Harold Halibut - Review

The occasionally long loading screen is the only thing stopping you from enjoying this game and finding your way home.

Harold Halibut created a lot of buzz when it was first announced.  Particularly it’s art direction.  The game’s art style is completely handmade Claymation which immediately got my attention.  After finishing the game, I can honestly say that it’s art style is far from the only thing I felt charming about it.

We’re introduced to Harold as he's being taken down to the offices of All Water, the corporation that runs the underwater station called the Fedora 1.  When I first met Harold, I thought he was a little shallow and dry as a character but by the end of the game, that’s some of the best parts of his personality.  He’s goofy, very dry, and lovable.  All throughout the game, he makes these quirky jokes and gets himself into awkward situations and doesn’t really know how to talk himself out of them and it made me laugh several times throughout my playthrough.  Some of my favorite moments are completely off the cuff interactions, like a character breaking out into song randomly and then never doing it again or a husband being paranoid about his wife having a non-existent affair and reacting to it in the complete opposite of what you’d expect from a narrative string like that.

Harold is far from the only character that made me laugh.  Most if not all of the characters in the game were pretty goofy, hilariously dumb, or just surprised me in great ways.  Every character fits into a really charming narrative throughout my playthrough.  Not to mention the various story beats and side stories that surprised me.  I was expecting to end up doing a handful of tedious side quests, all of which I’d seen done in other games.  While there was definitely some familiarity there, the narrative context and character interactions were memorable and enjoyable.

The overall narrative of the game is very charming and funny from beginning to end.  Some narrative strings are started in the first act of the story that seem like they’re setting up cliché villains and motives end up not being the case and catching me off guard in the best way possible.  As I’m writing this, I don’t want to give anything away that could potentially spoil any parts of it.  But I will say that the writing isn’t all just dry humor.  There are surprisingly heartfelt and even sad moments that I wasn’t expecting that got me teared up and the way the game ends is beautiful.

Now that I’ve gushed over the story a little bit, the game is not without it’s flaws.  Mechanically, this game is a narrative adventure game and really doesn’t innovate on that genre in any meaningful way.  You walk around the station, you talk to characters who ask you to talk to someone else, check on something, get them an item, etc.  And mostly walking from point to point.  This isn’t terrible as the beautifully crafted art style is fun to look at, but it is hampered by some pretty abysmal loading times.  At one point, I was pretty sure the game froze mid-load and I almost restarted the game until the game finally finished loading.

While the animation and art style are really innovative for a game, facial expression leaves a lot to be desired.  While the bodies animate quite well for the most part, apart from blinking and mouths moving, facial animations are non-existent which makes some of the social interactions a little off-putting.  Thankfully that didn’t hamper the narrative too much.

I enjoyed the hell out of this game.  It’s very rare for a game to give me “Post Game Depression” and Harold Halibut gave it to me.  Though the loading times were rough here and there and the game isn’t very innovative in the mechanics sector, the game’s Claymation was so fun to watch from start to finish, and I’d fallen in love with so many of the game’s characters, especially my main man Harold.  I was sad when the game was over but I’m really happy I played it.