Opinion about the visual novel “Harmony”
Do the feelings and emotions interfere with a person? What will happen if you get rid of them? And why other feelings grow out of love? The reader can find answers in the visual novel "Harmony" to all these questions. However, how high -quality visual short novels immerse the player in history? Does she give comprehensive answers to questions about the nature of emotions and feelings? And what effect the game can have on the reader? I have to answer this already. But first you should tell about the plot of "Harmony".
The young man without memories of himself wakes up alone among many broken (or dead?) Fyroids, robots with emotions. They were created to help humanity, but over time they began to be very much like people. And … nothing else remembers anything about the world in which he awakened. He only looks at his mechanical hand and understands that he is one of these robots.
The nameless protagonist leaves the cold building and goes to fulfill his mission. He should help people, but something is wrong with him … The face does not express emotions. Now, having learned about his defect, he is determined to meet people, so that they correct his lack.
The protagonist goes in search of emotions, and the reader begins to plunge into history, thanks to images, sound design and the text of the visual novel. I am going to evaluate all this by starting with backgrounds, CG and sprites, history found along the course.
How the visual novel looks like
The rear backgrounds
There are not so many back backgrounds in the short story. Often the reader sees in front of him an image of a deserted area, over which the effect of a dust storm is imposed, and the cozy rooms of the church and the library, which closer to the end of the story begins to seem the safest place in the world of the game. All rear backgrounds can make the reader feel not just an observer, but a participant in the events.
Looking at the streets blocked and covered with dust is unpleasant. My eyes want to see a clean and clear picture, which can only be found when looking at the rooms with white walls and wooden beams. And as the main character feels the comfort of the Church, so the reader can enjoy the pleasant and warming interior decoration of the rooms.
CG-images
In the "Harmony" of CG-images-not such a frequent phenomenon. However, this does not prevent them from looking “alive” and tidy, creating the sensations of smoothness. But, unfortunately, the illustrations are boring and not very remembered, and they are also not generous for details. Still, CG-images are not the strongest side of the visual novel, that’s for sure. However, they cope with their role and demonstrate important plot points.
Spris
In the visual short story, for three characters, sprites were drawn. These images rarely leave the screen. Spells are not inferior as CG illustrations and even have a couple of features with them that distinguish them against the background of all images in the game.
Firstly, in “Harmony”, the text window does not block sprites and is located on the right side of the screen, and this resembles a book page. But if CG-illustration is displayed in any scene to the monitor or all characters disappear from the field of view of the protagonist, the game turns into NVL-NOLLU. The text window at such moments is displayed on the full screen. So the creators try to force the reader to feel themselves next to the heroes, while not interfering with words and, therefore, striving stories forward.
Secondly, the sprites are covered with strokes that are in motion, that is, they have animation. It is not noticeable, but thanks to her, the springs seem more “alive”. Let me remind you that the dynamic effect is also imposed over the rear backgrounds of the streets, however, there are no premises on the images with rooms, so at such moments the springs pay all attention to themselves.
What does the reader hear when the protagonist walks around the city or cries? Are the voices selected for three characters enough? And whether the rain or the movements of the mechanisms sounds? The answers to these questions will be presented in the next section of the review.
How the visual novel sounds
Music
It is worth starting with the composition from the main menu, because it is it that can both attract and scare away the reader. Meets the player’s visual novel "Sorrow". She erects the wall around the reader, locking him in a cold room in which he is forced to sit alone and only hear mournful singing, surrendering in the room.
The city theme replacing “Tristitia” (translated into Russian “Sadness”) in the main menu confronts the previous composition. From a closed room, the reader seems to get to the area on which street musicians play shock and string instruments. "Oppidum" complements the deserted rear backgrounds of the city, creating a feeling that life was in full swing in the settlement.
Slave
Only three characters from Harmony have votes. They are voiced pretty well, but it is not possible to highlight someone specific. Their votes are fully consistent with the prescribed characters. The protagonist was not awarded “the gift of speech”, but I would not take this fact to the shortcomings of the game, because the character without memories is even more suitable for silence.
Sounds
Basically, in the visual short story, you can hear the sounds of various mechanisms. For example, a rattle comes from a broken clock, and a creak from the handle of an old musical box. Sounds are found in the game infrequently, but this does not mean that they are missing. On the contrary, they arise in those moments when the visual novel needs them.
The reader saw and heard a visual novel, but as for the story and characters? In the next section, I will describe the plot, heroes and analyze that and how the author of the script is trying to convey to the player with the help of words.
Plot and characters
The nameless protagonist after https://casinoplaymillion.co.uk/games/ long wandering through the dusted world, filled with abandoned structures, the exhausted falls to the ground and wakes up on a clean soft bed in a warm and comfortable modest room.
