Edna and Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition (Nintendo Switch) Review

Adopting a classic point-and-click gameplay, the player is tasked with examining all manner of objects, and making use of them to progress the plot. Suddenly waking up in a padded cell with no recollection of how she got there, Edna has only her speaking toy Rabbit Harvey for company, as well as a keen intellect. Escaping this cell, in particular, requires interacting with the few items she has with her, and speaking to nearby characters. From here, the game's narrative shifts slightly; all the while keeping escape the main priority, but introducing the mystery of what happened to Edna and her father in the past.

What sounds like a basic plot on the surface, quickly becomes intriguing enough to carry the whole thing forward at a good pace, not getting in the way of casual exploration between major set pieces. A unique mechanic called 'Tempomorph' provides a means of environment variety and narrative addition by taking the characters back into their past temporarily to help figure out a current puzzle problem. The 'Anniversary' part of the title refers to the improvements done to the visuals and sound of the game; a new completely redrawn widescreen view, coupled with a fresh excellent translation dub, reportedly a sore point of the original. A setting in the options menu can switch between the Classic and the New Art in an instant, but outside of nostalgia there'd be little reason to do so.

Throughout the game, the left stick controls Edna's movement, and the right analogue moves the cursor onto different selectable objects and people. Strangely enough, the title doesn't make use of the Switch's touch screen in portable mode, but this control scheme works fine in practice. Holding down the A button will bring up a pie-chart-like wheel where interaction choices like Talking, Looking at, and Using Items with, can be done. The Breakout initially eases players in at the beginning, with simple puzzles and enough time to adapt to the control scheme without in-game timers or restrictions. That being said, this does suffer from a common trope of the genre later on; the repetitive nature of trial-and-error gameplay, and seemingly throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, and occasionally taking wild leaps of logic to solve problems.

Compounding this issue is the limited animation that while used sparingly looks great, doesn't help in the case of certain puzzles, like getting a guard to chase Edna from screen to screen, and not knowing exactly where he is until he pops up right next to her. Despite these flaws however, this remains is a fun, compelling adventure title, which offers a surprising amount of object interactivity within its world for a relatively short runtime. Achievements are on offer for the game, coupled with great voice work and characters to banter with. Fans of the genre would be wise to give this one a try.