▷Edna and Harvey: The Breakout recensione

That of the graphic adventures it is a timeless fashion that, despite the years, still continues today to give us titles of great prestige. It is therefore not surprising that, after having known great circulation in the 90s with the titles baked by Lucas Arts, including the famous saga of Monkey Island, graphic adventures keep returning to our digital libraries. To make this trend a reality we think, once again, Daedalic Entertainment that after giving us the fantastic saga of Deponia, dust off the adventures of Edna & Harvey with theAnniversary Edition di Edna and Harvey: The Breakout.

For those unfamiliar with it, it is a 'graphic adventure released in 2008 created by the minds of two young German university students and published by Daedalic Entertaiment. The title was a moderate success that brought attention back to the genre that has long since passed into the background. The bizarre Edna & Harvey have managed to restore luster to graphic adventures and are back today in a renewed guise for the XNUMXth anniversary of its release of the original game. Will the game have stood the test of time?

Edna and Harvey: The Breakout Recensione – Anniversary Edition

Being a version remastered, the plot of the game does not change, fortunately! The game tells the misadventures of Edna and her stuffed talking bunny named Harvey. Edna finds herself locked up in a mental hospital with no memory of her past or of the reasons that brought her to that place. Helped by her bizarre furry cellmate, our protagonist must try to get out of her cell and shed light on her past. To do this, Harvey will allow her to "Tempomorphize it”To send her back to the past and try to recover her memories and her extravagant skills.

From here on, a series of the most unusual encounters will begin with the other patients in the asylum such as a man dressed as Ape or the famous "Siamese twins" Hoti and Moti. Not even the Villain of the situation, the Doctor Marcel, director of the asylum who hides a great secret and will do everything to prevent Edna from escaping.

The game keeps the bizarre humor which marked the success of the original chapter by bringing in 2019 those characters and those stories that struck us 10 years ago. The game features a sequence of scenarios and puzzles to solve that will give you a hard time! In fact, most of them will force you to think outside the box, which is the same way this title was thought.

Download QR-Code Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition Developer: Daedalic Entertainment Price: 3,99 €

That extra touch of madness

Edna and Harvey: The Breakout recensione – Anniversary Edition

However, we must not forget the years that have passed from the original game to this one Anniversary Edition, years that, as it should be, have changed our standards of gamers. For the contemporary world, Edna and Harvey: The Breakout present dei very slow pace that will test your tolerance for the long dialogues between the various characters. It is true, however, that each of these is characterized by a massive dose of zany humor which has not lost its enamel.

If you have, as I hope, played the Deponia saga, it will be impossible not to recognize the absurd and funny style of the dialogues and the way to carry on a plot full of contents and twists. This nicely clashes with the dark and challenging game themes that create a deadly mix of jokes about depression, bipolarism, and so on.

In addition to the graphics, which we will analyze in the next paragraph, the Anniversary Edition has made some slight changes to the gameplay and improve the usability of the game. The controls have been improved and refined to allow the player to quickly juggle the action menu, the inventory and the scenario to be explored.

Download QR-Code Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition Developer: Daedalic Entertainment Price: 3,99 €

10 years and not hear them ... or almost

What immediately catches the eye of this edition is the great graphic improvement that the game has undergone. The Anniversary Edition indeed features one more cartoonish style than the original title. The details and colors of the settings and characters finally stand out on the screen giving us gods well crafted designs and captivating. The animations have also improved making, as much as possible with a 2D style, the movements more fluid and pleasant. It is true, however, that, despite the improvements, there would still have been a lot of work to be done on the animations to make this title graphically enjoyable even today.

I dubbing, which made this game great, remained unchanged which seemed to us a well thought out choice not to disappoint fans of the series who are probably fond of English voices. To these, unfortunately, the subtitles in Italian have not been placed side by side even in this edition which would definitely improve our gaming experience.

Edna and Harvey: The Breakout Recensione – Anniversary Edition – Parere finale

Definitely, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition manages to achieve its main goal: to bring back to the present a graphic adventure that made the history of the genre. The new graphic improvements and fail to restore luster to a game that, although not revolutionary, is able to give us hours (about twenty) of fun.

Edna & Harvey will hardly win the hearts of a new audience but will be able to trap lovers of the genre again in the spiral of graphic adventures.