Harold Halibut – Harold Halibut test – Soft dough

The Earth is dying, and the future of humanity may lie beyond the stars. This is why the Fedora left our system with the hope of colonizing another planet. But after two centuries of travel, a solar flare hits the craft and sends it crashing onto an entirely aquatic planet with a toxic atmosphere. Since then, in the depths of this immense ocean, the survivors have been organizing themselves in order to be able to resume their journey towards more lenient lands.

It is in this context that our character, Harold, is born and grows up, a somewhat simple-minded handyman who has been taken under the wing of the local eccentric scientist. After Unforeseen Incidents, would this type of adventure game character become a new trope? Okay, it's just two games. Which isn't much, but it's strange that it happened twice. Is not it ?

Aardman hates them, find out why

The Slow-Bros studio's decision was to choose an artistic direction that is reminiscent of stop-motion films with plasticine characters. This is felt in the modeling of the characters, their animations and even the creation of the sets. And the result is particularly successful and brings a certain charm to the game. The rendering of the textures gives the impression that you could almost feel the material under your fingers, whether it is fabric or cut cardboard. As for the environments, it is a pleasure to visit the paintings which seem to have been literally made by hand. Particular care was taken on the interiors of the Fédora; a few other places give off less of this DIY impression, but they are still pleasant to see.

Regarding the staging, the cutting is often very classic: more or less fixed scenes where the hero of the story moves, shots/reverse shots during the dialogues… But sometimes it happens to fall on pure moments of grace, bursts of brilliance that caress the retina. Chapter 5, for example, is full of these good ideas.

And the ears, too. All dialogue is dubbed into English (and subtitled in French) and the dubbing is very good, a certain category of characters in particular. It is also a success in terms of music: discreet most of the time, she knows how to put herself forward at the most appropriate moments. A few third-party songs are included, but the original tracks are not left out, with a few clearly standing out from the crowd (chapter 5, again).

As for the story, we cannot escape the classic clichés like the evil society which seeks to abuse the inhabitants or some other rather telephonic endings. Harold's clumsiness is perhaps pushed a little too extreme, at the risk of sometimes being absurd in certain passages. But in itself, the story follows well. It must be said that it is mainly carried by its characters (some more than others, let's admit it): often quirky, sometimes exuberant, rarely serious, we come across a very nice range of characters during the adventure.

They wouldn't do such a thing, come on…

If Harold Halibut had it been a two-hour film or even a mini-series, it would have undeniably been a great success. But this is an adventure game lasting around twelve hours. And that’s where the problem lies…

Long sobs and monotonous languor

Here we have a very classic adventure game: we direct the character in different environments and we have to click in the places where a small black and white cursor is displayed. The action then triggers a search of the premises or initiates a discussion with another character. If you find an object somewhere, you have to take it somewhere else. If we speak with someone, we (sometimes) have choices of questions to ask or (extremely rarely) a limited time to answer something. It is possible to chat with many characters and they have plenty of things to say throughout the chapters; the writing and dubbing effort is impressive. Even if it doesn't advance the plot in any way, it allows us to learn more about them and the Fedora.

It happens that mini-games are triggered, sometimes unnecessarily obscure, often not very interesting. It could be unscrewing plates to reveal a mechanism, plugging in various shaped sockets or pressing buttons on a computer. Most are clearly forgettable.

The ship is equipped with an arcade room which offers two playable terminals. However, the thing was obviously done in haste: the handling is questionable and it is above all the same game twice, but with different packaging.

So yes, the gameplay is very basic. But the real problem with the title is that everything is phenomenally slow.

Our role as a handyman pushes us to be of service to everyone. We therefore find ourselves constantly going back and forth through the same areas of Fédora. Harold can run (well, trot, let's say), but there is always the obligatory passage through the transport tubes to slow down the pace a little more. It is also possible to accelerate the dialogues, but even there there is a small latency: you press the button, the dialogue window is removed, but the animation accompanying the text is then accelerated, which introduces a a short moment before the next window, which will have to be passed in the same way.

The division of the story doesn't help either: we wake up, we do our tasks, we go back to bed, and do it again the next morning. It must be said that the objective of these quests is not always brilliant. We are truly the last wheel of the carriage in this story of takeoff. This feeling reaches its peak when, after having explored the place up and down, the character who entrusted you with the task admits to you that he has finally done things differently and that he no longer needs the thing that you brought back for him. Great, thank you… Other tasks really give the impression of extending the game time for nothing: for example this (optional) objective of having to deliver mail to certain inhabitants. You would think that it would be a matter of taking the box and distributing it to the recipients? Nope: the box stays in the same place and you have to bring the letters one by one, writings that the recipient will be happy to read completely in front of you. Want to set it all on fire…

Oh, but be careful: all this is not innocent either. The idea is to make us understand how Harold feels by putting us directly in his shoes. A man of little talent among people who have an important role in the community, or even who have the means to get the ship going again, the poor guy is clearly looking for his place in the strange situation in which the members of the Fédora find themselves. But train-tasteless train lasts a good half of the game, at which point things a little more interesting begin to take place: and we're still talking about nearly six hours of monotonous gameplay before that moment! Over such a period, we still hope for something a little more fun. I didn't come here to suffer, okay?

Harold Halibut offers incredible art direction to serve up a classic but honest story. Unfortunately, it is in the video game part that the whole thing fails, with very classic gameplay, but above all a pace that is much too slow for its own good.

Test carried out on PC by NeoGrifteR from a version provided by the publisher.