Remember Me Review

Objects on screen are not as meaningful as they appear

Do any of you remember that kid from high school?  The one who was astonishingly smart and gifted, but couldn’t be bothered to apply himself, even though the guy could be the next Steve Jobs if he wanted?  Remember Me essentially feels like the video game embodiment of that kid.  Set in a hyper-advanced “Neo”-Paris in 2084, Remember Me, for all intents and purposes, has the potential to be the best game of 2013, at the very least.  The presentation is beyond stunning; nearly perfectly melding the beauty of Paris with futuristic technology, while maintaining a fervent level of action that keeps you on the edge of your seat without appearing obnoxious.  Unfortunately, it seems to fall short in literally everything else that it attempts.  The characters range from underdeveloped to outright forgettable, exposition is sparse and rushed to no end, each level is mind-bogglingly linear and “deep combat” is nothing more than a façade, just to name a few problems.  In a sense, Remember Me feels less like a video game and more like Dontnod Entertainment simply wanted to develop a sci-fi TV series.

                Hell, maybe that’s what they should have done in the first place, as it would have given them more time to clean up this mess.  Remember Me revolves Neo-Paris, a futuristic remodeling of Paris after the effects of global warming and a massive European war ravaged both the human population and the region, respectively.  At the same time, the company Memorize, specializing in memory manipulation, has gained control over the city’s population with their new device, the Sensen, a machine that hooks up to the user’s brain stem and allows them to transfer their memories like data on a computer, sharing certain memories with different people and erasing painful ones.  However, this, in turn, gives Memorize unfiltered access to the thoughts of all Sensen users, which is nearly the entire Neo-Paris population, allowing them to create an Orwellian surveillance state within the city, tracking any potential “undesirables” and imprisoning them at will, erasing their memories and transforming them into Leapers, insane, violent mutants who inhabit the slums and sewers of Neo-Paris.

In order to combat this oppressive regime, the enigmatic Edge has started up the Errorist movement, a group of people who seek to bring about chaos in the city, tearing down the system of memory surveillance and giving the people control once again.  This is where our protagonist, Nilin, comes into play.  Having just been arrested and gotten her memories wiped, she is contacted by Edge while on her way to be turned into a Leaper, who manages to hack the prison’s systems and assists Nilin in her escape.  Free from her binds, Nilin is guided by Edge in an effort to recover her lost memories, uncover Edge’s true identity and dismantle Memorize’s stranglehold on the city.  Now, while that all sounds like the grounds for a down-right spectacular plot, it’s the execution of this story that causes the whole thing to fall flat on its face.

Jesus, where do you start with this thing?  For starters, the characters, with the exception of Nilin, are completely unrealistic and forgettable.  In almost any story, if a character is to be considered important, the viewer needs time to adjust to them and understand their views, actions, appearance and so forth, so that we may develop an opinion about them.  Remember Me, on the other hand, simply introduces most of them at the beginning of each level with a quick description and proceeds to give us literally NOTHING ELSE to work with until we actually approach the person near the level’s end.  What little exposition we do get on them either comes from collectable info packs (more on those later), or from a truckload of personality traits being dumped into the small amount of screen time that they get, thus making them look more like stereotypes than real, relatable people.  On top of that, the majority of them are insignificant to the overall narrative.  Because of how little focus many characters are given, we either completely forgot that they even existed, or if they do manage to get a little extra focus down the road, I actually found myself struggling to recall who the hell they even were.  If you aren’t going to give these people the time they need to leave an impact on us, you can’t expect us to give a damn about them.

As I mentioned before, however, Nilin is the one rare exception to these circumstances.  The last, best hope for the Errorist movement, Nilin comes off as a strong, defiant young woman, more than capable of defending herself, while still seeming human, expressing her disapproval with the Errorists ongoing tactics of causing chaos in Neo-Paris, even at the expense of the lives of innocent civilians.  In between each mission, we see her monologue about how she is reacting to these events, slowly coming to terms with her true identity, the powers that she wields and how she can handle all of this, all while traveling through a virtual realm that is supposed to be the manifestation of her memories; a realm that shapes itself to her current mood and intended actions.  In all, not only does Nilin appear incredibly admirable as a character, but she also highlights one of the strengths of Remember Me’s narrative style: its ability to take an inch and run a mile with it.

