The plasticine world drowned. Review Harold Halibut

After more than ten years of development, Harold Halibut reached the release. You can already try the game in the Xbox Game Pass or purchase at Steam and on PlayStation. We tested this creation and talk about all the nuances of the project that is hard to call the game – but it definitely deserves your attention.

Toxic

Once on Earth there was an “unpleasant situation”, due to which the best representatives of mankind went to a distant planet. Four generations of people on the way to the new house – and the goal has been achieved. Unfortunately to the arrivals, there is almost no land on the planet, so the ship was forced to land in toxic waters filled with a special flora and fauna. Despite the unsuitability of the ocean for human life, the local inhabitants and newly arrived astronauts adapted to the current conditions.

Scientists and engineers processed the aircraft of the Fedor mission (Fedora) and turned it into a full -fledged city. Each compartment was interconnected by gateways and built a full -fledged transport hub. The situation required a change in the hierarchy, therefore, at the time of the events of the game, the company “only water” was formed, which took over the control of shuttle and became a similarity of state power.

Harold Halibut finds us on the fetters of the authoritarian regime, in which all the residents of the ship are engaged in their work day a day, sometimes rest in the local “Arcadian Agora” shopping center and interact with each other to improve the life of the whole city. But this is only in words – prices are constantly rising, and the goals of the Allwater leaders are covered with the darkness of secrets.

By the way, you have to play for Harold Halibut, assistant head of the laboratory. This is a lonely and unremarkable small one who is engaged in cleaning filters, feeding fish and all sorts of simple tasks at the request of the boss.

Everything changes at the moment BetFoxx casino review when Harold first finds a representative of a reasonable life in this strange world. And here also the cones from Allwater are tormented by water and think about returning to the ground after receiving some strange message.

It is worth stopping on this and, in order to avoid the most important spoilers, stop the description of the attachment of the game. There are plenty of bright and memorable events, so let our readers enjoy what is happening on their own.

The game attracts not only a thoughtful plot, but also bright characters. Each of the inhabitants of “Fedora” was unique that distinguishes him from other heroes. All of them seem to be living people with their problems and experiences. This is a very instructive story that talks about important: getting rid of personal fears, following the goal, the ability to find a common language and remain a person at all costs. And although the story is completely fantastic, it will not be difficult for the player to find parallels with his daily problems and experiences.

As in the films of Wes Andreson, a simple life drama here is interspersed with light ironic comedies and buffoonery. Harold is charming in his awkwardness, unexpected punch and simply the peculiarity of a sad and deeply lonely person. The thin line between humor and the severity of the plot is not broken – from this you sincerely enjoy every dialogue and event.

Lack of gameplay

And how much you want to praise the narrative, the gameplay is just as pulling. Just because it … no. 90% of Harold Halibut gameplay is walking and dialogs. The main thing is at the very beginning of the game to find the running button, otherwise the time spent will be stretched twice as long.

Occasionally you will be thrown out simple puzzles and mini-games. For example, stop the stone in time and sequentially on the command to press several buttons. In one of the scenes you will have to shift boxes and objects in the style of Tetris, but with special physics.

All these tasks are a little amused, but they offer almost nothing fascinating – the avid gamer in Harold Halibut, decisively, has nothing to cling to. This game is just a walking simulator, albeit beautiful and talented.

The man -made world

We left the main highlight in the end. Environment, characters, objects and other details in the game are created manually. Hence such a long development period. Not everyone will like the selected style, but the meticulousness of the developers is really amazing.

The entire ship is divided into several sectors that will be able to climb along and across in the first part of the game. Later it will even be possible to get out of it, but I don’t want to talk about this at all, so as not to spoil the impression of the players. Harold Halibut, with a quick passage, will take no more than eight hours, so it is very important to independently discover the secrets of this planet and its inhabitants. With the design of locations, too, everything is in order. Moving around the “city” is convenient and easy even in the absence of a card as such.

Everything is good with optimization, but sometimes the hero does not immediately begin the dialogue or a little stuck surrounded. This does not spoil the game experience, but the nuance is present. There were also problems with dialogs: some replicas were not displayed in the choice, the couple was without translation. Otherwise, everything works very correctly and correctly.

Harold Halibut is an amazing adventure that will most likely remain invisible to most players. In the absence of at least some marketing campaign, developers most likely will not receive a massive review of the community. And the gunfire gameplay without vivid interactions can push off the action lovers. Despite this, the project can be called an unsolved diamond. Almost no interactivity is more than compensated by the plot, design and what is called “soul”.

• Awesome atmosphere
• Magic plot
• Great humor
• Bright and colorful characters
• The design of the environment.

• Missing gameplay
• This is a walk simulator.

The author spent about 10 hours in the game on Xbox (he completely passed the plot and performed secondary quests). The key was not provided by the publisher.