Game Review: Remember Me: A great game concept hidden among hours of the same old

Remember Me: A great game concept hidden among hours of the same old

When in Neo-France, a screenshot with the Eiffel Tower is obligatory

Remember Me is a beautiful looking futuristic dystopian platformer/brawler/puzzler with an exceptional lore that you will probably never enjoy to its potential. While the game deals with meaningful questions, ‘What could the world look like if you could store, share and repress memories?’ it fails to leverage this angle, and most (admittedly good) backstory is relegated to hidden lore finds which are a chore to locate, and which you likely will not find all of within a playthrough, artificially depriving story lovers of their lore, while rewarding game environment explorers who most likely could care less for it.

If anyone would ask for a game where the art is incredible, but the game part itself is deeply flawed to a fault, this would be at the front of my mind. Across the 11 hours the campaign lasts, expect to be let down by torturous design choices in combat and platforming, which isn’t to say that it’s unplayable, only that it’s very grinding in its nature.

Despite the game’s plea in its very name, to be remembered, there are exactly and only four sequences you will genuinely care about. However, those four are such exceptional representations of the creativity of gaming as a medium that they will remain in my mind as a standout innovation, and as such I was coerced to bear with the lackluster 10 ‘in between’ hours just for the one hour of gaming delight of those sequences. What separates these Memory Remix segments from the rest of the game, and other media as a whole? You actually have to play the game to enjoy them, watching a YouTube video cannot do them justice. In my opinion, if the designers had just made the entire game around those type of sequences, added more, and fleshed out the concept further, it would have been an entirely different game altogether, and much the better for it.

The Pledge

Begin as a clueless, mind-wiped prisoner in the Bastille of 2084, see the world for what it has become in the face of memory altering and sharing technology, and instigate a revolution to return the world to the natural order of things while restoring your memory along the way. Achieved through jumping around town through strange shortcuts, defending yourself at every turn in a world where law enforcement seems to have forgotten about guns, and everyone knows Kung Fu. Mixed martial arts is apparently the fighter’s weapon of choice in 2084 and most enemies are all too happy to show off their haymaker, which feels out of place in the future. A mind hacking mini-game would have made more sense. Anyway, after escaping from prison and finding your tools, you use your unique memory hacking skills to change people’s point of views for your advantage, and steal memories from others where required.

The Turn

You will be performing multiple acts of infiltration and sabotage across the city, under the watchful eye of a mysterious handler whose personal motivations are suspect (are they exploiting your mind-wiped memory for right or for wrong). This for the most part means jumping, shimmying, and punching your way around town while facing the odd boss fight. Explorers are rewarded with health and mana upgrades, and the aforementioned lore packages.

The Power Attacks menu, also a very inconveniently timed combat segment that makes little sense other than 'Oh story's ending, might as well throw in another fight'

Unfortunately, both platforming and combat feel like a chore, and you will be bored soon by the repetitive nature of your actions. Again, and again, and again. Pathways are mostly linear, though there are a couple of moments where you are confused about the next step and after a short wait, the game points you in the right direction. There are around 14 types of enemies, which will make you vary your approach, but not radically. Combat depends on landing combination attacks on enemies, and demands motion. Unfortunately, with no block feature and dodging cancelling your combos, this again makes fights last longer than they should. You unlock special charged moves which then have inane wait times to retry, which will force you once again to either wait (during combat), or try and land combos that reduce timers. A chore.

He probably isn't coming over to shake hands

My least favorite boss fight of recent memory

Boss fights are typically not fun, and the punishment for failing a mandatory Quick Time Event (QTE) segment at the end of a boss fight is being kicked back the moment before the QTE, with the boss back to their last heath bar. This forces you to retrace a painfully dull combat sequence again and again, requiring inane requirements just to re-trigger the QTE. Should you die doing this, it’s back to square zero or the boss’s most recent health bar. At one point two thirds through the game, I seriously considered just quitting because of the frustration of such a badly designed boss mechanic. At the end, the lure of the memory remixes forced me to carry on.

The first time you experience the sensation of playing with memories, an excellent and novel game element

The Memory Remixes remain the shining highlight of the game, wherein you watch a short video sequence, and rewind it to find moments in which you can change a circumstance – the location of a box or the safety on a gun – and create a newly fabricated memory, changing the world view of the target individual radically. The designers did a great job in making your tweaks feel impactful, and a clever input mode in this mode and its outcome – making permanent allies out of enemies - makes you feel a bit like an operative in a super-secret futuristic crime unit, in a good way. Whoever came up with this concept deserves a pat on their back.

One of the possible outcomes of playing with memories

Non-exploration driven puzzles range from extremely simple to slightly challenging, and you will end up questioning the intellect of both security system designers in the future, and game designers in the past. At times, you will find a screen indicating the location of a Cache of hidden upgrade parts, which often takes more time to memorize than it takes to find the part. Worse, you may not find anything resembling the target description before you find the last passageway locked off due to progression, not a fun design choice, again.

At every step however, the vistas are beautifully detailed and you will find yourself stopping from time to time to enjoy the look of the entire game, which is very pleasant on the eyes – colorful and grand at the same time. This is definitely a game that looks better than it plays.

The vistas are gorgeous throughout the game

Just here for the art

Look at all those meaningless art assets, less of these and more ReMixes next time, please!

More of that lovely art design

The Prestige

At the end of your journey you regain your memories, and gain conviction for your actions. Through skillful memory manipulation you have the opportunity to change the worldview of key individuals and help bring back a sense of reality. As expected, there is a twist at the end, but all is wrapped up in time for supper and few loose ends are left behind. There is a fair bit of emotional poignancy in the ending, and that is to its credit.

The Aftermath

End of story, the only option forward is to replay from the start.

For specific demographics:

Price sensitive: If you want to try out an amazing new mechanic hidden behind hours of waiting, go for it on sale. Otherwise, there are better ways to spend your time and money.

Genre sensitive: Good lore where available, visuals say a lot more than anything else in this jaunt. This won’t be a must experience of sci-fi/memory enthusiasts any time soon, but it is still a competent manifestation.

Replay enthusiasts: Not much to see here, maybe a few more lore items if you care, otherwise you really don’t want to be replaying this one.

Diversity seekers: If you’ve played a lot of games, you will love the Remixes, and pretty much not care about the rest

Those with older systems: Fairly graphics intensive, will not be kind at 1080p with older systems, usually an insane amount of polygons on the screen

Art lovers: A lot here to love

Final verdict

A flawed game which many will skip, but hiding a few moments of excellence seasoned gamers will remember fondly

Game: Remember Me

Developer: Dontnod Entertainment

Launch Date: 3^rd June, 2013

Time for one playthrough: 11 Hours

Time Reviewed: 11 Hours

Get it on: Steam 

Price: $30 on Steam, has reached $6 during sales

For more on the Pledge/Turn/Prestige/Aftermath Review structure, check out: http://criticalh1t.blogspot.in/2015/06/the-prestige-and-meaningful-game-reviews.html