We don't really know if the lovers Kay and Yu are from the future, from a parallel dimension, or from a distant galaxy, but one thing is certain: it is not necessarily good to live on their home planet when we is young and idealistic. Indeed, a "pairer" chooses the best possible companion for each individual, and his decision is naturally irrevocable. Determined to live together at all costs, and therefore not to settle down with their respective official companions, Kay and Yu decide to run away. After a beautiful animated introductory sequence, the adventure begins on the mysterious and distant planet Source, on which the rebellious lovers have just landed in emergency. As a planet, it is rather different islands that float separately in space, and which are linked to each other by kinds of energy bridges called wave arcs. Thanks to their high-tech boots, our two heroes are able to fly over these bridges, but also to follow the wave lines present on each island or, more simply, to float slightly above standard surfaces.
All this leads to a very pleasant movement system, which relies almost everything on the flight, or rather the overflight. It is still possible to walk, but the slowness of the process reserves it for a few rare moments when you want to land or stand in a specific place. Moreover, if it is also possible to switch from one character to another at will, the maneuver is more aesthetic than anything else, because the couple is inseparable and always moves as a duo. On most islets, flying over is also used to clean the rust-infested terrain, which allows you to pick up resource blocks on the way. Haven indeed borrows some mechanics from survival games, and it's important to collect everything you find, in order to be able to create different elements, starting with delicious cooking recipes! Roasted pommiels, flambé bananas or lacquered boba thus appear on the menu, the game having the intelligence to offer us fictitious and therefore necessarily exotic ingredients.
THE HAVEN CALENDAR
The cooking phases are part of the daily activities on which the game does not hesitate to emphasize. The adventure may well be futuro-spatial, but it actually focuses on the life of a couple, some principles of which seem timeless. We can thus witness moments of complicity, arguments, gym sessions, shared showers, card games, changing sides in bed, and even stories of cold feet or wet stains on the sheets. Surprisingly, despite looking perfectly ordinary, all of these moments never seem boring. This is largely due to the quality of the writing, which is light, fun and contemporary. We are even entitled to a few flashes, like these fictitious insults which are perfectly suited to the youth of the protagonists, but spare us any real vulgarity. It's wickedly clever! On the other hand, the developers clearly play in the progressive team, Dontnod way. The boy cooks, the girl repairs the engines, they're both vegan, they swap bodies following the voluntary ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms (because taking drugs is bound to be cool, young friend you know), and we learn in the course of one or two dialogues that it is perfectly normal to have two mothers. In short, we understand the intention (avoid the age-old clichés of the traditional couple), but the result still lacks a bit of subtlety. The same goes for sexual allusions, which amuse at first and add to the credibility of the couple, but end up boring, even annoying, so much they are used in a systematic way. On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing to reproach the combat system, much more satisfactory than what one could have imagined for an adventure which does not place the confrontations at the heart of everything. Not really in real time but not really turn-based either, the fights play on duality in a relevant way. The left part of the controller is dedicated to Kay, while the right controls are reserved for Yu.
THE VEGAN EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
We can thus alternate the blows ("impact" for melee, "blast" for ranged shooting) or, on the contrary, perform "duo blasts" and "duo impacts" by synchronizing the two heroes. A sort of QTE then requires releasing the controls at the right time, the tolerance zone being reduced as the attack is charged. It is also possible to protect yourself, or to pacify an enemy whose life bar has fallen to zero (because we do not kill living creatures here). A system of consumables crafted in advance further enriches the tactic, since it gives access to a healing balm, an omni-blast, an omni-impact and, above all, a very useful tonic which greatly reduces the charge time of all actions. It all works really well. Winning fights allows you to earn some experience points that do not say their name, and which are hidden behind a relationship system. The more the complicity between Kay and Yu grows, the more their life bar and the power of their attacks increase. So much for the RPG aspect of the game, which ultimately turns out to be as simple as it is effective. Among the other qualities of the adventure, we can mention the artistic direction, which brilliantly uses pastel tones and offers us a particular fauna very pleasant to rub shoulders with. The only criticism that we can make to the graphics comes from the cel-shading, applied a little too strongly to the characters who, fortunately, are much more detailed on the drawings that accompany the dialogues.
The most important defect of the game remains all the same its general structure, which imposes to make many round trips between the different islands, even though going from one to the other generates a loading time! At a time when open worlds have become commonplace, it's a bit of a task, especially since the entire game takes place on a fairly small surface. The choices made for the coop mode are also questionable, since each player can take control of the camera and the movements of the two heroes (indissociable from each other, we remember) at any time. Online is obviously hell, and the notion of complicity between the protagonists takes a big hit. We can also regret the absence of French voices for a game yet developed in France. On the other hand, it is imperative to salute the performance of the English actors, who offer us absolutely perfect voices. The soundtrack also deserves some praise, the electro and slightly synthwave tones composed by Danger, who had already worked on Furi, sticking perfectly to the adventure.
