Harold (PC) Review

Harold is a fun little game brought to you by Moon Spider Studio involving the title goof and an angel who has a pretty rough road ahead of him protecting said goof.

The story of Harold is fairly simple, you play Gabriel, a guardian angel in training. Your angel school(?) is holding a competition to earn a scholarship to Archangel Academy, essentially the highest college for Guardian Angels. Each participant must guide their assigned humans through dangerous race paths, and, as luck would have it, Gabriel is stuck with Harold, the worst possible candidate.

Eventually through the game, things begin to heat up with Gabriel and his arch rival Seraphiel Melakh (the daughter of the former top student, Raziel Melakh), and Seraphiel’s father, who takes a sudden liking to Gabriel. He even begins to teach him tips and tricks, as opposed to his own daughter.

The gameplay is challenging, and by challenging I mean it will punch you across the face until you start to see your own guardian angel. You don’t control Harold (other than jumping), as one might think. You instead control the objects around Harold as he partakes in races around the world, moving platforms for him to jump on and such.

Besides moving platforms, ropes and bridges, you can also use this to hinder the other race participants (such as moving platforms away or cutting ropes they are swinging on). This more often than not comes with some pretty funny animations from the other characters. Throughout the race, you will collect small halos, and for each two you get, you get a short speed boost. Complete mastery of the game requires you to know when to use these boosts, and when to hinder your opponent.

Gospel music. Hope you like it, because it makes up a good majority of the soundtrack, being someone who’s grown up in a church (well, not literally in a church), I’m used to it, but for those of you who don’t particularly want it, there is the option to substitute it with ‘regular’ music. As for the looks, those aren’t so much of an acquired taste. The cartoony graphics style is impressively done by Moon Spider, and really casts a great mood for Harold that’s lighthearted and fun.

Final Thoughts

I don’t have too many grumps with Harold really (that’s rare for you ;P -ed). The animated cartoon style graphics look fantastic, the framerate is smooth, the story is shockingly entertaining, and the gameplay is challenging to master, but still fun to play.

I will say though, I don’t find the game’s content quite worth the hefty twenty dollar price tag, and I also have to add that I fell like this one’s well suited for a tablet. The game works well enough on a PC (obviously, from my score) but the mechanics and overall style of Harold just scream ‘tablet’ or ‘smartphone’ game. And that’s not a knock by the way, I just think that’s a pretty logical next step for the title and it could be a heck of a fun time on mobiles as the touch controls would be perfect.

Back to that sale price though, because if and when the game goes on sale I’d definitely suggest picking it up. But for now, I have to say that it’s best to hold off. Harold is fun, creative, and cool, and overall doesn’t have too many flaws. However, that semi-premium price tag is a stopping point for me if I were looking to pick it up.