I am the type of gamer that hates to play games out of order – well, games with an overarching narrative. Prior to playing even one second of Dead Space 3, I had to hunt down copies of Dead Space 1 and 2, just to experience the narrative as the writers intended. The funny thing is that I realize that most sequels don’t even have the same writers involved, due to the fluid nature of the industry, and that most game narrative take a back seat to other sections of the game. It is still something that I have a hard time with, so I was a little bit twitchy when I received Edna and Harvey: The Breakout. Edna and Harvey: The Breakout is Daedelic Entertainment’s first game, which was technically a university project and is the first game in the Edna and Harvey series. A while back I reviewed the sequel, Edna and Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes, so with this review I was backtracking to the original game. I hate doing that, so if I’m a little hard on this one, you know why.
Story
Edna and Harvey: The Breakout begins with you locked up as Edna in an insane asylum with your terry cloth bunny, Harvey. As the name suggests, your first objective is to break out of said asylum. The game does start you off with amnesia so you have no idea why you are locked up in this padded cell, that is until Harvey begins to show you your past through the process of “tempomorphing”. Through this little jaunts to the past, Edna will discover not only her past but precious skills she has learned that she will need to get out of the asylum. As the story progresses, Edna and Harvey run into the other residents of the asylum, including the Keymaster and Dr. Marcel, who runs the entire institute.
As the story progresses, you learn that your father was locked up and executed as the murderer of Dr. Marcel’s son. You also discover that it is Dr. Marcel that is removing your memories during your treatments at the asylum. Edna and Harvey become determined to discover what these missing memories contain and try to discover why their father, who does not seem to be the murdering type, was executed for the death of Dr. Marcel’s son. The story is written well enough, with enough humor to lighten what ultimately becomes a fairly dark and depressing story when you really think about it.
My issue with the story of Edna and Harvey: The Breakout is how it connects to Edna and Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes. You see, it really doesn’t and that absolutely drove me nuts throughout my play through. I kept waiting for the connection to occur, to see where the overall narrative connects the two stories, and it never appears. If you haven’t played Harvey’s New Eyes, then you can start with The Breakout and move forward, but if you have played the sequel first, do not panic these two games never feel connected in any way. I guess that can be considered good news for some, but for me I desire a bigger and connected story between two games of the same series, and it just isn’t here.
Game Play
Game play for Edna and Harvey: The Breakout is your typical point and click adventure game play with a few tweaks and one annoyance. The biggest tweak is the “tempomorphing” game mechanic. Simply put, “tempomorphing” gives the player a chance to go back in time to learn the skills that is needed to get past a certain puzzle. While this was interesting at first, it looses a lot of it’s glitter when you realize that it is a forced mechanic and can only be used when the game needs you to learn a new skill to solve the current puzzle.
The rest of the game consists of the player exploring rooms for items to pick up and puzzles to solve. The puzzles are pretty much just using certain objects with each other, until you get the desired result. Some of the puzzles are much more interactive, meaning you have to talk to some of the other characters in the game and get them to do what you want them to do. The puzzles are never too hard nor too easy to solve, either that or I am getting better and these types of games.
The one annoyance I had with the game play was the inventory screen. The developers decided to make the inventory screen a pop up screen that only requires you to hover over it to open. While that in itself isn’t all that annoying, it is when the object you want to use the item with is underneath the inventory screen. I would have preferred that the inventory screen was a separate screen like other games, or at least a pop up bar along the bottom of the screen instead of what it is. Overall, if that is my biggest complaint for the game play of The Breakout, then the game is doing just fine.
Aesthetics
I have always loved the aesthetics of most point and click adventure games, being much more like an interactive cartoon or comic then attempting for a realistic look. Edna and Harvey: The Breakout is no different, relying on a much more “hand drawn” look for the aesthetic. The game looks just as interesting as the sequel did when I played through that one, with no changes to the art style between the two stories. The animations of the characters need work, though, to make them move across the screen in a much more fluid way. In some cases, the models just feel like there is way too many missing frames in between their movements and that brings out a much more disjointed feel to how things move across the screen.
Where Edna and Harvey: The Breakout falters badly in the aesthetic department is in the translation. The voice acting is good and the actors get into their characters without going over the top, but in the actual dialogue there were some issues in the translation from the original German to English. The dialogue does feel broken and disjointed, to match some of the animations on the screen. For me, this just takes me out of the entire feeling of the story. I understand why there is a translation issue in these lower budget games, and considering that this was a university project it is still well done, but a bad translation breaks the narrative for me. I am also the type of guy that hates it when Nazis in a World War II movie speak English, so I may be nit picking here a wee bit.
Final Thoughts
Edna and Harvey: The Breakout is a solid point and click adventure game that has just a few issues, a decent story line, and solid game play. Being the original game in the series means most people will want to start here, but since the narrative does not connect the games together, it really doesn’t matter too much which game you begin with. The story progresses well, and has some nice twists and turns in store for you, with a fairly dark reveal for the main character. Game play elements are your tried and true point and click adventure mechanics, with puzzles that nether crippled you nor just handed you the solution. I did like the aesthetics for The Breakout, the look of the game has a nice, hand drawn feel to it while the voice acting does a decent job. The translation from German to English could get in your way from really enjoying the game as a whole, but if you can get over that then there is a solid adventure game here waiting for you. Edna and Harvey: The Breakout is available now on Steam.
[easyreview title=”Product Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]
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