Harmony: The Fall of Reverie Review

After years of being away from home, Polly receives a call from her family — her mother, Ursula, is gone, and they are worried she won't be coming back. What is a usual pattern of behaviour unfolds into much more than Polly — or anyone else around her — could have anticipated.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is the newest narrative adventure by DON'T NOD, the team that has developed various titles, including the Life is Strange franchise and Vampyr; in short, they are no strangers to the story-rich genre. The new IP has you taking control of Polly, a young girl that receives the power of Harmony, a goddess-like entity in an all-unique mythology of deities who is in charge of choosing which Aspiration will lead humanity.

It's difficult to talk about the plot without touching anything that would delve into spoiler territory, so I will tiptoe around some subjects. I keep this as vague as possible, touching primarily on the events transpiring throughout the beginning and information readily available on the Steam store page.

As a narrative adventure, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie plays a lot like a visual novel title in which you will be exploring through a branching story and observing the future unfold before you. In it, you will interact with a large cast of various characters, including all six Aspirations, which are deities focused on the core qualities of humans, and other different people to interact with, such as Polly's family.

Spanning five acts, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a very enthralling experience, but it doesn’t start off that way. The first act essentially works as a tutorial for the Augural, the branching fate of the universe that lets you see into the future. The characters feel a bit disconnected from their later versions, but it picks up pretty soon after the start of Act 2.

The game's character design is masterful and is a big reason why the plot is so enjoyable. While you would expect some of the personalities you will meet to fall under typical stereotypes — especially the Aspirations — Harmony: The Fall of Reverie masterfully manoeuvres around this by giving its characters depth beyond their initial facade. Instead of solely existing to fulfil a narrative purpose, each character is complex with different intents and ambitions, but not some as shallow as you'd expect. All of them are well-defined within their own confines, and this applies to Polly, for better or worse. 

Our protagonist has an agenda and personality independent of player agency, which can be a bittersweet feeling when you want to do something that Polly, unfortunately, refuses to. That said, it helps keep her grounded with the rest of the cast instead of reducing her to a shallow, faceless personality that is meant to represent the player; she is just as lovable — if not sometimes more so — than many of her supporting cast.

As you settle into the shoes of Oracle — a deity in charge of seeing and interacting with the Aspirations in order to give them more agency over humans — you will see your powers unfold rapidly. Harmony, Polly's Oracle name, has the power of clarity, allowing her to peer into the future and see some of the possible outcomes. Over the five acts of the game, this power remains consistent, allowing you to see the future, including the possible results of your actions and — unique to this adventure — plan for what you want to do.

The game encourages you to use this power to your benefit by reading ahead in the Augural to better decide how you are going to react to things — this system single-handedly made this experience a must-try for narrative aficionados. Seeing what the future awaits and what you are giving up was both an exciting feeling and a terrible curse, as I could see various paths I wanted to take, and I knew I could only take one.

The Augural not only allowed me to forge my path accordingly and tread carefully around my friends and family, but it also gave me a burning desire to try to play the game again, just to see how some of the smaller decisions affected the narrative. It worked best when I was torn between options, as it made passing the chapter a stressful feeling because I didn't know how we would reach that conclusion, only when.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie gives you control over every decision you make, but each one is not a difficult one that will have you questioning your morality. There were times when I didn't feel that tug-and-pull sensation between Aspirations convincing me to their way, and there were moments in which I didn't really sympathise with the other side. Polly had connections to some characters far more than I did, making it difficult to empathise with her decisions as a protagonist in the moments I was stripped of my agency.

The wide cast of characters means you won't quite click with all of them on the same level as it seems DON'T NOD wants you to, but that never detracted from the plot. The narrative's steady pace and down-to-earth style consistently remind you of the absurdity of the situation — a human in the shoes of an Oracle. Among the many narrative-focused adventures I've played, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie proudly sits with some of my favourites, with themes reminiscent of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist — a game I absolutely loved.

Despite the fact that the game doesn't have an actual player-friendly way to replay some areas — meaning the game doesn't have auto-skip for seen dialogue — I cannot wait to jump in again and learn more about it. It makes itself easily replayable because the visibility of the narrative choices and consequences is something new to the genre, and it encourages you to try a different approach without having to micro-manage every tiny aspect of the story to understand what went "wrong".

Your first playthrough will also be easy to enjoy with a fully-voiced cast of characters, and the general "feel" of the game is a big selling point. The vibrant scenes are gorgeous and cinematic, with moving parts and a world that feels more alive than your usual visual novel where you can only see a still image. That, paired with the animations and character design, are to die for — gorgeous colours, pretty environments, and how to forget an OST by Lena Raine, who also created the Celeste soundtrack?

It's easy to recommend Harmony: The Fall of Reverie to interested parties. The evolution of story-driven adventures is ever-present, with DON'T NOD's expertise showing itself in a different approach to their usual style. There are lovable characters that avoid stereotypes at every corner, an all-inclusive cast, and a down-to-earth narrative that tackles themes of corporate hopelessness and power dynamics between mortal and god.