The action-adventure genre has been getting a decent amount of attention lately with the Batman Arkham games as well as more recent titles like Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry. Remember Me is a title in this same mold from Capcom and Dontnod Entertainment that looks to balance the standard mix of platforming, exploration and combat along with a few unique tricks up its sleeve to deliver us an entertaining experience in a sci-fi dystopia based around the interesting concept of memory transfer. Will this offering prove memorable or fall flat in its attempt? Join me as we take a look.
Game: Remember Me
Published by: Capcom
Developed by: Dontnod Entertainment
Review Sample provided by: Capcom
Platforms: Xbox360, Playstation 3, PC (Review sample)
Genre: Action-adventure, Beat-em-up, Platformer
Release Date: June 3rd, 2013
MSRP: $59.99 (360 & PS3), $49.99 (Steam)
Written by: Debo
Screenshots by: Debo
Story
This is Neo-Paris, 2084. Dealing with the fallout of war and the advent of memory sharing technology, a global conglomerate known as Memorize has taken a monopoly of the technology. Remember Me opens with the main character, Nilin, imprisoned in the Bastille Fortress and having just undergone an almost complete memory wipe. Dazed and confused, you are shuttled through the halls to a device that will ultimately wipe your mind clean.
It is at this seemingly unavoidable end you are contacted by a mysterious voice that guides you towards escape and your horrible fate. It appears not everyone is content with Memorize’s monopoly and a faction known as the Errorists exists to topple the might conglomerate for its less then ethical actions. With this mysterious stranger, known only as Edge, you escape the Bastille.
As it turns out Nilin was no simple prisoner, known as a memory hunter, she had not only the ability to steal memories from the minds of others but the unique talent to remix and change them at her will. This power simply made her too dangerous of a foe for Memorize to deal with. With this newly imparted knowledge, it is up to Nilin and you to assist Edge in toppling the mighty Memorize.
Gameplay
Being an action-adventure game, Remember Me has a lot of this going on from the jump. Platforming, beat-em-up combat and exploration are all present as well as a few extra unique systems that give the game its personal feel. Exploration is limited to finding (not so) hidden collectibles throughout the chapters and while these do increase your Health and Focus bars as well as your Journal full of lore the whole experience feels rather hollow. The scope and premise feel ambitious but the paths are generally laid out linearly and that really trims the overall product down to a manageable but unfortunate level.
Platforming in Remember Me is fluid and well animated. The paths you take are laid out quite clearly thanks to you Sensen device being able to point out your most efficient path towards your goal, any ledges you might be able to interact with as well as any hazards along your way. It really is refreshing to see this style of presentation as most of the challenge offered by most platforming of this type is the artificial looking ledges we inevitably jump towards countless times resulting in our deaths. The presentation is done very well but unfortunately it makes most of the platforming seem trivial and tedious which is unfortunate though as you advance and gain more abilities it does open up more if only slightly with some basic puzzle elements.
Combat in Remember Me is in-depth to a level few games tend to venture. As you advance throughout the game you unlock moves known as Pressens and these Pressens can be assembled into combos of your own creation in the Combo Lab screen of the game. The Pressen system grows as you gain access to moves in the different Pressen families known as Regen, Power, Chain and Cooldown and insert them wherever you like to fit your personal style of combat gameplay. Regen moves restore a small portion of HP when activated, Power moves deal additional damage while Chain abilities duplicate pervious moves in you combinations and Cooldowns restore your S-Pressen gauge which allows you to use special moves that offer a whole range of unique combat effect and are also customizable.
Combat doesn’t stop there, however, and the Pressen system and the Combo Log are simply the setup for the execution of combat. The bottom of the HUD serves as your HP display as well as the Dynamic Combo Display. The DCD allows you to see, in real time, where you are in a given combo as well as your real time button presses. To add to this quick paced, button mashing combat Remember Me has included the great ability to dodge mid combat (and you will often) and finish your combo once you leap to safety. The animations all flow seamlessly and make the combat sections in the game fluid and fun.
