Harold Halibut Image
Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: Harold Halibut is a handmade narrative game about friendship, and life on a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean.
    It's been 250 years since your home - an ark-like spaceship - fled an Earth on the verge of cold war to find a habitable planet on which to preserve the human
    Harold Halibut is a handmade narrative game about friendship, and life on a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean.
    It's been 250 years since your home - an ark-like spaceship - fled an Earth on the verge of cold war to find a habitable planet on which to preserve the human race.
    You are Harold, a young lab assistant for the ship's lead scientist, Jeanne Mareaux. While most of the ship's inhabitants have reconciled themselves to a life lived aboard the sunken ship, Mareaux still works tirelessly to find a way for the ship to leave the planet and find a new, dryer home.
    But of course the weird, wonderful and diverse people of the Fedora keep Harold busy too. Until one fateful encounter plunges Harold into a new world that nobody could have guessed existed - and one that may hold the key to Mareaux's re-launch plans.
    Join Harold as he explores a vibrant retro-future world, talks (with full voice acting) to its inhabitants, and occasionally goes hands on by sticking screwdrivers in things, operating complex machinery, and more in his quest to find the true meaning of 'home'.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 26
  2. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. Apr 15, 2024
    100
    While not your most traditional “game,” Harold Halibut is without a doubt a true work of art, something the likes of which we haven’t seen before and are unlikely to see again.
  2. Apr 15, 2024
    85
    Harold Halibut is a touchy narrative adventure with a strong personality, due to stop motion technique.
  3. Apr 15, 2024
    80
    It may take place at the bottom of the ocean on a distant alien planet, but Harold Halibut’s story is an entirely human one, both in terms of its carefully handmade environments and its strong emphasis on empathy towards its eccentric cast of characters. While I wish that there was a little more interactivity to be found throughout its subaquatic setting, and Harold’s shuffling run could have been boosted to a sprint to reduce the time spent repeatedly schlepping from one end of its levels to the other, I nonetheless remained captivated by his whimsical quest to unite his community and explore the spectacular surroundings of his sunken home. Consistently funny and full of surprises, Harold Halibut is a wholesome, handcrafted adventure with plenty of heart.
  4. Apr 16, 2024
    70
    Harold Halibut's world and the people that inhabit it were literally crafted by people that cared about him and his story. And while that story struggles under the weight of its ambitions, the human touches on every part of it are evident. Those are the heart and soul of the game, and they imprinted on me too.
  5. Apr 22, 2024
    60
    Harold Halibut is a stop motion narrative adventure, whose childish story weighed down by a rhythm that is too heavy and its practically non-existent gameplay, lacking any spark, fails to live up to the work of craftsmanship that is its stop motion graphics.
  6. Apr 15, 2024
    60
    Harold Halibut makes some key compromises to make its eye-popping claymation art style work.
  7. Apr 15, 2024
    50
    Looking at the Slow Bros.' game, it's hard not to associate it with The Neverhood, but these are just appearances. A bland protagonist, almost complete lack of gameplay, and - on top of that - a huge amount of bugs make Harold Halibut a fish that's very hard to digest.

See all 28 Critic Reviews