complexity of it all. That’s a fair assessment, by the way, and one that we’ll touch on later. For now, stick with me, and let’s get started.
Harmony takes place in the near future on an island in the Mediterranean. Polly’s mother, Ursula, has gone missing. Polly has come home after a decade away to help her mother’s partner, Lazlo, and his granddaughter, Nora, find her. But nothing is as she remembers it. The once peaceful island has changed thanks to an overbearing megacorporation, MK, controlling every aspect of the community, from water to jobs to law enforcement and beyond.
As she begins her search for Ursula, Polly feels drawn to a necklace in her mother’s room. Picking it up sends her careening into a parallel world called Reverie. While there, she meets the Aspirations of Humanity and learns they are missing their Oracle, a job that Glory, Bliss, Power, Chaos, Bond, and Truth want her to take on. She is charged with figuring out which of the Aspirations will become the new heart of Reverie to help restore the balance between Reverie and humanity.
Still with me? OK, just a bit more.
Polly, who the Aspirations now call “Harmony,” is the bridge between the two worlds. Over time she learns to move seamlessly between the world of the Aspirations and that of humanity. She learns that every decision she makes will influence both worlds regardless of how small it seems. If she makes a decision as Polly, it affects Reverie. If she makes a choice as Harmony, it affects humanity’s world.
Gameplay which is story which is gameplay
Gameplay involves two things: Clicking through the story’s narrative as it unfolds and making choices. It’s a simple premise that packs a punch.
The curious thing about the game is that there is no interaction with the world. In Life is Strange games, for instance, players occasionally need to click around a room to find an object or a clue about the next steps. However, in Harmony, there is none of that. As a result, the game is actually more of a visual novel than it is a narrative “adventure.”
The story presents itself through scrolling text alongside full voice narration. The actors are absolutely brilliant in their parts. Their lines are delivered with deep emotion and genuine feeling, enough so that choices can be influenced simply by a tone of voice or the turn of a phrase.
Each decision Polly/Harmony makes is represented on a sprawling gameboard called the Augural. While players have the opportunity to foresee the future to a limited degree, the repercussions of those decisions remain hidden. Here, RPG and narrative adventure fans get a visual representation of branching storylines. As Polly/Harmony makes decisions, certain story options close while others open up. In addition, each choice she makes will bring her closer to the Aspirations, who reward her with crystals needed to unlock “different paths at important crossroads.”
While everything mentioned above is done with love and brilliance, a pair of things bothered me. One feels it might have been overlooked or was too difficult to implement. I believe the other is part of how the game is designed.
Any seasoned RPG or narrative adventure player will tell you that a codex of information for unfamiliar terms is essential to bring depth to the story. Harmony is no different; the codex entries are succinctly written and provide a lot of background information. However, when a new entry is unlocked, players must click away from the game’s story to read it on a separate screen. Consider games like Pathfinder: Kingmaker and the “inline” codex entry, where players can mouse over a new term to have a small pop-up appear with the information—no need for a jarring disruption of the story.
The second design element that can be challenging if not put in its proper perspective is the lightning-fast change from one world to the other to the Augural and back again. Players are rarely in any given scene for more than a moment before being whisked off to another plane of existence or another place in town or confronted by another Aspiration. This can be a major distraction, especially at the beginning of the game.
When I played the preview build of the game, I had a very, very hard time with the constant changes in scenery. However, in the interim between the preview and this review, I realized this was an intentional design choice. Imagine that you are Polly. You’re thrust into the emotional task of holding your family together in its search for Ursula. Your home isn’t what it was ten years ago. You find yourself suddenly at the beck and call of otherworldly beings in a parallel world. She’s told that every choice she makes will have repercussions in both places, and it’s up to her to bring peace to each. Polly can’t keep track of it all. The lack of cohesion, the mind-boggling things she’s being told, and the weight of two worlds being placed on her shoulders only add to her immense confusion — and ours as the player. Her head and ours spin with it all. Over time, however, it becomes less and less a distraction.
A story with a heart….literally
Ultimately, Polly/Harmony must pick one of the Aspirations to become the new Heart of Reverie, the force that has the most influence on humanity, at least for a time. When she does, we, as the player, are taken on a long journey to see the repercussions of that choice. Some of these are devastatingly emotional. Some are surprising. Some feel confusing. But all reflect the collective choices made throughout over eight hours of gameplay.
Harmony’s story begins with the search for Polly’s mother but slowly grows into much more. DON’T NOD’s team truly outdid itself this time. The narrative touches on family dynamics, overbearing capitalist systems, the plight of the downtrodden, death, dealing with the past, love, dreaming of the future, and so much more. In Harmony, we are confronted with what roils inside each of us, and the narrative’s brilliance gives it breath and life. The story allows us to see our world through Polly and to face the things that vex us and deal with them through someone else’s experience. It’s therapy without having to leave one’s chair.
There are not enough good things to say about Harmony: The Fall of Reverie. It’s a game that will leave you breathless when it ends. You will think about it long after you’ve turned off your PC. You will wake up at night wondering if you made the right choices. You will start planning your next playthrough. Ultimately, that’s the kind of game we all want to play. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie has exceeded everything I thought a narrative adventure game was. These will be big shoes to fill the next time DON’T NOD tackles a new game in this genre. I can’t wait.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is now available for PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions will be released on June 22, 2023.
Our review was completed thanks to a key provided by PR.
