Edna & Harvey: The Breakout

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Edna & Harvey: The Breakout

by Mikhail Jun 28, 2020 | 1 Votes | 85 Played | 0 Reviews

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Genres:

Adventure , Puzzle

Graphics:

2D

Labels:

Adventure

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Daedelic Entertainment Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is a puzzle adventure game where you try to help Edna and her talking bunny plush Harvey escape the sanatorium. Solve difficult puzzles and interact with a variety of characters. Remastered on the Switch, you get to enjoy excellent visuals, art style, and a refreshing take on the point-and-click genre. Play Now Similar Games Played Post a Review

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/Sound Conclusion

Summary

Point-and-click adventure games are quite dated and are starting to dwindle due to newer and more improved gameplay mechanics. Though they may not be as popular as before, a good number of them are beloved classics.

Edna & Harvey is one of these classic franchises. It’s a well-loved series by renowned German game developer Daedalic Entertainment.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is undoubtedly not just one of the best games in the franchise, but also one of the best games they’ve ever made. Now remastered and improved for the Nintendo Switch, it brings the classic point-and-click adventure to the hybrid console. Though there are some minor issues (especially with the controls and puzzles), the entire game exudes charm and quirkiness to the point that it’s just so hard to put down and stop playing.

So, is this “insane” adventure something you’d want on your Switch? Let’s check out what it has to offer.

Plotline

Imagine waking up surrounded by padded walls, a chair, a table, and your talking rabbit plushie. Dressed in overalls that barely cover the bottom part of your body, you have no memory of the past. However, you have a strong urge to escape, so you start ripping the padded walls of your room and trying to talk your way out of there with the guard.

This is Edna & Harvey: The Breakout’s premise. You play as Edna, our protagonist and with her is Harvey, the ever-talkative stuffed toy who frequently dishes out funny commentary. As an inmate/patient of the asylum, your goal is to try to escape it using tools around the environment. Along the way, you’ll meet a quirky cast of characters who are all a joy to talk to and interact with.

The narrative - and how it’s told - is as crazy as its setting. The writing is absurdly wonderful and a delight. The game is full of puns, fourth-wall breaks, and even commentary on a variety of subjects, especially from Harvey. The game is never short on humor which you’re almost always treated to when you select the option to talk.

Gameplay

If you’re purely playing Edna & Harvey: The Breakout for its story though, you’ll run into a huge wall to climb: the puzzles. You see, even the first puzzle will take a lot of time to solve, even for veteran puzzle pushers. (MILD SPOILERS)I mean, how are you supposed to know that you have to escape by ripping out padded walls and by turning up the air conditioner by talking to the guard?

Although the game gives out some conspicuous hints, some puzzles are borderline tedious to the point that you need a lot of patience to solve them. Some solutions are so out there and unexpected, that I needed a walkthrough to proceed. Fortunately, you can ask for Harvey’s help in some sequences and he’ll provide you with a few hints to help out.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is a point-and-click adventure game but how do its controls hold up on the Switch? Overall, the game is playable, but unfortunately, it’s not as intuitive and may take some time to get used to. This isn’t a major issue and you can definitely zoom past menus and pick the object you want to interact with easily, but it’s not as seamless. It would’ve helped if it supported motion controls to simulate a mouse.

That aside, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout’s gameplay loop centers around you helping them navigate through various areas around the asylum. You can trigger and action and interaction by picking one of the few options “talk to”, “look at”, “use”, and “pick up”. Whenever you use the inappropriate option for an object or use the wrong one on your inventory, this results in a comedic dialogue which is an absolute treat. And yes, Edna will actually try to talk to an inanimate object which can be both funny and...disturbing.

Graphics/Sound

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is a prime example of a game with outstanding voice acting. Edna’s English voice actor, in particular, stood out, delivering a noteworthy performance that captures Edna’s mental state and complements the absurd writing. The same can be said of Harvey’s actor as well.

Apart from the voices, the art style and the graphics stand out as well. It makes it feel like you’re playing and moving around with high-definition comic panels or Saturday morning cartoons you’d watch as a kid. However, there is a minor problem concerning the text size in the dialogue options, but this is a recurring problem in almost all Switch games.

Conclusion

Overall, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is an absurd adventure and you’re insane if it’s something you wouldn’t want to undertake. Although the puzzles are what you wouldn’t call easily solvable due to their out-of-this-world solutions, the characters, art style, and the writing deliver so much charm and enjoyment that it’s worth playing the game for these alone. It holds up fairly well on the Nintendo Switch, even if it’s essentially a game that should be played on a mouse and keyboard.

So, should you help Edna and Harvey escape the asylum? If you like extremely funny stories and rather difficult puzzles, this game is just right up your alley.