In recent months, especially among those who usually browse the world of independent titles, there has been a lot of talk about Harold Halibut: the title developed by the small German studio Slow Bros he presented himself as one of the very few stop motion video game experimentsa complex and demanding animation technique that we have already encountered in films such as Nightmare Before Christmas And Fantastic Mr. Foxand maybe some remember the video game Armikrog of 2016.
We were immediately fascinated by the creation of the game world, which it took about 12 years of work before coming to life in the title that is preparing to arrive on PC and console. In this review we will see what Harold Halibut has to offeras well as a truly almost unprecedented artistic style for our favorite medium.
At the bottom of the sea…
Harold's storyclumsy laboratory helper and handyman, takes place inside a underwater community: Fedora. This small complex of spacecraft moved away from planet earth about 250 years before the beginning of our story, looking for a new planet to live in following the emergence of a new cold war on Earth.
Harold works closely with an elderly scientist who, as the ship's true controller, is looking for a new “drier” home for the community. Harold's life runs smoothly, between one errand and another, if not for a completely unexpected meeting That it will change his vision of the world and his concept of “home”.
Thus, without going into too much detail, we introduce you to the plot of Harold Halibut, which, given its nature as an interactive adventure, is strongly based on the narrative aspect. The game can be completed in a time range ranging from approximately 12 to 18 hoursbased on your delusions of completionism.
The story told seemed very simple, superficially, but full of small messages on topics such as the environment, living in community and friendship. The title develops dynamically thanks to a high amount of cutscenes and dialogues, all dubbed in English. In general, we are satisfied from this point of view.
Artistically unmatched
However, let's move on to the aspect that, more than anything else, made Harold Halibut reach the ears (or rather, the eyes) of the general public: the artistic style. As documented by Slow Bros through small behind-the-scenes videos, the title is entirely made by the stop-motion techniquewith characters and backdrops that were created and operated by hand by the developers.
The look of the title is, thanks to this complex choice of realization, impactful right away: Fedora and the mysterious ocean that surrounds it enjoy a truly unique charm. Underwater life is characterized by binomial between modern and steampunk which takes shape in the lights (even if, from this point of view, there are some imperfections that are rather unnatural), in the colors and in the smallest stylistic precautions.
The characters who inhabit this world do not disappoint expectations: varied in characterization, internal and external, they enjoy a well-constructed personality and a voice that goes well with their character. Virtually all characters have a background to tell us, and they do it in a spontaneous and never heavy way, even if, in some characters in particular, there is a lack of will to delve deeper, preventing us from getting to know them as much as we would like.
The title, thanks to the designated setting and context, it doesn't have an infinite number of explorable areas but, although limited, those available they seemed to us extremely detailed: private homes reflect the characteristics of their owners and even commercial areas and workshops manage to convey genuine sensations without falling into anonymity.
So we can't do that promote artistic choices almost with flying colours of the development team: the “almost” is due to a soundtrack which, in our opinion, does not reach the high levels of the graphic style, remaining in fact rather anonymous.
Intriguing appearance, substance…
We have already underlined nature's interactive adventure by Harold Halibut: but what do we mean essentially? In most of the adventure we will control Harold's movements, talking to the characters and participating with answers to select from the dialogues present, with small and sporadic sections in which we are required to carry out particular actions, such as unscrewing screws or cleaning a surface.
The actions we will have to carry out will be collected in a sort of electronic diary which will greatly simplify the search for characters to interact with, effectively rendering that type of challenge “null”. that we usually find in the graphic adventure genre, where we are the ones who have to understand how and what to do to continue the story.
Regarding the dialogues, we observe that the time available to select the answer provided to us is definitely too short: the title does not have subtitles in Italian and, consequently, we find ourselves having to read and select our answer in the space of a few seconds, moreover in a language that is not ours, often leading us to choose what to say without having had the opportunity to read and understand both available options.
We also observe some small defects of a technical nature which affect the fluidity of the experience: above all the animations, which are often wooden if not, in some cases, decidedly unnatural (we felt a pain in our wrist just seeing how Harold holds a screwdriver).
We also encountered a certain rigidity regarding interactions with objects: on numerous occasions Harold will have to approach an object and move around it until a special icon appears. Not only will it be necessary to be very precise in positioning the character to ensure that this icon appears, but once the interaction has started we will see mini cutscenes to “position” Harold which are rather obsolete, as well as slowing down the experience.
The title, which we tested in the PS5 version, it does not present any problems regarding the frame rate, making it decidedly fluid from this point of view. However, we underline the actual lack of use of the vibration functions and other peculiar characteristics of the controller.
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