While this ability does not do the game favors with most characters, many scenes in the game, the scripted action sequences in particular, have every second that they can afford utilized in an exemplary fashion.  You never get the sense that the cut scene designers felt clueless at any point, as everything that we see is done with purpose.  The more casual cut scenes never feel pointless; the characters say what they need to say, do what they need to do and move on.  It allows for so much to be accomplished in a short amount of time, all without overwhelming the player.  And the action.  Dear God, the action scenes flow about as smooth as silk sheets in a breeze. Every movement and gesticulation occurs with such fluidity that we can really feel immersed in the situation at hand, and even better is the pacing of this action, which made it so that we could be amazed without being overwhelmed.  I could be blown away by the intensity of each scene and not have to replay the moment in my head to fully understand what happened, not once having to ask myself “Did I miss something?”  And yet, ironically enough, this surging, fluent pacing just might be what truly kills this game’s story.

If you go back and read the synopsis I wrote up above, you’ll notice that it’s rather bare-bones.  I say this because if you’re expecting things to be far more fleshed out when you go through the game, you’re going to be in for a rather nasty surprise.  Just like how most characters are given the bare minimum in terms of exposition, practically every element and theme in Remember Me is pretty much just glanced over; all while we’re being told that these ideas are supposed to matter and we’re supposed to be invested in them.  Everything from the back stories of various antagonists to the technology that makes up Neo-Paris to the provocative, thought-provoking concepts that are mused over never seem to get the amount of focus that they rightfully deserve.  Instead, we are given those small collectable data caches that I mentioned earlier. 

Similar to the codex in the Mass Effect series, they fill you in on various machines, VIPs and past events that make up this world.  And frankly, if this is all you’re going to give us, instead of coupling it with an immersive world that feels like it lives and breathes, it really feels like you’re not even trying.  We cannot be expected to invest ourselves into this world if efforts are not taken to show the player just what kind of effect the events that are taking place can have on the world, and not once are we given the chance to engage in any activity that might allow us to feel the pain that is felt by those who live under Memorize’s rule.   



Can't you just feel the emotion?



It really is a damn shame too because, as I mentioned before, the themes that make up this game come off as incredibly deep and profound, such as whether or not the suffering of innocents can justify an uprising, whether we should ignore painful memories or learn from them and the idea of Nilin’s amnesia allowing her to view her situation from a whole new light.  Furthermore, when she remixes a target’s memories in order to manipulate them, we are actually in charge of taking this memory and altering minor elements that will add up to a different conclusion, at least from the perspective of the target.  These parts feel quite similar to Run Lola Run, reminding us that even changing the smallest, seemingly trivial thing can alter our future drastically.  I wanted to mull over these further with the game, but without the proper development, they come off as nothing more than the pretentious notions of an already poorly executed plot.

Thankfully, the same cannot be said for Remember Me’s art direction, music and atmosphere.  I’m beginning to get the feeling that Dontnod spent all its time on the game’s visuals, because Paris has never looked this engaging.  The French architecture alone is worth highlighting, as every hallway, balcony and street is steeped in the intricate stone carvings, filling the city with untold amounts of culture.  Inversely, the technology that is spattered across Paris gives each area tons of personality, whether it be the use of holograms across the city walls, even if they come off as distracting sometimes, robotic servants performing their duties without a care in the world and the other bits of machinery that cover living rooms and blend together with buildings.  Admittedly, the appearance of these electronics can give some areas a cluttered, almost obtrusive feel to them, but these situations are few and far between and they typically meld together with an almost unparalleled beauty.

But it’s not just the mixture of new and old that gives Remember Me its visual flare.  Each level has a distinct vibe to it that the graphics capture perfectly every time.  The slums and underground stages are cast in darkness and a feeling of depression, with disrepair and filth littering the player’s path, although some parts can feel a bit hammy with their attempts at horror.  The city streets are a perfect blend of technology and classic architecture.  The buildings controlled by Memorize appear clean and controlled, but have an overwhelming, almost menacing feel to them, as if the constructions surrounding the player are concealing something far more sinister.  Even the virtual reality segments have a strange appeal to them, the abyss invoking an enigmatic serenity that you don’t see in many games.  These vibes are complimented even further by the soundtrack.  It’s mostly a mixture of symphonic and electronic elements, but they feel so utterly appropriate for these scenarios, with the harmonic elements granting many action sequences a heroic motif to them, while the electronic arrangement grants many portions of the game a rhythmic aesthetic that mostly balances out the traditional instruments, even if the symphonies can feel a bit overused at times.  But that all lies upon the surface of Remember Me.  At its core, the gameplay, much like the story, is a shoddy, shallow mess.

