NOT
Stressful and Hard to Play at Times
The start of Harmoknight is a blast to play, but over time it feels like the game wants you to lose. This becomes increasingly obvious as you do the QTE battle stages. You see, these stages are incredibly annoying, since they’re painfully easy to mess up. Every QTE section starts with some sort of cutscene, which explains what you need to do. After this you’ll have control of your character and will be asked to perform the sequence while keeping rhythm. It’s typically easier to remember the sequence than figure it out in real time, but it can be done either way. These fights will continue in this pattern till you hit the end, where the real nightmare begins.
Regardless of how good or bad you do during a fight, missing the final note is an instant failure. If you do happen to fail one of these fights, you must redo the whole stage (cutscenes included) till you get it right. Considering the last boss has 100 possible inputs, you’ll probably have to redo these stages countless times to win.
While it’s no shock that QTEs are annoying, several stages seem to have counter productive mechanics to make you lose. These start with simple things, like having to play with a different viewing angle or direction, but quickly become less user friendly. Personally my favorite challenge is the camera gradually zooming in on you, since it makes me wonder who thought that would be enjoyable. It can also be especially jarring when you notice the effect taking place and even more so when the camera completely zooms out on you. Some of the other mechanics include hidden enemies, invisible ghosts, unpredictable obstacles (like a platform falling apart), and obscured vision. It’s a real shame that these were included, since it was a fun game prior to the learn from your mistake deaths.
Not a Lot of Replayablity
Despite having over 50 songs to complete, Harmoknights doesn’t really motivate you to keep playing. For instance, most stages have several different paths you can take and this can result in you getting a better or worse score because of it. Some paths won’t give you enough points to pass, where as other paths will give you enough to get a gold medal. Every gold medal will unlock a faster version of the song, but nothing changes besides the speed. Ironically I found a lot of the faster songs were easier to complete, since they tend to have a larger buffer than slower songs. Getting gold on a fast song will unlock an image, but that’s your only real incentive. There are also these pink birds you can find to unlock a secret world, but be warned these stages were where the mechanics mentioned above were in full force.
VERDICT
Harmoknight’s has a lot of content and variety, but they drop the ball towards the end. With several stages being filled with cheap mechanics, annoying QTE boss fights and impossible to predict elements, you’ll quickly forget the game was enjoyable at one point. Couple this with the typical damsel in distress story and you have a game that could have been great, but ultimately falls short.
[Editor’s Note: Harmoknight was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
