Esse jogo é lindo, claramente o maior destaque dele pra mim é o seu visual, quando eu vi o trailer de um jogo em stop motion eu pirei muito forte, e nisso o jogo NUNCA decepciona, cenários lindos e muito detalhados.

É um game gostosinho de jogar, mas o problema é o quanto ele é lento, talvez se ele fosse mais curto essa sensação seria menos presente, mas ainda sim eu gostei muito porque me sentia cativado pelos personagens e pelo objetivo principal da história. Mais pro final vem uns questionamentos filosóficos do protagonista que eu curti bastante, mas de resto o jogo é só um vai pra lá e pra cá e conversa com personagem, os personagens são legais mas não tem nenhum exatamente memorável, foi uma historia gostosinha de viver.

I adore Harold Halibut for its thoughtful story and earnest characters, but holy moly was I ready for it to be done by the 10-hour mark. And the thing is, I don't really know how you compress the semi-puzzler, mostly-walking-around gameplay without compromising the story. I'm not a game designer, after all. But still, just a lot of traveling to places, doing a conversation/menial task, going to other places, and repeating ad nausem until it's time to go to sleep. Much like real life, I suppose.

A person's tolerance for Harold Halibut is going to depend on how much mileage they get out of slower games where inhabiting the space and conversations are the key focus, rather than anything resembling moment to moment gameplay.

I don't blame anyone who doesn't get on with that or think that any single approach is objectively better or worse, but I was drawn in by the game's beautiful handcrafted aesthetic and its hold on me never really faltered throughout the runtime. The ship you live on is full of memorable characters with their own unique idiosyncrasies, all helped along by a strong voice work - for Harold specifically there's a great balance between goofy ignorance and sentimentality, and that personality is probably one of the major factors that kept me going.

But I must emphasise again that this is a very slow game and there are quirks that come with that - sometimes your movement speed is slowed to a crawl as you'e made to follow another character, sometimes the dialogue goes on a little longer than expected, and this will put some people off. Thankfully for me, I used that time to take in the absolutely gorgeous world, animation and the small details dotted around all the locations you visit.

Me esperaba un juego bonito y simple, que me entretuviera un rato y poco más, pero me ha acabado sorprendiendo muchísimo. Me alegra mucho haberle dado una oportunidad y terminarlo.

Me han encantado los personajes y sus diálogos. El trabajo de doblaje es genial, y me he sentido súper inmerso en el universo que han creado. La historia, aunque tampoco sea una locura, también me ha gustado mucho. Me he sentido en mi salsa durante todo el juego.

También tiene sus problemillas. Si no conectas mucho con el juego te va a acabar pareciendo aburridísimo: es muy lento y se toma su tiempo para construir su mundo. Normalmente "no pasa nada importante", y si esperas que te bombardee con estímulos y dopamina lo llevas claro. En mi opinión, debería haber durado un poco menos y quizá condensar el contenido en menos capítulos, pero personalmente no me importó mucho.

Creo que Harold Halibut no es un juego para todo el mundo, ni tampoco para cualquier momento. Tienes que tener ganas de meterte en un universo a fuego lento, donde quizá vas a leer algún que otro diálogo "sin importancia", en el que conoces algo sobre un personaje terciario. En cualquier otro juego me habría sentido impaciente, pero este tiene algo que me mantuvo enganchado desde el primer minuto. Y ha merecido completamente la pena.

Harol Halibut is an absolute pleasure to play through. It's cozy, optimistic, and beautiful in both visuals and soul. It doesn't have many "game" elements but it brings a strong purposeful narrative, and every conversation makes you smile.

