Gaming Backlog: Remember Me

Remember Me Cover
Remember Me

Remember Me takes place in Neo-Paris in the year 2084. A corporation called Memorize have deployed a technology known as Sensen that enables the population to upload their memories. Which of course would never be a power abused. The game drops you into the role of Nilin who must escape from a Memorize memory wipe and thus begins her (your) journey for answers/revenge.

I love this game. Really, I do. Is it perfect? No, not even close. Do I care? Not in the least. I am not joking here. I am hoping against hope that they sold enough copies to do a sequel that will expand on the world they have created while improving on the gameplay. Am I gushing enough yet?

Nilin is a great. Admittedly I seem to like the distant, aloof, sometimes violent female characters (see: Cadsuane, Moiraine, Lulu, Fang, Lightning, etc) so I am rather biased, but I enjoyed my time with her. One of the things that took me aback, but was greatly pleasing, was discovering she is of mixed race. You just don’t see that often in video games. It is disappointing to read all the bigots comes out because I guess they think people of colour are all supposed to look a certain way, but that’s the Internet.

It was short, but not a good kind of short. There was definitely room for more storytelling and greater character development. There was plenty of world building and backstory although it would have been nice if they had went Mass Effect style and had a narrator for the codex because that text was tiny! Even so, that in-depth world only highlighted the lack of development in the story proper.

The big thing about the game is the ability Nilin has to remix people’s memories. This is pretty awesome and very godlike, and yet you only get to do this four times in the entire game. Four times! I understand the fear of making this mechanic seem too gimmicky and repetitive, but I hope if there is a sequel they find a way to fit more of these remixes in gracefully. The fighting mechanics have the potential of being really fun but were lacking in execution. This is another game where getting the combos down might be easier on keyboard than controller, but I can’t say for certain.

So there are issues with this game, but honestly it feels like it is so close to getting everything right. And what it gets wrong is pretty minor compared to the entire piece . This is a game I was both excited and sad to finish because I was having fun in spite of any minor frustrations.

My hopes for a sequel have dimmed a bit with news of developer Dontnod Entertainment’s recent financial weirdness. Hopefully everything works out.

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