Title: Remember Me
Developed By: Dontnod Entertainment
Published By: Capcom / All Interactive Entertainment (Australia)
Based On: New IP
Console: Playstation 3 / XBox360 / PC
Genre: Action Adventure
Classification: This title has been rated M for Violence and Coarse Language
Review Conditions: Australian Edition, Playstation 3, Physical Copy
Personal memories can now be digitised, bought, sold and traded. The last remnants of privacy and intimacy have been swept away in what appears to be a logical progression of the explosive growth of social networks at the beginning of the 21st century. The citizens themselves have accepted this surveillance society in exchange for the comfort only smart technology can provide. This memory economy gives immense power over society to just a handful of people.
Storyline
In the latter half of this century, the Memorize corporation has become a dominating power due to their technological advances regarding the Sensation Engine “Sensen“. This device which is implanted into the back of peoples heads has achieved a huge worldwide uptake and grants the user the ability to upload, remove or relive memories from their past – but in turn granted the company greater control over everyone’s privacy and memories. The year is now 2084 and for the last decade a group of rebels named “Errorists” have led a brigade against the Memorize corporation which they pose as a threat – especially considering the memory-addicted mutated humans known as Leapers and many more projects which would be considered very unethical to todays standards.
Of course, the main character is completely oblivious to all this initially. Nilin, a memory hunter and the most talented member of the Errorists is without her memories. Having been captured she since had her memory wiped and is about to lose the last few fragments of her memories. In her ear she hears the voice of Edge the Errorists leader and is able to make her escape – which leads her in a quest to recover her memories and seek to complete the decade-long quest of the Errorists.
Remember Me is split up into eight individual chapters, each of which are approximately an hour or two long apiece. Each of the chapters focuses on a separate step Nilin takes as she seeks to take out those responsible for her capture and the “Sensen” project entirely. The only character of focus in this title is Nilin who slowly begins to learn about her past and begins to form doubts and opinions she may otherwise may not have discovered. The development of Nilin coupled by the often intense tone and pacing of the main storyline makes for an overall interesting experience however aside from Edge the other characters don’t receive nearly enough development. In turn, the motives for some of the characters actions were touched upon but I don’t necessarily think they were explored nearly enough to reach their true potential. Here’s hoping for at least a couple of additional DLC chapters on side-characters such as Bad Request and Olga Sedova.
The most interesting element of the storyline is Nilin’s ability to remix the memory of other individuals. At a number of events in the story you are given the capabilities to alter a characters memories of a past event through altering small elements of a scene that can turn a bad conclusion to a happier conclusion and (more likely) vice versa. An example of this initially is by editing an assassin’s memories so in her mind her husband died during treatment for a memory based disorder rather than agreeing to assassinate Nilin to afford continuing treatment costs. This system ties in well with the theme and gameplay elements of this title and can result in a number of scenarios albeit only one being the correct one to progress the story with. While these scenes can take a good ten minutes to solve and offer an ample number of means of changing the initially shown storyline, it is used a total of four times in the game and is the element that the developers and writers should have honed in on more since it did shine.
Overall in terms of storyline, Remember Me delivered a great setting and a great pretext to work off. While its delivery was only average in some areas and its true charm points were underused, I was left satisfied with what was presented during my initial playthrough and the plot was consistently delivered throughout the entirety of the game via both prompts from Edge and cutscene-based events.
Design
I really wish that Remember Me was an open-world game. This is because the small number of times you actually get to walk through the unhampered streets of Neo Paris itself or gaze out the window at the sprawling metropolis in front of you I was left very impressed with what could have been. I thought the designs were creative, gave a good merger of futuristic-modern and current-day Paris elements and came with all the little mod cons you may or may not expect from a futuristic setting (Eg. When you approach a store a hologram will appear describing the store name, description and even a menu at times). While the opportunity is given to walk around and appreciate the futuristic environments, there are unfortunately also lengthly periods of time where you are stuck in the duller and darker Neo-Paris slums – which while appropriate in regards to the storyline didn’t seem to meet the same level aesthetically.
The character of Nilin was well designed with attention to detail paid to her character supported by strong facial expressions. Aided in part perhaps by the simplistic battle system, her animations during battle also flowed well although given the combo system could have done with a bit more creativity and variety in her motion. The other characters also had some interesting designs that despite their minor roles also carried across the same level of quality as Nilin. The only issue of note was with the designs of the actual enemies faced in the game. While characters of storyline importance received more detail, for the most part the designs are based off a set of stock character models which while still being well designed and allowing easy recognition for battle strategies needed more variety.
