Remember Me

I have postponed this blog several times because I needed to replay the game several different times in an attempt to find any flaw that I could. There are only two things that strike against this game, however neither of them are too severe that it would cause me to give this game a bad rating. In fact, this game is a real life example of they kind of game I am looking for. Since there are so few of them, I will list the negatives of this game first, but as I said before, any long time gamer could forgive them in the entire context of the game.

The first negative of this game is that it is a linear game, just like FF-13. Though, unlike the final fantasy game, you continuously travel from point A to point B throughout the game. There are no towns to go to, and you cannot interact with any NPC. This of course means that once you pass a certain point in the game, you cannot backtrack for any collectibles that you may have just realized you have forgotten. Though I have replayed the game from beginning to end only twice, I have replayed several episodes multiple times because I went right past a Scaramech or Mnemist Memory. Being only a few feet away from where the object is, my only options are to finish the episode and replay later, or exit at that point and start over. This may sound like a big inconvenience to many, and it certainly is one, but I should also note that all of the combos and Pressens you collect throughout the game do not go away and you do not have to go through the rigorous activity of recollecting past collectibles or combos.

The only other negative aspect of this game is that you don't collect PMP (also known as EXP) from enemies after you beat the game the first time. In order to gain Exp after the first playthrough you have to find all the collectibles and complete achievements in order to get enough points to unlock the final few Pressens. Even this, as frustrating as it is to a collector, is not a huge inconvenience as once you complete the game the first time, you should have enough PMP built up to have all the pressens you need.

Everything I have just recorded is as bad as the game gets. Two miniscule designs that actually aren't problems at all if you take into consideration all of the things the designers put into the game. If I didn't know better, they anticipated that solo gamers like myself would find those aspects unattractive and planned accordingly to create counter balances to even out the negativity.

My most favorite thing about this game is, of course, the storyline. Those who know me know that I am obviously going to be bias towards a game that takes place in Neo Futuristic Paris. In the game, memories are a precious commodity to be bought or sold. Prisoners have memories taken away based on the level of their offence. The game begins when you awaken in a prison after having your memories removed. As you take your first steps in the game, a name named Edge helps you escape and the hunt for who you once were is on. For you history buffs out there, several of the Mnemist memories are about the history of Neo-Paris. The earliest memory is about 20 years in our future about a city that technically doesn't exist, but I for one have always been fascinated about how the world I delve into came to be.

The combat style works in much the same way that it does in the Batman games. However, you only get 4 combo attacks. There is a 3 hit combo, a 5 hit combo, a 6 hit combo, and finally an 8 hit combo. The combos themselves aren't customizable, but the Pressens you use for each hit are. The game has 4 different Pressens to choose from; Power-which are the heavy hitter ones, Regen-which restore health (the further in the chain you put it, the more health is restored), Cooldown-which take several seconds off of the cooldown timer for the S-Pressen attacks, and Chain-which are used to multiply the effect of the previous Pressen it is joined with. Unlike the Batman games though, the combos are fairly easy to master and you get notified of an attack with actually enough time to react to it (which is not the case in the Batman games).

There is something else Nilin can do, but you cant use it on your own in regular gameplay. She can Remix the memories of certain targets and cause them to remember certain parts of their life differently. This causes me to think about the real world aspect of such a skill. It makes me wonder if I remembered something differently or if I never remembered something at all, how would that affect how I am now? Not only was the storyline great, but it addressed something that I have been concerned about for years; how fragile memories are.