Title: ハーヴェストオーバーレイ
Developers: Giga & TGL (now known as Entergram)
Release Date: 8th June 2017
Length: ~17 Hours
Links: Official Site, VNDB
Set in a world where virtual reality and AI have been fully integrated into everyday life; this game follows Makito, a hardcore gamer whom has recently been disappointed by all the latest releases he’s played. This is until he is invited to join the closed beta test of the Augmented Reality game “Harvest OnReal” which was developed by Cymell Corporation whom were the makers of “Cherry Blossom” – a very popular MMORPG and one of Makito’s favourite games from his youth. He jumps at the chance and eagerly accepts the invitation. It soon transpires that Harvest OnReal is unlike anything he’s played and has the aim of making everyday life into a fun game. As he finds and teams up with other players, the group decide to try and clear the game.
Characters
Ouno Makito
Makito is a pretty average high-school student who’s main hobby is gaming. He tends to be quite serious and can be a little harsh with his words occasionally. He’s a good cook and takes care of all the housework at home. He was involved in a major accident a couple of years ago and lost all of his childhood memories.
Ouno Sumi (CV Ogura Yui)
Sumi is Makito’s younger sister and the pair currently live alone together due to their mother working abroad. She’s a genius programmer that specializes in AI development and is employed by a large corporation. She tends to be quite unsociable and is the sole member of the “future generation” club that she uses to avoid going to classes. Sumi absolutely adores her older brother and vows to protect him from the advances of other girls.
Mikami Lilia (CV Momoi Ichigo)
Lilia is Makito and Sumi’s childhood friend and the sole heir to her family’s technology empire. She’s a gamer with a particular love of shooting games. She’s also very competitive and tends to argue with Sumi often. Her mother passed away when she was quite young and Lilia has had a strained relationship with her father since. Her maid Malvina looks after her and comes to the school to collect her every day.
Tamaki Yuuka (CV Ueda Akane)
Yuuka is a transfer student that meets Makito one evening at the beach while she searched for mermaids. She’s very excitable and often makes jokes. Much of her background is shrouded in mystery as Yuuka has amnesia and remembers little about her life before she arrived in town.
Yatsurugi Komachi (CV Misonoo Mei)
Despite her short stature, Komachi is the oldest of the group and is a formidable swordsman. Her family own a kendo dojo so she can often be found practicing. Due to her scary reputation, people often find her difficult to talk to and avoid her. She initially claims to dislike games but it turns out that she’s a closet gamer and otaku.
Artwork
There were two artists working on this game: Usume Shirou & Niro. Usume Shirou is responsible for the art for Yuuka and Komachi. Niro worked on the artwork for Lilia and Sumi.
Sound
1st Opening: Another Reality – Nao
2nd Opening: Lies and Truth – Keina
1st Ending: Connect New World – Keina
2nd Ending: Utopia – Malia
BGM for this game was composed by the group ALVINE, whom have worked on a number of other galge.
System
The game’s title screen actually changes every time you finish a route so there are 5 in total.
The rest of the system is pretty basic and the choices are incredibly simple so no guide needed.
My Thoughts
It’s quite weird playing this because back in the day I actually played a lot of galge before I even realised that otome games were even a thing. However, for the last few years I’ve pretty much been playing otome exclusively so it was actually nostalgic to go back to a chara-ge I know my younger self probably would’ve played.
Since this game does follow the typical pattern of a standard chara-ge that means the common route is amazing but the character routes are generally lacking, something that the removed content of the PS Vita version probably doesn’t help.
As I mentioned, the common route is super enjoyable to read and there are loads of jokes in there to keep you entertained since it’s the longest section of the game by far. If you’re a fan of RPGs or games in general then you’ll probably enjoy this part a lot. The whole idea of turning everyday life into a RPG is really fun and I wish that a game like Harvest OnReal actually existed!
The main characters themselves are all pretty adorable and likeable. I’ll start with Makito first – since I’m used to playing otome games I probably scrutinized him like I do a normal love interest haha. I actually found him to be a decent character and enjoyed his sharp quips (he’s like the only tsukkomi in the game) so I can understand why the girls generally fall for him, especially as most have pasts with him too. My only real complaint is that his face is only in like 2 CGs 😦
Lilia is your typical ojou-sama type but surprisingly isn’t tsundere and is in fact pretty deredere towards Makito from the start. She’s super cute and while her route was a little predictable, I did like it. Sumi is the token brocon younger sister and is really funny during the common route (I like that the game points out early on that they’re not actually blood related siblings lol). I found her route to be the weakest of the four but I think it probably suffers the most from removed content which is a shame.