Music / Voice Acting
The music is one of the real shining components of this game, and is appropriately used well in almost every occasion. The music isn’t usually intrusive but instead comes with a very sci-fi / futuristic vibe that when used at the right moment or moments really enhances the experience. When it does need to be more dominant than the simple background music, the compilation of music in this game shines even more. Some of the tracks reminded me in particular of the music used in EVE Online – subtle but intense when necessary and a joy to listen to while playing the game and by itself. As a lover of instrumental music, I would love to pick up an OST of this game if the opportunity arose.
While her roles in video games seems limited, Kezia Burrows takes the reins as Nilin and does a fantastic job of carrying across the emotions and moods of her character. The remainder of the games voice cast also do an effective job and really helps deliver the storyline effectively.
Gameplay
Unfortunately much of the praise in respect to Remember Me ends here. While the music and design elements are creative and the storyline delivers an overall above average experience – there isn’t much uniquely special in this game in terms of gameplay other than the occasional difficulty spikes. The overall gameplay is okay and delivers a usual action adventure game merged with some climbing elements akin to Assassin’s Creed (Albeit very straight “A to B” in the path you can take) and button mashing combat.
Most of the game requires you to navigate Neo-Paris using paths that most residents would never take – so climbing up pipes, jumping across platforms and solving simple puzzles to pass a gap are not uncommon in this title. But irrespective of where you are headed – it is more likely than not that a new swarm of Leapers, Guards or something much bigger is ready and waiting to take you on. As battles are almost unavoidable and frequent throughout the game, you would expect there to be at least a strong battle system to keep ones attention during these moments. However despite the setting offering a lot of potential with what they could have done with the combat system, rather than expand they limited what could be done to a considerable extent.
Remember Me makes use of a Combo Lab system, where as you progress through the game you unlock different sets of combos and attack types known as pressens which are associated with either square or triangle presses (X and Y on the Xbox360 edition). The limiting aspect #1 is that you only acquire a grand total of four combo sets during the game which are locked into what their button presses are – so for the simplest example you can perform a combo with three square button presses but not three triangle presses. The game does simply come down to button mashing the same four combos repeatedly and occasionally dodging out of the way of enemies as you are attacked.
The pressen system is also rudimentary, and if you plan their use well can mean a much easier playthrough. Each of them are associated with one of four types which are for strong attacks, regeneration of health, reduction in S-pressen waiting time (A set of five special skills unlocked during the game which allow you to use Nilin’s special abilities against foes) and chain attacks which amplify the abilities of other pressens. There are a total of 24 pressens to unlock, which you can do so via keys occasionally unlocked as you earn PMP (The experience points earned in Remember Me) but until the final stages of the game you may find that to get a good combo you will need to further limit the number of combos you can practically incorporate pressens with.
There are a few moments in Remember Me where the battle system truly shines, in particular during the boss fights however in terms of the regular standard battles there is little on offer. While some battles can be considerably challenging at first even at the lower difficulty settings, usually this can be resolved by a simple pressen change in the combo – often filling your simplest combo with regeneration or S-pressen waiting time reduction pressens.
As I mentioned back in the storyline component of this review, one of the true charm points albeit heavily underused was the ability for Nilin to alter the memories of individuals through remixing them. In this system you watch a scene play out with the real outcome, and while Nilin cannot actually change the event that occurred she can alter ones memory to give the character the impression that the event occurred. You do this by “rewinding” the scene slowly and keeping an eye out for visual glitches. These can then be altered to modify the scene that takes place and potentially leads to an outcome that would change the current-day characters resolve. While these are initially simple, I found that the latter two did take up quite a bit of trial and error to complete and led to some rather different conclusions.
While the paths you take in Remember Me are pretty linear with no wriggle room to alter the storyline based on a different choice of direction, they do regularly reward curiosity with small side-routes that lead to collectible items such as information on the game world or items that when five are collected of can improve Nilin’s focus/health. The game gives regular hints to where these could be, so they do tell and reward a player for taking the time to stop and appreciate their surroundings a bit more.
While there are a few highlights of note, overall Dontnod Entertainment missed some of the potential for what they could have done with Remember Me, delivering an average at best gaming experience with little to set itself apart from the crowd of other action adventure games.
Final Words on Remember Me
Remember Me offers a lot in terms of storyline, visuals and music but combined with average and at times tedious gameplay mechanics I found it hard to really appreciate this game more than a chapter or two at a time. That being said I look forward to seeing what Dontnod Entertainment have in store for gamers next, and hope that they let their unique concepts shine a bit more while also giving the gamer a bit more wriggle room with combat mechanics.
Oh, and I did quite enjoy some of the references in the trophy/achievement titles.
