Now Playing: Remember Me

The first time I saw Remember Me was during an E3 a few years ago. It was a game about memory, about storing, stealing and altering people’s memories. It looked intriguing, but then the game just seemed to slip under the radar. When it was released it received very little attention and rather mixed reviews. The footage I saw revealed a Batman style brawling system, platform segments and boss fights, none of which I’d expected from what I’d seen in the E3 demo, and all of which looked rather simplistic and repetitive.

But when the game went on sale recently I figured I’d give it a go, although I can’t honestly say I was expecting much. I expected to end the review with a stupid joke about it being ‘forgettable’. I was wrong. Very wrong. Because Remember Me turned out to be one of the best games I’ve played this year. 

There are times when you play a game and you feel like you keep waiting for it to improve, to excel, to break free of mediocrity, and it’s disappointing when that doesn’t happen. When I started playing Remember Me, I found the opposite to be true. It was a game I kept waiting to slip into tedious mediocrity. I kept waiting for it to grow repetitive and stale. It just didn’t happen. Across the game’s 10 or so hour story campaign (split into 9 chapters) Remember Me continually introduced new elements – new powers, new special abilities, new locations, new environmental puzzles and new enemy and boss types.

That’s something I always like to see, especially in a very linear game like this. I don’t see such heavy linearity as a negative because the game handles it remarkably well by continually introducing new challenges, environments and mechanics. That said, the setting and locations are a big part of the reason why I enjoyed Remember Me so much, and it’s a shame we weren’t granted a little more freedom to explore.

So the environments may be rather small, but the attention to detail throughout the game is fantastic. Every location has been lovingly crafted to build a complete and believable world. It helps that the game never looks less than bloody amazing. The lighting is top class, the textures in general are extremely impressive and the animations are smooth and fun to watch. It all combines to become one of the best looking games I’ve played. The style and aesthetic is gorgeous and varied, with a consistency to design that flows into everything – environments, characters and even the menu system. So yeah, Remember Me is practically flawless in how it looks.

But how about the gameplay? First, let’s deal with the exploration element. As I said, environments are fairly small and linear, but there are some areas you can move about a bit more freely, and this where you’ll find some of the game’s collectibles. These include health and focus boosts, experience boosts and world information. The exploration element also includes the platform side of things. It’s not exactly difficult, and the game tells you exactly where to go, although there are times when precise timing is necessary. It’s fluid and nice to watch, but not at all challenging.

The core of the gameplay, I suppose, is the combat. You can compare it to the Batman games but to do so, I think, does it a disservice. In Remember Me you have set button combos – 3, 5, 6 and 8. But each of these combos is fully customisable by using 4 different power types – attack, heal, recharge and chain. It allows the player to build combos that focus on a particular effect – high damage for example, or a mixed combo that does two or more things, such as healing and special ability recharge. I liked this system a lot, and as you progress you’ll unlock new buttons for each power type.

This isn’t a game where you can spam a single combo either, as different enemy types require different tactics. You may find, especially early on in the game when you have a limited pool of powers, that you’ll alter combos on the fly in combat to deal with different foes. You have a dodge ability to avoid being hit, but provided you time things right, it won’t interrupt your 8 hit combo.

The game does a great job of introducing new enemy types – mutants, humans and robots, all of which have their own attack patterns. The game also has several boss fights, and these are all different in how they play out, although the final boss is, as is usually the case, a little lame. The variety is good, keeping you on your toes, mixing in different enemy types into a single battle and preventing it from ever getting too repetitive.

But the combo system and dodging isn’t all there is to Remember Me’s combat. The game unlocks various special abilities as you progress. The most simple is a powerful free flowing chain attack. You also have a stun ability, invisibility and the ability to take control of a robot foe. My favourite though was the Logic Bomb which looks very cool as it explodes in slow motion. These abilities, plus your combo powers, can be combined in effective and enjoyable ways during battles. Oh, and you also have the ‘spammer’ and ‘junk bolt’ tools which can be handy against particular opponents and are used in the game’s simple environmental puzzles.

My biggest criticism of the combat would really be that it’s just a bit too easy, even on the hardest difficulty. As you gain new powers and abilities, you’ll always be a step ahead of your foes. You feel powerful, almost unstoppable. It’s satisfying, but not exactly challenging.

The last gameplay element I’ve not yet covered is the memory remix segments. These play out like interactive cut-scenes that you can manipulate to change their outcome. They make an interesting change of pace and are quite cleverly woven into the story. For example, by making a few subtle changes to one memory, you radically alter its outcome. As a result, the person who’s memory you’ve changed adopts a very different approach to dealing with you. It raises some interesting moral questions which thankfully, the game handles in a fairly subtle manner, without ever getting too heavy handed.

Because in this game you do some morally questionable things. Are such things justified for the greater good? As I said, it doesn’t go too deep into the morality of what you’re doing. That may bother some people, but I was fine with it as it is – it leaves it up to you to draw your own judgements. The story, though you may not realise it at first, is really about family. I won’t get too into the specifics because I don’t want to spoil anything.

You play as Nilin, a memory hunter who was imprisoned and had her mind (mostly) wiped. You’re a terrorist, sorry – errorist, part of a revolutionary group which was effectively destroyed. You opposed a corporation called Memorize and its nefarious plans to monopolise and control human memory. Although the story is interesting in terms of the world and the technology (plus the morality element) it’s a shame some of the characters feel a little undercooked, plus some of the dialogue is rather flat.

Nilin is an interesting protagonist, and I was pleased by the way she developed, initially lost and confused, to questioning whether what she was doing was right, to realising that she’d done some questionable things in the past. Her VA is fine, although maybe it was just me, but I didn’t feel the voice quite suited the character. Overall though, the story kept me interested and entertained, but I do wish there was a ‘skip cut-scene’ button for when I replay it.

Despite a few flaws, Remember Me was extremely enjoyable to play. It was a welcome surprise given my expectations. It runs practically flawlessly on maxed out settings at a smooth 60 FPS. Everything about it feels polished, perfectly paced and crafted with care. Recommended.

8/10