Harold Halibut Review – Charming Chore Sim

There are no shortage of passion projects within the world of indie games, but Harold Halibut from German developer Slow Bros. takes dedication to another level. In the works in some form since 2010, Harold Halibut’s striking stop-motion-inspired visuals have caught a lot of folks’ eyes, but there was always that lingering concern that this aquatic adventure may be a pipe dream. That a completed game may never surface. Thankfully, those fears were misplaced, as the game finally arrives this week.

Has Harold Halibut been worth the long wait and all those many developer hours? Or is the end result a bit… fishy? Let’s dive in…

Based on various in-development glimpses I’d seen over the years, I was expecting Harold Halibut to have a sort of whimsical fantasy-like feel, but actually, the game offers a surprisingly elaborate sci-fi setup. Following a series of wars and ecological disasters on Earth, an ark-like ship named the Fedora is send off to find a new home for humanity. Generations come and go as the ship travels through the cosmos for hundreds of years, and when the time finally comes, the settling of a new planet doesn’t exactly go as planned. The Fedora crash lands on a watery world and is unable to escape, and so, the ship is adapted to become a sort of sunken subnautical space station.

Everything on the Fedora, from the elaborate tube system that literally flushes people from one part of the ship to another, to the energy and life-support systems, runs on water. This is all overseen by the All Water Corporation, a slightly-more-friendly version of your typical dystopian overlords (although they still have plenty of secrets to hide). Harold himself is a sort of handyman who maintains the Fedora’s water filtration system and runs errands for the ship’s feisty lead scientist Jeanne Mareaux (he lives in a bedroom under her lab and acts as a surrogate son of sorts, although their exact history isn’t clear). In classic adventure game fashion, Harold is a go-with-the-flow type of guy, calmly accepting the various weirdos and strange situations he’s faced with, although the game hints there may be deeper reasons for his dispassionate nature.

Life on the Fedora is comfortable in its own way, but is thrown into a tizzy by a confluence of events. First, it’s discovered life on Earth did not come to a catastrophic end and, in fact, is doing better than ever as humanity managed to get its act together. Second, Professor Mareaux realizes there’s a gap in the solar winds that usually bombard the planet, meaning there’s a short window where the Fedora could potentially escape. Lastly, Harold discovers a humanoid fishy alien trapped in the ship’s filtration system. These events kick off two separate yet connected narratives, as residents of the Fedora make escape plans and Harold grows closer to his new fishy friend and explores their unique alien society.

Harold Halibut’s setup grabbed me like few games in recent memory. This is a truly one-of-a-kind world, packed to the brim with clever, often hilarious, little details. The plot itself takes some surprising turns, eventually becoming a larger, more complex story than I was expecting. Given Harold Halibut’s shoebox diorama vibes, you may think the game is going to be quaint, perhaps a bit twee, but it actually tackles big ideas and delivers some surprisingly emotional, and occasionally downright badass, moments.

This immersive world is brought to life by those dazzling stop-motion-style visuals. I say stop-motion style, because past games that attempted a look like this did actual stop-motion animation which was then scanned and composited into the game ala something like Donkey Kong Country. With that dated technique no longer really being an option, Harold Halibut takes a somewhat different approach. All the game’s characters and many of its background objects were created as actual physical models then 3D scanned and turned into polygonal models.

This halfway approach between stop-motion animation and typical 3D game design works well, as Harold Halibut has a wonderfully tactile look and feel, but the game’s devs are much freer to manipulate their characters and world. There’s really no understating just how gorgeous this game looks. Every inch of the Fedora is packed with vibrant, colorful detail, with the emerald green seas and aquatic life constantly seen outside the ship’s windows making everything feel alive in a way you don’t always see with stop-motion. At least in terms of visuals, Harold Halibut is, unquestionably, a legitimate work of art.

So, yes, I was wowed by the story and world of Harold Halibut, but there’s an unfortunate caveat – its actual gameplay. Within the first minutes of booting up Harold Halibut I got that warm, tingly, nostalgic feeling I only get from the best 90s point n’ click adventures like Grim Fandango or The Secret of Monkey Island, and I was eager to see what kind of devilish puzzles the game might throw my way. Sadly, those puzzles never really came.

Sure, Harold Halibut does present the occasional immersive interactive bit, but these are closer to minigames than anything that’s going to challenge your grey matter. The game is divided into days, with a certain routine settling in for many of them which largely revolves around doing chores for people. Take an item or message to one person, return with a reply or another item for the original quest giver. Back and forth, day after day. Again, the world of Harold Halibut is a fascinating one, and generally fairly well laid out, so all this schlepping about isn’t overly frustrating. There are also a number of fun little extras, from sidequests, to fully functional arcade games, to wacky TV broadcasts that add richness to the world. All that said, given how much effort was clearly sunk into so many aspects of this game, it’s a bit baffling that the gameplay itself is so underdeveloped.

With engaging puzzles in the mix, I truly believe Harold Halibut could have joined the pantheon of great classic-style adventure games. As is, it’s a title that consistently kept me hooked over the course of its 7-to-8-hour story, but didn’t fully reel me in like the very best of the genre.

This review was based on a PS5 copy of Harold Halibut provided by publisher Slow Bros.

Harold Halibut

Harold Halibut is an extraordinary accomplishment in a lot of ways, presenting a gorgeously-realized handcrafted world and a story swimming with unique sci-fi ideas and affecting emotional beats. Unfortunately, a lack of stimulating puzzles or gameplay results in a title that delivers quite nicely on a surface movie-like level, but doesn’t dive as deep as you might expect.