Komachi would probably appeal the most to fans of gap moe as she has the whole disparity between her cutesy appearance/strong personality and add in her otaku tendencies to that too and you get a surprisingly adorable mix. She’s actually best once you get into her route and, while her route was predictable, I liked that she was given a chance to shine and didn’t rely /too/ much on Makito to protect her, etc…
Finally is Yuuka whom has one of the most awkward introductions I’ve read (Makito finds her standing topless in the ocean at night) but is completely hilarious. She really makes the common route and I loved her interactions with everyone. It’s quite clear that Yuuka has the “true route” of the game and I found it to be a fairly decent read, if a tad over-complicated at parts.
The sub-characters are all generally good and all have some value, even if they’re generally just used for comedy. My personal favourite was Harvest OnReal’s guidance AI Loreley – whom pretty much makes continuous stupid and/or meta jokes.
The game’s artwork was generally okay with the character sprites having an abundance of expressions. I personally preferred Niro’s art-style as I found some of the other characters to have some odd-looking CGs. Since the game is quite short there’s definitely enough CGs and there’s a whole bunch of SD CGs which were cute! There was a problem with the way some of the CGs were cropped though and unlike some other companies (e.g. prototype), this game doesn’t give you the option to scroll in the CG gallery to see “full” image which was a shame.
While the BGM was okay, if a tad forgettable, the vocal songs were awesome and were the reason I was interested in the game in the first place. My favourite is Nao’s Another Reality but all four songs were really enjoyable – I’m sad I never bought the LE to get my hands on the game’s soundtrack!
The voice acting in the game was good (although there was a big problem that I’ll mention later) and it was really funny because I thought I recognized Sumi’s voice actress but it turns out all four main heroines are voiced by people whom have worked on games I’ve played in the past which was a nice surprise!
One of the main problems with this game is the port itself – there’s just a huge list of annoying problems to deal with. First and foremost is the long loading times. The game tends to load often between scenes and can sometimes take a while which kinda ruins your immersion during tense/exciting parts of the game. There was also a weird glitch with the CG gallery whereby 2 CGs don’t actually show up in it – one from the middle of Sumi’s route and another at the very end of Yuuka’s route (which would be the final CG of the game). This was really odd but thankfully it’s quite easy to use the scene recollection to go back and screenshot these CGs, it’s just annoying though.
Before playing the game, I looked up a guide to see if any of the routes were locked, etc. According to the guide for the PC version, Yuuka’s route should be locked until you play the other 3 routes and then choose an option on the game’s menu screen or something. There’s nothing like this in the PS Vita version and her choices are there from the start so I’m not 100% sure if Yuuka’s route is actually locked in this version but you should still read it last anyway.
The final and (arguably) worst glitch is this really annoying thing where the character voices just randomly sound really, umm, pixelated? I don’t know the right word to describe it but the sound quality suddenly drops and it’s almost like the voices are lagging. This issue does generally fix itself after a while but it happens pretty often throughout the course of the game. I originally was worried that something had happened to my PS Vita/Headphones but other players have complained about it so it’s clearly not a hardware issue. I had heard that TGL’s earlier port of Parfait suffered from similar sound quality issues but I figured that they’d fixed it since I don’t remember anything like this happening when I played their Fureraba port…
Final Thoughts
My Score: 6/10
Overall, this is a game with a really hilarious common route but with generally underwhelming character routes despite the main heroines being utterly charming. In typical chara-ge style, if you’re interested in any of the aforementioned heroines then it’s probably worth a play, otherwise, ignore.
However, due to the programming issues and lack of additional content, it is quite difficult for me to recommend this version of the game over the original PC game. I’m normally quite the supporter of “all-ages” console ports but unless you really don’t want R-18 scenes then just buy the original and save your ears.
Personally, I really enjoyed playing a galge after such a long time and I’ll definitely be digging out some more that are lying gathering dust on my shelf.
This game taught me that there’s two types of people:
Next week’s review will be a return to my normal otome game reviews with Nekketsu Inou Bukatsu-tan Trigger Kiss. I’ve not made much progress with Arcana Famiglia this week due to being busy with Ensemble Stars (I foolishly decided to aim for T1) but I hope to finish it relatively soon. On another note, I also finally picked up a copy of Diabolik Lovers Vandead Carnival because it was cheap so now I just need to find some motivation to actually play it…
Thanks for reading~
Zettai Renai! 