Nothing about Remember Me’s gameplay is wrong or broken, per say, aside from some minor hiccups with the camera and controls.  Rather, it speaks volumes to the game’s overarching problem: untapped potential.  Each level boils down to making your way from point A to point B, while presenting the player platforming sequences a la Uncharted, fighting off various goons in a similar fashion to the Batman Arkham series and typically finishing off with a boss battle.  One of the big problems that immediately comes to mind is how the game holds your hand at almost every instance that it is given the chance.  Tips are constantly flashing on the screen during combat.  Getting lost is practically an impossibility due to the overly linear pathways.  Remembrance sections, sequences where Lilin follows the holographic personification of the memories that she stole from someone in order to get around certain obstacles, are nothing more than a hi-tech version of follow the leader.  THERE ARE LITERALLY ARROWS POINTING TOWARDS THE NEXT PLATFORM THAT YOU SHOULD GO TO!  On top of all of this, going back to the linear pathways, there are various collectable strewn across each level, such as the info caches and health upgrades, but finding them is about as easy as finding fries at McDonalds.  They tend to be “hidden” down small paths or on ledges that obviously don’t lead in the direction of your objective, emphasizing that there has to be something there, thereby eliminating any sense of it being a secret.  Linearity is the name of the game in Remember Me, and that doesn’t stop with the platforming.

Where do I go from here?!

The combat certainly appears deep and visceral to the naked eye, but one to two fights reveals that it’s no less shallow than the rest of the game.  Nilin is equipped with a number of tools that come her way at a steady, albeit uneventful, pace, including the Spammer, a “Memory-shooting” gun that overloads enemies’ Sensen’s, which is mostly situational and doesn’t hold much practical appeal to most fights, a short list of customizable combos and S-Pressens, unlockable special moves that allow Nilin to clear the battlefield far more easily.  Nilin handles smoothly enough, dodging by jumping over enemies while utilizing combos to build up energy to perform S-Pressens, although a lock-on feature would be more than welcome in certain scenarios. 

As for the combos, you don’t customize the button inputs themselves, but rather you affect what each input does with Pressens, button presses that speed up S-Pressen recovery, recover health, do more damage or increase the effect of Pressens used previously.  Customizable combos really feel superficial in the grand scheme of things, but the true problem lies in the core of the combat, as well as the gameplay in general.  Enemy variety does evolve as time goes on, with Memorize forces adopting shields and mechs while Leapers use their memories to strengthen their power houses, but the formula remains the same: dodge, perform combos, use S-Pressens, repeat until the battle is over.  There’s nary a sense of variety, customization or choice to any of it and you’ll find yourself just going through the motions after a while.  The same goes for the rest of the game; just fighting, then jumping, then fighting, then jumping until you reach the boss, with an occasional puzzle thrown in to try and break up the monotony, most of the time feeling like a case of too little, too late.  And yet, strangely enough, the combat has more than enough appeal to keep you going until the credits roll.

 For one, the boss battles are leaps and bounds beyond the repetitive nature of regular combat.  Ignoring the final boss, which is your typical “fight a giant without actually fighting him” affair, each encounter actually requires the player to think on their feet and strategize for a change.  Whether you’re going three rounds in a street fight with a super charged ex-Memory Hunter or facing off against a prison warden who can manipulate virtual reality, they have more personality than practically all the previous fight scenes combined, breaking away from the tired old dodge-and-punch formula and really trying to leave an impact on the player, even if the trick to beating certain bosses doesn’t reveal itself until the game decides to tell you.

 

But even the regular fights have a certain draw to them.  Although they may be fairly simple, they are still entertaining for the same reason that the scripted action catches your attention.  Every attack is done with such purpose and energy that you’ll swear that you were watching a Jackie Chan flick, and not once did I notice the frame rate chug.  This is also true while Nilin traverses various platforms which, while incredibly linear, are still quite hair-raising.  The difficulty even manages to compliment this by punishing you for failure, but not in an overly cruel fashion to ruin the pace, thereby keeping you focused on the action.  However, no matter how fun it looks, no amount of window dressing can compensate for the fact that the gameplay is simply has no depth to it.

                And that pretty much sums up Remember Me perfectly: spotless beauty that alludes to a deeper purpose, only to reveal that it’s about as deep as a kiddie pool.  Sure, it looks and sounds incredible, but the story, gameplay and world in general are so underdeveloped and borderline nascent that it makes me wonder if something went wrong during the development process.  I know that this could have been a superb adventure throughout Paris, as there are brief glimmers of brilliance scattered throughout it.  I get the feeling that it would have been more successful as an open-world adventure game, similar to Assassin’s Creed or Fallout, as it would have given the story more time to develop, allowed the player to interact more with the NPCs in order to get a better sense of what ails them and might have even delivered more varied combat situations.  Hell, considering how much Nilin’s story has to offer, I’d say this could have even accomplished more as a TV series.  At least that would have eliminated the need to worry about gameplay and allowed the creative team to focus far more on adding depth to the narrative.  But, as it stands, Remember Me is the kid who, for all intents and purposes, could have been President, but just ended up as a tour guide in the White House.  Stick to making movies, guys.