Developer Dontnod's first title is a game all about ideas, ones that are original and full of possibility but that seem to constantly miss the mark when it comes to actual implementation. It’s a vision that gets constantly in the way of itself leaving a title that feels over designed and rushed at the same time.
It all starts off so well too, opening with the use of a trope of sci-fi, the amnesiac heroine. Here though it’s an entirely logical and brilliant way to open a story about memory. We don’t need backstory or a reason for anyone to be giving us guidance through these early stages because we know as much as our lead. A mysterious voice hacks into our mind and tells Nilin, and us, we need to get out, and so we listen because we have little else to go on.
This is an opening that sticks with you as you witness a terrifying journey through an apparent governmental complex as you along with others quietly and calmly form an orderly line and await what is tantamount to execution. No fight, no fear and no noise, just quiet acceptance of others control. First the apparent authoritative control of those perpetrating this atrocity and then another blind acceptance of your unknown savior’s instructions. Quickly Nilin escapes her captors and exits into the world below the city of neo-paris. This is where things start to eat away at the buckets of potential, where you see Remember me’s high points begin to be tainted by its many flaws.
Being introduced to a subterranean area filled with other discarded survivors of the horrors above. Mutant creatures that you are expected to feel sorry to an extent, yet simultaneously must fight to the death. This introduces you to Remember me’s combat mechanics. Wholly traditional 3rd person action game fighting that mix a touch of games like Devil may cry with a dash of the Batman Arkham series' combat while adding a wholly original concept into the mix, “prissens”.
Pressens are original custom made combo strings that add different effects to your combos. Taking damage? Use regeneration pressen combos to build your health back up for example. This is a great if limited idea and allows more player control when it comes to building the kick ass heroine that you want in Nilin. Yet the system is slow in action, timing for all combat is always the same, devoid of any choice you make and always super slow and rhythmic. The combat is also afflicted with two crushing flaws. A super erratic and obstructive camera and irritating visual design, or deliberate artifacting effects that obscure your view more and more the more damage you take.
Even early first fights can be frustrating affairs with several opponents attacking at once from any possible direction and with little warning. Add to this that reversal and dodge prompts are being obscured at the edge of the screen by visual design choices and you get irritating combat when it’s at its worst. Over time more and more variations of enemies and enemy mix-up’s appear. Packs of aggressive mutants joined by invisible foes revealed only in the light and buffed up bruisers who have charge attacks that can often be hard to see coming. Later the introduction of mechanical foes using projectiles and those who cause you injury through your attacking them.
It’s clear that these fight mix-ups are there to give you the opportunity to use more strategy in fights but these fights are long and slow at the best of times, when fighting these annoying variation enemies and coming a cropper to the design flaws involved the game becomes a slog to play through. Boss fights are a slight exception to this for the most part, being a mixed bag, but entirely different with each new encounter. The particular highlight being the Madame battles more abstract and fantastical battle across Nilin’s own mindscape. Although this too feels overly long and drawn out, like padding on an entertaining section that causes what should be the games highpoint to overstay it’s welcome.
The sense of Remember me being a game that’s padded out ramps up the further in you get, with repetitive fights, a couple of really unnecessary and boring climbing sections, and a spectacularly annoying chase sequence filled with insta-deaths and badly marked directions. One moment stands out as truly horrible, while being chased by an airborne thug with a minigun, you come to a bridge and are expected to hang from its side and shimmy to a new grapple point to continue the chase. No grapple point being clearly marked and camera staring directly at your back, you have no time to look ain any direction before being pelted with bullets and reloading the section again.
Thankfully Remember me is incredibly kind with its check pointing, but the number of time you restart these sections can be a real irritation and completing the game begins to feel like a slow slog. More a slow eventuality than an accomplishment of skill through learning.
The other big element to Remember me is the memory re-mix sections, where Nilin dives into a persons memory and edits them to create the outcome she needs. These are almost always tied to high points in the overall narrative and help to add to the back-story of our protagonist in interesting and unexpected ways. Remixes involve watching through someone’s memories like a video in an editor, rewinding and slowly scanning through to find moments that you can change to create the desired effect needed. While this is fantastic in concept, in practice it’s far from that. With there only ever being one possible solution available, every mistake requiring you to have to rewind back again, change another set of available variables and watch once again as things play out. It’s another section of the game where it feels like the answer is only ever something you will stumble upon and not something you worked out for yourself. Luck over skill and ingenuity.
Dontnod has gone on to experiment with these idea’s further in it’s follow up title, life is strange, to much critical acclaim, but here it feels like yet another great idea that was just too much to truly see it’s full potential.
That’s not to say everything here is flawed, The art design is astounding, both to the construction of neo-paris’ most interesting areas to the visual artifacting and style when its not being overused. Layered in is a digitally organic sounding soundtrack that uses the concept of glitched information and runs with it to build upon the already striking world design. Nilin too is a brilliantly well thought out and designed character, layers build upon layers during her journey as she unveils more about herself and we get to see more and more of her depth of character. Nilin tends to outshine all the other characters in the game by a country mile, being incredibly well written and acted. This sadly helps to show the weakness in much of the other characters writing, but to see a well rounded, strong and confident female lead who isn’t designed to be an object of lust or someone who is deliberately put through the ringer so she can “come out a stronger person” is refreshing. Even at her lowest she’s still a capable and powerful character.
Remember me’s biggest weakness is its strong ideas that just do quite make it and almost there design issues that get in the way of what should be. I came away feeling like Remember me was a chose to play when it really shouldn’t have been. Yet I cant help but want to see that world again one day, perhaps being given more time and another chance to shine.