From this moment on, the reader, together with the protagonist, is in a calm, similar to an oasis, a city in which residents are busy with worldly affairs. The feeling is created that this is the only place on the planet that has not yet left life.
The player is introduced to some residents of this settlement. Consider each of these characters I will be in order to appear on the screen.
Zion
The protagonist was found and saved by Ziona, a girl living in the church. She describes feelings and emotions with flowers and high -quality adjectives (“fluffy”, for example), and also sings the song that her brother composed. It was Zion who gave the main character the name Rei (from the English word "ray"), meaning the ray of the sun, dispersing the night darkness at dawn.
She is polite with the inhabitants and helps them with the solution of various problems, but she is not ready to do everything for them, because she understands where the line is, for which it is not worth crossing and interfering with a person to cope with his life difficulties on his own.
Zion’s voice sounds soothing, and her musical theme is quite carefree and caresses her ears. When communicating with the ram and other inhabitants, the smile does not disappear from her face. The main character believes that it is from this girl that he needs to learn joy. Zion is happy that there will be no one, because the protagonist will remain to live with her in the church for at least some time.
Terrible Madd is quite rude, but, as Zion says, a very good person. The man runs a store with a wide assortment, into which the protagonist once enters and unlessly breaks one of the goods. Rei for the first time experiences a feeling of fear when an angry Madd rises above him, exposing the protagonist on the street.
The angry man is not given so much time in the game. Unfortunately, the creators failed to make him a memorable or interesting character even outwardly. He does not have his own musical theme, so it should not focus on him.
Zion calls the Tipi "Blue Girl" because she cries quite a lot. It is this character that brings a lot of sadness to history, which is why the reader himself becomes “blue”. Tipi always sits alone surrounded by many books, the content of which was remembered by heart, and every day draws drawings impregnated with sadness. She is quite tied to the Reyu, the only one who attends a sad girl.
Unlike Madd, she is given a lot of attention in the game. The owner of the store did not really interact with other characters, with the exception of the protagonist. And Tipi not only talked with Zion, but even conflict.
Obviously, the crying girl will speak in a trembling voice, which is what is happening. The actress of voicing worked well to ensure that the player believes in the presence of the testing “blue” emotions of Tipi. And her musical theme lulls and envelops her sadness. This composition helps to penetrate the character more strongly.
Plot and its advantages, disadvantages
The protagonist decides to fix the broken music box Zion, which is important to her. He has to interact with Madd and TiPi for this. After the repair of a music box and the performance of Zion on Rei Square learns joy and happiness and then decides to give smiles to Maddu and TiPi.
The protagonist learns that Madd in a quarrel with his son, who left his father a chip with the film shot by him. It is necessary for its playback a projector, so Rei goes in search of it, ignoring the rain, the drops of which can penetrate the mechanical hand of the young man and damage it. Then the reader begins to believe that the main character is obsessed with the desire to make Madd smile. The protagonist is faced with great difficulties in repairing the projector, but residents help Rey, because thanks to him, Zion was able to perform a song that fills the joy of others, to the sound of a musical casket.
The day after the protagonist shows Madd’s film, he closes the store and leaves for his son, as Zion says. Rey understands that he managed to help Madd and now wants to solve the problems of every person oncoming person, but the savior of the protagonist tells him that he should not be imposed on people, but come to their aid at those moments when they can not cope with difficulties alone.
Then Ray finds a seriously wounded person who leads to the city, wanting to save. However, an unknown guy dies, satisfied that he found the world of harmony that he was looking for. After the death of the stranger, the protagonist, together with Tipi, mourns him for a long time. So the main character learns sorrow.
After that, Rei begins to feel that he loves Zion, the smile of which all the time directed him. But Tipi is still unhappy, so the protagonist wants to help her, but meets resistance from his savior. She does not explain anything to him and only confesses to love, after which she tries to lead the protagonist from the library for his own, as Zion says, good. However, her words turn out to be a lie, because Rei actually wants to be useful to others, fulfilling the duty of Firoid, but at the same time hiding his essence.
The protagonist returns to Tipi and learns that the parents had left the sad girl alone for a long time, having left to help other people. Then follows a scene in which Zion behaves quite unusual when he tells a resident of the library that her mom and dad are most likely dead. This is very angry with the protagonist who wants to protect the Tipi from sad thoughts. So Rei learns anger.
At this stage, history reaches its peak: Rei gains several emotions, and also begins to know love and is formed as a personality. The main character is studying throughout the narrative, and with each new scene the story seems to become more colorful. Emotions fill the protagonist and reader, so the screenwriter, choosing the right moment, cuts off the peaceful everyday life. Bandits attack the city.