It does have some visual issues that appear mostly across the second half of the game, and while the distances are never long, it can get tedious walking in this game - there are often a lot of back-and-forth quests. It somewhat makes me wish this experience was just a movie instead, but I don't think it went too far. This game will really reward you with pleasant bits of narrative for seeking out new conversations every day though, and it ends having delivered a really heartfelt message about finding home and happiness and the meaning of life.

includes almost no enjoyable gameplay to speak of, pads its excruciating run time with brain dead fetch quest after brain dead fetch quest, meanders in its narrative and execution, sports a cast of quirky, memorable, and truly original characters, contains a literal truck load of beautiful hand crafted art, is scored by a haunting soundtrack that continues to stick with you after you've finished playing, and boasts some of the most dizzying, effective, and downright moving sequences i've seen in a game in a very long time. it's ok. three stars.

Entre le projet et son aboutissement, il y a clairement quelque chose qui s'est perdu en chemin.
L'univers créé et les personnages qui y vivent ont du charme, mais le média qui les exploite n'est définitivement pas le bon. Les artistes derrière le jeu ont certainement voulu avant tout mettre en valeur leur savoir-faire en termes de création de décors et de matières, et sur ce point, c'est réussi car on ressent bien la matérialité de ce qu'on a sous les yeux. C'est un réel plaisir de découvrir les différentes pièces qui composent ce diorama numérique.
Mais au bout de la 35e visite, il faut avouer que c'est plutôt le système de jeu pénible qui occupe notre attention plutôt que le sens du détail accordé à tous les éléments affichés.
Comme pour mieux étirer le temps de jeu, on ne compte plus les allers-retours effectués entre les différentes parties de la station qui ne recèlent en plus aucun "bonbon" pour récompenser notre patience. Les moments de suspension, de poésie ou d'amusement sont très mal répartis au sein de l'aventure, principalement concentrés au début et à la fin.
Une aventure beaucoup plus courte, 4 ou 5 h contre 12 h dans les faits, aurait permis de ne conserver que les qualités narratives et visuelles du titre et de se débarrasser des déplacements pénibles.
Je retiens tout de même des personnages attachants - je pense à vous, Weeoo et Buddy - et un univers intrigant, et même si je suis déçu de mon expérience, je suis content d'avoir soutenu ce genre de projet.
Je ne sais pas si Slow Bros. a l'intention ou aura la possibilité de démarrer une nouvelle histoire, mais si c'est le cas, j'espère qu'ils sauront mieux définir le scope et qu'ils se focaliseront sur leurs forces.

There are two angles for me to go about in trying to sum up my time with Harold Halibut.

On one side, this is a walking simulator at its core with glacial pacing and frequent bugs. It’s a chore to play and not always an enjoyable experience. At any moment you can go from sitting through overly long conversations to literally just holding a direction as you slowly crawl through a vent for five minutes.

On the other side, this game has a beautiful world, a fantastic narrative, and wears its heart on its sleeve at all times. You can tell the love and passion put behind this game.

Unlike many of the other reviews I’ve read on this site, I found the story to absolutely resonate with me and every time I felt bored out of my mind wandering the same halls listening to the same over the loudspeaker dialogue as I entered a tube system for the hundredth time, some beautifully shot cutscene would pull me back in. It brilliantly uses lighting, camera angles, and music to create some uniquely directed scenes. Not every scene hits, but the ones that do make up for any rough ones. It’s unfortunate that this game really shines in its final act that most players will not make it far enough to see.

If you can get past its many shortcomings, I think this game is totally worth playing through to its conclusion for what is likely to be one of the most unique games of 2024.

Harold Halibut is an outstanding technical achievement. It's not, however, a compelling game.

Harold Halibut is an adventure game that looks just like a stop motion movie. And my god do they ever do a great job at that. The game is downright gorgeous and the stop motion continuously impressed me. I really wish this tech was used in service of a better narrative.

I found it very difficult to care about the characters and plot in this world. The voice acting is excellent but the dialogue is so dull. Very rarely do characters have anything remotely interesting to say. And although some personalities shine through (namely Harold and his surrogate mother Mareaux), most of it is forgettable. This is especially true in the first 10 hours of the game which is very slice of life. The plot gets a bit more interesting by the end, but it's too late by then.

