Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
Publisher: CAPCOM
Platform: PC, 360, PS3
Remember Me – Review
Booting up a new franchise is always a big step, even for well known gaming companies like CAPCOM. Remember me happens to be one of those new franchises that’s being sent into the world. In many ways, the game will make a lot of people ‘remember’ this game, as one of the last of the current generation.
Story
Imagine a world where one’s memories can simply be stored, transferred, deleted or altered. Memories that happen to be in the possession of a giant corporation named Memorise, who hope to pretty much control the world by influencing those who oppose them.
Remember Me is mainly situated in Neo-Paris anno 2084, basically Paris after yet another great war, and the areas surrounding the city. A giant portion of the city will look as if it happens to be untouched by the gruesome war that took part beforehand. Sadly areas like the slums and what not, happen to tell another story.
You, play as Nilin, a memory hunter with skills like no other, who happens to have lost her very own memories and is slowly walking to her demise. Waking up in the prison of the very corporation that is responsible for trying to dominate the world with the power of ‘memories’, will make no sense to her at first. Luckily, an ally, who she seems to have forgotten (memory wipe!) contacts her in the nick of time, to give her instructions on how to escape her impending doom.
As the story progresses, Nilin will start doing jobs as a memory hunter once again. Armed with her trusty gear her journey will commence on becoming the old Nilin, if that’s still a possibility that is.
Overall the story presents you with a fun concept of taking out enemies by the use of altering or ‘overloading’ their memories than only punching them in the face.
Sound
For a game that sets its focus around its theme, the game presents you with a decent quality voice cast and music that suit the game. Whilst none of them will be exceptional, it will pretty much get the job done. Sadly this creates a case of adding no extra value to the game and keeping it rather simple.
Graphics
Remember Me gets the job done when it concerns the graphical department of the game. Whilst the game presents you with magnificent looking environments in a steampunk-ish looking theme, the enemies might come over a bit recycled after having played a few chapters.
Environments are pretty much divided in to 3 sections: the slums, filled with those who survived Memorises’ treatments but were sickly disfigured/altered. The normal residence area, which might look like a combination between old and new. The modern part of the city, that truly shows an image of what the future could look like.
Characters look decently done, be it enemies or allies. Sadly a lot of these lack a decent personality to truly make them unique. Luckily Nilin, who could be the sister of the star in Mirror’s Edge, happens to be able to carry most of the game’s theme on her shoulders.
Gameplay
CAPCOM does their best in trying to combine typical DmC hack ‘n slash elements with loads of platforming and perhaps a unique take on the point and click genre.
As stated earlier, the game will revolve around Nilin, the memory hunter, who’s memory has fallen prey as well. The game will consist out of nine episodes, one being the prologue. Most of these episodes are built up in the same fashion: climb your way through your surroundings, beat up some baddies and end with a bossfight or do some memory hunting.
Fighting in this game works with quite an original concept, namely ‘create your own combo’s’. Whilst progressing through the 9 episodes, you will earn extra points to buy ‘Pressens’. These Pressens are actually a specific move you can insert in one of your self-made combo’s. There will be 4 categories of purchasable Pressens, which will add extra damage, heal yourself, reduce your cooldowns of your special abilities or simply Pressens that mimic the previous move in the combo. Special abilities, also known as S-Pressens will allow Nilin to enter specific states, to fight in a frenzy or to simply pull of some nifty special moves. Remember me also has a set of finishing moves, known as memory overloads. These are simply a fancy way of kicking your opponent when he’s already down. Whilst most of the game will be hand to hand combat, be prepared to use your memory gun as well, it might come in handy.
Platforming in this game is presented to you in a basic way, yet it can still be quite challenging. The game will always show you where you need to climb and so on, making it seem a tad more basic than it really is. Often enough you will need to time your jumps right, or still need to think things through. Sadly this kind of removes the feeling of being able to explore the beautiful surroundings. The developers decided to create a little ‘hide and seek’ element by adding ingame pictures on where to find certain collectibles, be it health or energy upgrades.
Memory hunting is the main theme of the game and even though when overloading the memories of the baddies or simply extracting information from their minds, memory remixes are really the main feature to remember. Sadly these only happen every other episode and you’ll want more than the game offers. These remixes are memories of specific characters which you can alter. You will be presented with a cut scene which after the first playthrough, you can alter by rewinding and interacting with several objects in the surrounding. All of this will pretty much be ‘trial and error’. You will be able to make a decent amount of choices, whilst only a few will actually give you the outcome you’ll need. As stated before, this is in many ways a unique take on the point and click genre, when it comes to this portion of that game, that is.
Remember Me also does an attempt in throwing fairly simple puzzles at you. These will appear in different sections of the game, be it the platforming type, avoiding detection or tapping the right buttons when needed.
Conclusion
Remember Me does an attempt to mix familiar aspects of different genres with some innovative ideas. For the most part the game will offer you a quite unique adventure that shows you the power of the mind. Sadly a lot of these ideas are either kept quite basic or will be fairly scarce for you to be able to enjoy them. Nonetheless, Remember Me will earn a place in the memory of many gamers.
Remember Me - Review,
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