Rei wants to help all citizens, but you have to choose people close to him. He decides that their salvation is more important for him. Together with Tipi, the protagonist goes to church to Zion, which is reconciled with the crying girl. However, one of the bandits discoves them and, after a short battle with the main character, is going to blow himself up with a grenade, but Zion repels Ray and covers him from the explosion. Then … survives.
This scene turns everything from head to feet (not otherwise). The hints spread throughout history indicated the truth, but the main character and, perhaps, even the reader ignored her. The point is that in fact the protagonist was not Firoid, they were residents of the city for whom Rei became a satellite, and not vice versa.
Most of the novels the player watched the attempts of a protagonist to learn emotions. The creators specially avoided the whole period of the word “Firoid” to distract the reader from the problem hanging over the whole world. They locked the protagonist in an oasis in which he happily lived his life, became more human. And the player with him was immersed in the atmosphere of a pleasant town, covered with dust. However, with the advent of real people represented by villains, Raya begins to touch the aforementioned world problem. Protagonist and player are pulled from the comfort zone.
But what a global problem destroys humanity? Zion talks about it, who has survived the explosion of a grenade and revealed its essence. Firoids are created according to the likeness of man. Androids are able to self -learn, so knowledge about the base emotions pre -installed in them can expand. They began to get closer to people and after some time a business appeared on the introduction of individual emotions and memories in firoids. Families formed as a result of marriage with emotional androids began to appear, in which children could not be born. Because of this, the number of people was reduced. And finally, humanity began to withdraw children artificially. They could no longer teach them emotions, because people lost the opportunity to love. Humanity began to hate and turn phyroids into slavery. Androids continued to serve people and keep the emotions that they lost.
The human nature of Ray and its erroneous awareness of himself Firoid, as well as a meeting with Zion, describing emotions with flowers, and other citizens – these accidents created a miracle that was necessary for people to save. And the main character decides to return love to the world and restore the ecosystem of the planet, when Tepi and Zion cease to function on his hands. Now he, like an unknown person whom the protagonist tried to save in the middle of the game, wants to find a world where Firoids and people will be able to live in harmony.
In the epilogue, the reader demonstrates that Reyu managed to teach humanity emotions and return the planet to the previous state. Zion was restored, but her memory was lost, but feelings are not memories, therefore, the fact that she sang for the townspeople arouses her old sensations, and she begins to perform a song famous around the world.
Thus, the story ends by transferring the player to the main menu in which the composition “Oppidum” now plays, and the image has changed from the dark room where the protagonist wakes up, to a picture with an alluring Ziona sitting in the water against the background of ruins. But the game is not too fast ended? It seems to me that after an attack on the city, a visual novel at all pairs hurries to the final credits, behind which a rather joyful epilogue is hidden.
At the end of the story, the main character remains in a depressed state, but charged with motivation to save the world. After the credits, he is quickly replaced by the matured and all achieved rea. The feeling is created that there is not enough part of the plot. For such a short short story, only recently revealed his trump cards, such an ending puts an unpleasant point on the “player’s forehead”, leaving that unsatisfied.
If you look at how the plot is interested in the reader, then this is not everything fine with the short story. There are few actors, of which only Zion manages to captivate the reader. Tipi is not boring, but her presence is sorrowful.
The game is focused on the main character, which acts from the desire to help others. Through him the reader enters the world of novels. The scriptwriters managed to colorfully and clearly describe the emotions, feelings and sensations experienced by the protagonist. Its growth in the course of history is visible, however, as I mentioned above, at the very end there is a jump into the future, in which we already observe the person who has reached all the hardships.
Does the short story make you experience a lot of different emotions? In general, she manages to roll waves of sadness and joy. However, the game is more focusing for sadness. The short story begins with her, they remember her about her in the middle of the story with the death of a stranger, and almost to the final credits she does not go anywhere. The rear backgrounds with a look of dusty streets do not add joy, and the attack of a group of people crushes the heaviness of the main character, touching the reader.
It’s time to move to the section with the conclusion, where I will summarize all of the above and make the final decision regarding this visual novel.
"Harmony" turned out to be the short story that has an interesting idea, partially good performance and lack of fascinating and emotional scenes. The game can be called unfinished. This is very disappointing, but everything is not so bad.
A reader who wants to read a short, not cruel, pleasantly looking and ending novel who is happy, may well be a satisfied game. However, to those who want to survive an emotional journey, get acquainted with interesting characters and immerse yourself in the world invented by the creators, will have to be disappointed on the face to observe the final credits and epilogue, wondering: “And that’s all this?"
I believe that the short story can find its reader, but for me a story about emotions that cannot even make a player laugh, but only drive into longing ..