Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in “Edna & Harvey” Bundle along with Edna & Harvey: The Breakout – Anniversary Edition.)

Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes is a Graphic Adventure first released on PC in 2012, and then ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2019. While this is the first Edna & Harvey game to release on Nintendo Switch, it is actually the sequel to Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, so players wanting the full story of the series may want to start with that game.

Unlike the first game, neither Edna nor Harvey are the protagonist of this game, though both characters play a large part in the game’s plot. Instead, players take the role of Lilli, a shy young girl with pigtails whose vocabulary seems limited to “uh-huh”, “nuh-uh”, and “ummmm….”. Both Lilli and Edna are in a convent run by an ill-tempered nun, but soon enough Lilli’s history catches up with her, and she enlists Lilli to help her.

As with the original Edna & Harvey game, this game deals with some heavy topic matter, but is generally light and whimsical in tone, with plenty of snarky remarks by characters throughout the story. However, players who might be sensitive to topics of child abuse (especially emotional abuse) and mental illness should consider themselves warned.

The presentation in this game is pretty good, using hand-drawn 2D visuals in a goofy style that fits right in with the prior game, with expressive goofy-looking characters. This is joined by a simple instrumental soundtrack that gets the job done but isn’t especially memorable, and voice acting for spoken lines that’s appropriately cartoonish and pretty good all-around.

And much to my surprise, the gameplay seems much-improved this time around. While there are a few places here and there where you have to jump through a few hoops and engage in some absurd logic to accomplish goals, the logic isn’t nearly as obtuse as in the first game, and your options are usually limited just enough that you won’t be flailing around for long before you land on them. Actually, I found this game’s puzzles to be fairly well-crafted and clever, although the controls are a bit awkward.

With the gameplay not being nearly as torturous this time around, this allows players to enjoy this game’s characters and plot, which makes for a pretty decent entry in the genre. In fact, my only qualm here is that the plot of this game directly ties back to events from the first game in a way that really obligates you to play through the first game prior to this if you want to get the full impact of the story.

Still, I have to say I’m delighted at what an improvement Edna and Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes is over its predecessor. The gameplay, while not anything extraordinary for Graphic Adventure games, is nevertheless solid. And the characters and world are fun and occasionally quite funny. If it wasn’t for this game’s story very clearly being tied to the original game’s story, I would just tell people to skip right to this game. As-is, this game should be a real treat for those who played through The Breakout.

tl;dr – Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes is a Graphic Adventure and a sequel to The Breakout that continues the story of Edna and Harvey through the eyes of a new character, Lilli. The gameplay this time around is a significant improvement over the first game, and the writing, story, and characters are as delightful as ever. The biggest problem I can point to here is the fact that said story really depends on players having played the first game before this. If you have, you’ll definitely want to jump right into this sequel.

Grade: B-

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