Remember Me is the contradiction between having some truly original ideas and executing them in an ordinary fashion.
Set at the dawn of the 21st century in a dystopian version of Paris, you play as Nilin, a memory hunter, part of the 'Errorist' movement. In this world, everyone has a reality-augmenting brain implant of sorts that enables people to transfer memories between one another. Apparently, memorial manipulation feels awesome but people get addicted to it and there's all kinds of health hazards related to overdosing on a memory trip. Taking care of business in tight jeans and thigh-high boots, Nilin's goes around kicking ass and fighting 'Memorize', the corporation behind the whole memory-orgy deal.
The bleak, dystopian scenario is certainly not super original. According to a few dozen Hollywood blockbusters, neither is the memory manipulation theme. Having said that, every element in this gray universe is combined in a very specific style achieved by tasteful art, nice environments, smooth animations and a solid soundtrack. The facial detail looks a tiny bit dated, but it's still decent. On the other hand, the writing and acting can be inconsistent and even cheesy at times but, in the larger scheme of things, it works out. The sauce is the 'reality augmentation' plot device. It enhances a memorable presentation through all sorts of crazy, colorful things popping up as you travel Neo-Paris, mostly in the form of contextual indicators, signs hovering over objects or extra information about your surroundings.
The premise behind Nilin is that she can know everything about you and make you do anything she wants, due to her ability to manipulate people's memories. This is such a great concept for a video game because it opens up so many possibilities. Sadly, the chosen genre ends up as a poor vehicle that limits the potential for innovation tremendously.
Combat is based on a 2-button system that allows you to perform combos. Combos are customizable with different attacks that have a variety of properties, like life regeneration or quickening the cooldown on other, more powerful abilities. The combat is functional and mildly creative but mashing two buttons can get old fast. When not busy throwing roundhouse kicks, you'll be mostly parkouring about. The climbing is pretty straight-forward and more reminiscent of old platformers where you need to time your jumps to avoid falling to your death, which feels kind of simplistic by today's standards. On the flip side, it allows you to see some beautiful landscapes with fancy camera work every now and again.
There are also boss fights, typical environmental puzzles and other gimmicks that seldom break things up, but none even come close to the memory-remixing sequences that you'll have to submit some enemies to. You hack into their brain and a specific memory plays out. You can then pause, rewind or fast-forward it and interact with objects in the scene to trigger a different outcome, in turn shifting the victim's sense of reality. The 'interact-with-object' mechanic could use a bit more depth but, overall, these sequences are really, really well done. With the exception of Nintendo DS' Ghost Trick, I've never seen anything quite like that before. Sadly, these events are few and far between. If the game was more about this genius concept and less about the mind-numbing fighting and pointless climbing, we would have a brilliant product in our hands.
At its core, Capcom's Remember Me is a typical action/adventure title with limited core gameplay that you sort of put up with just to get to the next cool moment.
Apart from some glitches with contextual interactions and a terribly clunky camera courtesy of console-porting, the game does have a major drawback: it's incredibly linear. Level design, missions and the general format, while riding on interesting notions, make it so there's always one and only one available path to progress. When walking down the streets to your next objective, it's hard to avoid this feeling of 'look but don't touch'. There's a sincere drive to interact and play around with this gorgeous world around you, but you're not allowed. There are still some collectibles to find but, in general, you'll be doing what you're told and there's no choice involved. Some more freedom in Neo-Paris would've been great, not only to enhance the fun factor, but also replayability: being a story-driven action game, there's only so much you can do with it before you move on.
The tragedy is that the presentation and some innovative mechanics that went into this project are beyond excellent. If this had been a more open game where you can choose how to fulfill your goals, even a different kind of product altogether, like a really fleshed-out adventure game, it would've become a triple A hit. What DONTNOD Entertainment delivers, instead, is a somewhat generic experience where the entire theme and concept behind the protagonist become completely irrelevant.
A wasted opportunity to make something truly revolutionary, Remember Me turns out to be an okay action game with few neat features and fancy wrapping.
