Remember Me

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Remember Me, it's a game that splits me right through the middle. I love it's the futuristic take on the city of Paris, combining classic architecture with sci-fi layers that work so well in creating a believable future, filled with robots and stuff. Yet at the same time, much of what Remember Me attempts to accomplish as been done before and done better at that. There's some real originality found deep within DONTNOD Entertainment's latest game, but it somehow falls short of standing out as spectacular or original.

Set in the city of Neo-Paris, Remember Me is the story of Nilin, an Errorist imprisoned in the Bastille Fortress, who finds herself on the brink of having her entire memory wiped by an all powerful organisation known as Memorize. She is soon contacted by an individual who calls himself Edge, and with his help escapes dazed and confused, with little of her past memory for her to recall. The story of Remember Me is at times rather predictable, you see some of the twists a mile away yet it tells a decent enough tale, especially helped by one of the real gems of the game, the memory remix segments which task you to change or 'remix' the memories of certain individuals. Changing these memories is done through the manipulation of objects and devices, changing the eventual results of the story, though don't go thinking this is dynamic or anything, it's basically a linear puzzle with one end result. It's simple but well implemented and one of the real standout features of Remember Me.

It's not all about memory remixing however, Nilin isn't short of a few fighting moves and powers when it comes to combat. Combat in Remember Me is an interesting beast. Instead of being a simple button masher (though you can choose to do so on the normal difficulty), Nilin can complete customisable combos that allow her to regain health, shorten power recharge times and even dealer extra damage. It interesting take on the usual Batman Arkham Asylum combat formula so many games have taken to these days, but it feels hollow and half-attempted in context to the entirety of the game. Whilst it benefits you to edit combos to suit your specific requirements (for example, I had one combo that I used entirely for health regeneration if it was needed) it still doesn't feel essential enough to be anything but a back of the box feature. That and you'll only unlock a good three or four combos throughout the story because combat is resigned to just two face buttons, which is a shame because there's an idea behind this feature that it worthy of deeper, more meaningful implementation.

Remember Me features a large amount of traversal to, though this is your typical point to point traversal and nothing on the level of say Assassin's Creed. Whilst it's generally something I don't mind in games, the linearity might not be welcomed by all. Nilin as a few extra powers on her sleeve (literally), thanks to a rather awesome looking arm-glove device which allows her to activate a number of powers at her disposal. Some of these are used to navigate the world, such as lifting doors and moving heavy objects, to a power that allows her to extract energy from powered-up devices which can then be used to activate disabled doors and machines. She has a bunch of specific powers that can only be used in combat as well, and although they add some variety to combat, they don't do enough to stop it feeling repetitive towards the end. Considering Remember Me's short campaign, this only brings up the shortcomings of the combat even more.

The world of Remember Me is one of the real highlights and it's why I'm so split on Remember Me. Neo-Paris is richly detailed and a sharp artistic style is found throughout. The PC version looks fantastic to though some odd animations here and there really stand out against what is a splendid looking game. Voice work is a little all over the place, Nilin and Edge are perfectly fine but there's some less than average performance from some of the side characters you meet along the way. On that note, special mention as to go to Remember Me's soundtrack, which I found pretty memorable throughout and I've most certainly found myself listening to again and again lately.

So I'm left divided about Remember Me, it's got a vision of the world that I rather fell fond of and I found the story being told interesting enough. But it falls short in it's vision when it comes to creating an engaging game, yes some of the boss battles offer some challenge on higher difficulties and a number of the enemies you face require you to use your powers and the customisable combo system in some smart ways, but it's repetitive and doesn't even hold up in what is a short campaign. That said, there's part of me that would like to see DONTNOD Entertainment get a second crack at the whip, just to see what they could do with the world and how they could spice up the lackluster combat system and traversal mechanics. But you know what, I'd still recommend Remember Me, it's not a great game but it's obvious that the developers had/have some smart ideas behind it and that's something that should always be admired and encouraged.there that some might just admire.