Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Review

Choices are something that game marketers love to offer the consumer.

We’ve all heard the following soundbites countless times – ‘In this game, you are the storyteller’. ‘You will choose the fate of the hero’. ‘You control the narrative and determine how YOU want to play’.

In reality, the choices are sometimes quite binary. Do you play as the white hat or the black hat? Are you a hero or an asshole? But lately, games have become nuanced in their choice mechanics and the visual novel is starting to explore all the grey areas in depth.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a visual novel that is all about choice. None of those choices are right, and none are wrong.

The storytelling and narrative strands of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie are very well accomplished. Mixing an alternative reality with magical realms, whilst at the same time making real-world comments on globalisation, capitalism and loss, is quite an amazing feat for a visual novel on console. 

It’s set – first of all – in the fictional town of Atina, which is almost based on a town on the Mediterranean coast. You play Polly and have returned to your hometown to look for your mother who has gone missing. She lives in an old swimming pool which is now a hang-out for artists who want to escape this corporate society. As Polly looks for her she finds a necklace which then transports her to a different realm – Reverie. She is known to this realm as the Oracle, a being who can instantly bridge the gap and travel between the two realms.

In Reverie, there are ancient beings based on human emotions – Bliss, Power, Bond, Truth, Chaos, and Glory. They are aspects that have been there since the dawn of humans, connected to the other realm. Reverie is dying though and it’s up to Polly to try to work with her friends and family to uncover the truth about her mother’s disappearance. She has some very tough choices to make…

The writing and world-building are exemplary. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie comes from some of those behind Life is Strange and you can tell they have very good storytelling bones. I loved all the different families of characters you meet, along with the strange Reverie ones. It borrows – and is influenced I feel – by Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series, but never feels a rip-off.

The various choices you can take in narrative-wise are clever, with some amazing routes that aren’t just black and white. There are different endings as well, yet ultimately Harmony provides a very satisfying tale whatever route you go down. 

The gameplay – over five acts – is all about making choices. You are presented with nodes, with possible routes on how the narrative could turn out. Some nodes are locked, others unlocked and open. You can align yourself possibly with some of the emotions from Reverie as these open up certain nodes by collecting crystals attached to them. I am making it sound more complicated than it actually is to play. It’s a new gameplay system though, full of detail with its many different narrative strands. There are also a couple of stand-out moments that turn the systems that are set up, taking the game down a well-crafted road. It’s a lovely surprise that I won’t spoil. 

Visually and Harmony: The Fall of Reverie can be spoken of in two parts. Firstly there are the animated cutscenes; stuff that could be found on TV or in the cinema. There are beautifully drawn worlds and characters that make you want to see more than the game has to offer. Then there are the slightly animated backdrops to the scenes that play out. These are also beautifully drawn and coloured, the characters all animated and colourfully designed throughout.

The sound score is emotive and atmospheric too. In fact, it hits all the right beats. Further is some voice-over work from a talented bunch of actors, helping bring the characters to life brilliantly. I love the character and work of the performer who plays Bliss, one of the emotions. 

If we focus on the visual novel genre of gaming, then Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is up there as one of the most accomplished. The story is immense and engaging, the animation is outstanding and some TV broadcast quality is found in the cutscenes. I think the voice cast does an amazing job too. However, even though the gameplay is adding to much more than other games, the ‘choice’ dynamic will mean you are still reading and watching for some eight hours or so; that might put people off.

But if you want to try a visual novel on console then you can’t go wrong by starting with Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.