I appreciate the themes they're going for. I really like how they approached an autistic coded main character with Harold for instance. There's something so pure about how he deals with problems. I'm sure this game is for someone. Just not for me.

I really, really wanted to enjoy Harold Halibut more than I did. Harold, our protagonist, is a fish out of water: an autistic-coded janitor slash jack-of-all-trades, whose daily grind involves doing various tasks for the mostly warm but slightly stuck up crew of scientists and venture capitalists aboard the marooned spaceship, The Fedora. The game is underwater, so there's the expected Bioshock-esque critique of capitalism run riot, presented with a more dry, wry sense of humor. The game makes a strong first impression, with several mysteries piling up alongside the slow reveal of this artful, beautiful world. I particularly loved how you get around on The Fedora via a salmon cannon that shoots the people from hub to hub (for a nominal fee).

And, c'mon, the art! I know it's not the most technical game running under the hood, but this game is a sight to behold. Each interior is handcrafted and rich with detail, but then digitalized and animated so that the puppetry has no strings. Even though the gameplay is light, I found myself mashing the trigger on the controller to zoom into each interior and soak in as much of the ambiance as I could. The soundtrack, too, is subtle but evocative, fading in and out when the player enters certain locations. Tremendous stuff.

During its introductory moments, I thought this game might be another Night in the Woods-esque narrative game, one that took a story and set it across many days so that you could build relationships and be rewarded for meandering from the main task routes at every turn. And, for a while, it was. I would get invited to dinner by the former pilot, or pore over love letters from decades past with the postman. And each character, lovingly designed and voice acted, always had something to say about life's meaning, or the dulling effect of daily jobs (and the threat of debtor's prison) in an alien, water-logged world.

But my return visits to the various wings of The Fedora yielded less and less surprise, or even change, as the days went on. By midgame, Harold had stumbled upon a seemingly huge reveal, with widespread implications for him, his shipmates--maybe even the human race--yet our daily tasks consisted of slow runs to the pharmacy with almost no diversity of content. It felt like we were being forced to play out an extended montage, a pain that only sharpened once the weeklong scenario ended with a literal montage.

Repetition in videogames is part of the act, of course. It can be gameplay, the ritualistic dance of combat that break up FPS campaigns, or the return trips of roguelites that build repetitiveness into their DNA as a means of player progression. But Harold Halibut seems to say: God, isn't capitalist bureaucracy boring and awful?" Yes, it is. And it's especially boring and awful when it's hammered home in a world as lush and gorgeous as Harold Halibut.

There is a payoff, and the narrative eventually does get going. But the jarring pace and tonal shifts never really go away.

I'm glad this game exists. And it's clear that there's a huge amount of work that's gone into this game and realizing its vision. Unfortunately, Harold Halibut isn't able to successfully navigate the choppy waters separating sincerity and comedy, and ends up splitting the two in a way that challenged me to go on.

In the end, Harold Halibut is way more niche than you might expect. Its messages on capitalism, and humanity's tendency toward resource drain even in the face of calamity, are all vital and integrated well into the story. I just wish the game, like its main character, was a little more self-assured.

Harold Halibut is a strange, unique, and also heart-warming experience that unfortunately isn't going to be everyone's flavor. "Game" might even be a strong word for Harold Halibut -- there's very little in the way of mechanical friction for the player; no real puzzles, challenges, or other elements you might expect from an "adventure game". Instead, Harold Halibut presents a quirky cast of characters living aboard a crashed, underwater spaceship-city and invites you to intimately get to know their lives, their routines, their thoughts, fears, and everything in between. If you give this one a shot and aren't intrigued by the world within the first hour, I'll be honest: bounce off it. You're not likely to find much to love here.

