After leaving Earth as a cold war threatens to heat up, humanity finds itself aboard a gigantic ship known as the Fedora. It has kept the people on board safe for 250 years, but it is the only home these astronauts have known, for the planet they have landed on is made up entirely of water. Here Harold Halibut begins his journey, and he makes an amazing discovery that will change the history of mankind.
Harold Halibut is first and foremost a narrative game. We don’t get a lot of choices when it comes to gameplay, but that’s okay, because it’s the story that’s supposed to pull you into the game, and it does. But something else that draws your eyes to Harold Halibut from the moment you start the game is the unique visual style that Slow Bros. have chosen. Each and every model in Harold Halibut is handmade. No, it does not mean that someone made these models digitally. They’re real, as we got to see when we sat down to play at Gamescom. Real clay models are added to the game digitally, giving you the feeling of playing through a Laika or Aardman film.
The designs are also unique, and even the modest Harold has enough to stand out. Fedora and the other environments you explore are full of fun, quirky and sometimes just plain weird characters. We guess that’s what happens when people are stuck on a sunken ship for hundreds of years. All the quirks are part of the personality when you go into a title like Harold Halibut, and they keep the game a unique charm.
This is an advertisement:
Without giving too much away, the story in Harold Halibut is interesting. It revolves around Harold’s discovery early in the game (who is an alien, by the way), and we get to see how our protagonist and the world around him changes when the secret is revealed. This also leads to Harold ending up in deep water, and he struggles to understand the new society he has encountered. As well as completing the main objectives there are side quests to engage in and we actually spent most of our time on them as they were a great way to meet new faces and understand more about the world.
For those interested in getting lost in a quirky yet relatable story and a world that feels far away yet somewhat similar to our own, Harold Halibut looks to be a game to follow. However, there is one thing to complain about the game in its current form, and that is the dialogue. This is a small detail to highlight, but sometimes it can feel like conversations don’t flow naturally. If this is the intended direction, it works, but otherwise it can make some conversations feel flat. The humor – which was quite strong – can also suffer due to this dialogue. It doesn’t feel like two people talking, and instead you can imagine that it’s writers making this up, and that’s not the atmosphere you want to create if you want to make the players live into the game.
Otherwise, Harold Halibut manages to roll in an exciting world, truly unique character designs and a story that is worth following all at once. It takes a little while to get everyone on board, but if you’re a fan of those story games that just let you lose yourself in a narrative for a while, you should keep an eye out for this game.
This is an advertisement:
2023-09-21 15:29:56
#Harold #Halibut #Impressions #Todays #Catch