The last system at play in Remember Me is the Memory Remixing system that embodies Nilin’s unique power and the overall premise of the game. When prompted to, you can enter the minds of targets and foes to change their memory to better suit your needs. After viewing the memory in its entirety as a short cut scene you are given an objective to perform. Rewinding back through the memory you look for memory glitches, little things about the memory you can change, and you alter things to your own ends. The trick is finding which glitches work and which don’t as sometimes you will need a combination of the right ones to achieve your goal but every changed glitch changes the memory in some way and rewinding past a given glitch resets it. This results in the whole system acting out like a very sadistic, real-time choose your own adventure book but is very entertaining overall.
Controls
Like most multiplatform game offerings the option for either Keyboard and mouse or game pad control is available. Taking game type and the speed of the combat system into account I personally opted for and would suggest the use of a gamepad to get a more enjoyable experience out of Remember Me. The unfortunate downside to this choice is that changing keybinds is reserved only for the keyboard and mouse control scheme.
That being said the layout for the gamepad is ported over from the Xbox 360 version of the game and is well thought out and intuitive. It doesn’t take more than the game’s brief tutorials to get used to all the buttons and have the combat and platforming elements come to life. I would have liked to see the ability to change gamepad bindings like we see in most games but I can respect the decision to stick with a proven and well-designed layout.
The one gleaming issue with the control of the game is the camera. While being player controlled it is an overall finicky and random creature to deal with outside of combat sections. Whipping around on a short lag time, sometimes with such speed that the entire screen goes blurry and you have to stand still to reorient yourself, the camera is sometimes the worst enemy. Thankfully this flaw isn’t present during most platforming and combat sections or it may threaten to make the game unplayable.
Graphics and Audio
Remember Me runs on the Unreal Engine 3 and does have its share of beautiful set pieces and amazing environments. The dystopian view of a world where growth and social networking have gone awry is an interesting sight to behold to an almost scary level. Pop up overlays and neon colors assault your eyes over what would normally be drab and muted settings and yet it all manages to look like it fits.
Lighting is done well but at times just seems off in either contrast or brightness. Shadows remain sharp and model texturing is done well. Still through all the antialiasing and supersampling you can tell that this game, at its heart, is a console port with the FPS capped at 30 frames.
The audio is interesting to critique. I wouldn’t call it spot on but it does work in a very odd way. In much the same way the graphical setting works with both technological and classical architecture elements comparing and contrasting, Olivier Deriviere’s classical orchestral score somewhat warped by electronica and techno in places makes you take notice at times when you would otherwise just be proceeding along a linear walkway. It may not fit always but it does work and makes the world feel unique and the upbeat sections found during combat do not disappoint.
Overall and Final Verdict
Remember Me is an ambitious project to be sure. The combat is one of the most in-depth systems I have had the pleasures of playing in quite a while and the customizability ensures it will never be a stale experience no matter the skill level of the player. The Memory Remixing system is a very interesting gameplay mechanic and, unfortunately, is only used a very limited amount of times throughout the game. It would have been nice to see more memory remixing present with it being the centerpiece system.
The platforming is nothing special but it does work and operates fluidly with the addition of Sensen and never having to wonder which ledge to jump to next but still manages to feel more like a filler mechanic than anything on its own. The exploration is there to a minor degree and while rewarding feels more like collecting glowing things in alcoves along the way as opposed to any real exploration.
The camera is the real downfall in Remember Me. Ruining what would overall be an enjoyable experience with moments of sheer headache-inducing visuals and disorienting blurs. Luckily the camera has managed to be engineered to keep such things out of the fast paced combat but it reaks havoc during every other section in the game and personally limited me to short testing sessions before needing to close the game to readjust my eyes.
Is Remember Me perfect? No. Is it memorable? Yes. I’ve tried to avoid the easy pun throughout this review but the fact of the matter the game is just that, memorable. The setting and characters are unique ideas and the IP is fresh and new. In much the same way EA’s Mirrors Edge garnered a polarized cult follow I feel the Remember Me has the same potential. If you can work past or manage to stand the camera issues I would sincerely suggest giving Remember Me a try.