That IS Harold Halibut, though. The game revolves entirely around running here and there, helping neighbors and friends by doing odd-jobs or delivering messages, and getting to build up relationships with the cast. Sometimes, that's enjoyable enough. The art direction of the game frankly incredible, the soundtrack is great, the animations and acting are solid and feels like you're watching a real claymation film -- most of the time I was fully engaged. Sometimes it drags, though. The titular Harold, being a quite plain guy, often does plain, boring things; understandable that the player will too, to better understand him and the grievances he comes to express in the story. However, when you're nearing double-digits in play time and still running back-and-forth, back-and-forth to initiate a chat with a character 3 loading screens away, it starts getting old. Not to mention there are multiple instances where the game forcibly takes away your ability to run, or even in one scene towards the end, makes you move in slow motion, which only compounds how slow things feel sometimes.

All-in-all I liked Harold Halibut quite a bit, and even had a melancholy feeling when it ended, having to say goodbye to a cast of characters I felt like I had grown to know personally. It's hard to shake the feeling, however, that there could have been more use of the video game medium here, and a bit less of the running around the game has you do most of the time.

The artistic value of this one is undeniable. This is one of the most unique games I’ve ever played, and it’s incredible how much work and love the developers put into all the handcrafted assets, with all the characters, props and sets genuinely sculpted and painted. Seriously, they have my deepest respect. But is it fun playing it?

Well… I definitely wouldn’t call this the revival of LucasArts-like adventure games, no matter how much charm it has. It’s more like a really long, interactive stop-motion movie, with only some minimal gameplay elements, like “go there, talk to this person, then come back here”, stuff like that, so expect lots and lots of running around and, of course, even more talking. There aren’t even any puzzles to solve, someone always points you in the right direction. The story is interesting, though, and so are all the eccentric characters the protagonist meets during his journey of self-discovery. Even though there are some really funny moments, I wouldn’t call this a comedy… Let’s go with dramedy, I’d say, with a heavier emphasis on drama.

Harold has quite a lot of psychological issues he has to work through, like how he feels detached from society, his inferiority complex, his recent break-up, and that, in general, he can’t find his place and purpose anywhere. He’s not just physically trapped in a spaceship, but also metaphorically, and thus, a kind of melancholic, bittersweet, sometimes even depressing mood hangs over the plot all the time. The underwater setting and the strange atmosphere reminded me of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, if you’re familiar with it, you can expect something like that with a bit less humour.

Anyway, if you don’t mind that you get hardly any gameplay beyond running around, and watching many, many lengthy cutscenes, give this one a try. As I mentioned, it’s a delight to look at it, no question about that.

First and foremost: what a visually stunning game Harold Halibut is. Everything is made out of clay models, from characters to backgrounds and props. The game's worth for its visuals alone.

Another big positive is its story. Not narrative, might I say. I'll get in the "howevers" in a while. Its universe feels fresh and thought of, especially the Flumylyn society, language and customs. Harold Halibut is also very wholesome, cozy, optimistic and soulful - it's refreshing to play a game that doesn't use violence, conflict or attrition as its basis. It's a joy to find out more and get yourself acquainted with each of the many intresting characters you'll encounter. Some people had qualms with the protagonist himself, but I didn't mind - his character arc is pretty consistent and defined. Because, while it might not seem at a first glance, it's a game about people, relationships and their sense of belonging.

However, it pains me to say Harold Halibut suffers heavily from pacing issues. I have no problems with slow games, but it is painfully, glacially slow. It has too much backtracking, too much redundant dialogue, too much downtime... which makes it even more puzzling because the good sections are really good (shout-out to the downright genial "Exchange" segment that looks something straight out of Evangelion), but you have to bear through hours of busywork and walking to get there. It's a 5h game stretched into a 14h body. That's the main reason why my score isn't higher.

Still, some story beats - especially its overarching message - are very beautiful and I surprisingly got emotional by the end. As much as Harold Halibut is a terribly bloated experience, you can't help but feel sad when the adventure eventually ends. It has a lingering charm not everyone will appreciate, but for those who do it's great.

Positives
- Beautiful environments/characters
- Well written dialogue
- Interesting plot at first

Negatives
- This is a very very slow paced game, to a fault in my opinion