Games I Played In 2024 - Remember Me

Console: PS3, XBox 360, PC

Developer: Dontnod Entertainment

Release Date: June 3rd 2013

Remember Me is an action RPG game with a focus on combos, parkour, and a dystopian cyberpunk narrative revolving around the concept of memories becoming a commodity. It is the first game developed by Dontnod Entertainment (now the more pleasantly written Don't Nod Entertainment), best known nowadays for the Life is Strange games and other games like Vampyr and Jusant. Surprisingly, Remember Me was published by Capcom.

In fact, being published by Capcom is the only reason this game came under my radar, and though it received mixed criticism, I've always been intrigued by it and I've never seen many people talk about it. As far as I can tell, Remember Me went through some development woes, first being an open world RPG published by Sony and, when canceled due to creative differences, hawked at Gamescom in the hopes of finding a new publisher. With Capcom Europe's funding, the game was modified into what it is today. Remember Me is a case of a game with mixed reviews that didn't end up as a cult classic. My biggest reason to play it was to figure out if there was a reason it was forgotten, or if this was a little gem that more people should be aware of and experience.

A JOURNEY WORTH REMEMBERING?

Remember Me takes place in the 2080's within Neo-Paris, a dystopian city where memories have become commodities using technology called Sensen. Essentially, people can forever remember good memories and forever forget bad memories, but this has unpredictable effects on the human psyche, and can turn people into raving, misshapen monstrosities called Leapers. The game stars Nilin, a memory hunter and an Errorist (essentially a memory terrorist), that starts the game getting her memory wiped as part of the unethical treatment of prisoners in La Bastille, where prisoners get their memories removed for their stay. Upon hearing the voice of a mysterious man named Edge, Nilin escapes with his guidance and seeks to remember herself and destroy Memorize, the company responsible for Sensen and the population's growing dependence on memories.

This is quite an ingenious plot device, as using the forced amnesia angle, Nilin is able to be both a formidable, high-priority threat to Memorize, and a fish out of water to facilitate exposition and make her more immediately relatable, all while fitting in the game's story and world. I found Nilin to be very likeable overall and, refreshingly, she doesn't blindly accept what's going on despite still going through with whatever Edge tells her to do. The friendly characters she meets are all quite likeable as well, though not as developed as she and Edge are, and the villains are disappointingly both cartoonishly unidimensional and only really relevant during their own chapter, for the most part. This also applies to quite a few secondary characters, unfortunately.

As part of her skillset, Nilin has the unique ability to remix people's memories; that is to say, she can alter people's memories and basically play God. This ability is a key aspect of the story: Nilin must usually find certain people and get close to them to either steal or remix their memories. The Memory Remix segment are a highlight of the game: though there's only a handful, they are all memorable and a joy to fiddle around with. Memory Remix makes you watch a cutscene of a memory, and then you can scroll through it and modify certain predetermined aspects to change the outcome and thus, the character's memory of the incident. The key that makes this feature fun is that there's wrong answers, which makes it fun to experiment with possible outcomes and see how the characters react. In this instance, it truly feels like you're playing God, despite the limitations.

The entire game's performances were motion captured as far as I can tell, and all the animations look basically perfect.  The voice acting overall is also very solid, but Nilin's voice actress, Kezia Burrows, absolutely steals the show for me, making Nilin a very relatable and vulnerable character capable of showing emotional subtlety. Burrows will be more known by modern players for her roles as Aloy in Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, Dr. Emma Fisher in Observation, and Sorceress Sellen in Elden Ring. This excellence can't really be granted to the rest of the cast, unfortunately. No one delivers their lines particularly poorly, but the script's tone is very inconsistent: going from Nilin's deeply personal struggles to suddenly dealing with a cartoon villain who monologues by themselves is jarring and breaks the immersion the game tries so hard to provide. A lot of the story is told through Edge talking with Nilin, and they aptly are the two characters with the best performances, in my opinion. As Don't Nod is a French company (hence the setting), there is also a French dub that I haven't experienced, but would be interested in hearing in a second playthrough.

In general, the storytelling is paced very well, sprinkled through cutscenes and dialogue inbetween parkour and combat segments. Dialogue between Edge and Nilin is not always riveting, due to it mainly being expository in nature, but it always showcases their characters very well. Nilin in particular shines in the cutscenes that mark the beginning of each chapter, as she monologues about how she's feeling, the struggles she's facing, and the dilemmas she's contemplating. I'd say that near the end, however, there's a concept/structure brought up in a way that implies you should already know about it, but I definitely didn't. As a result, though there's a prologue and 8 chapters, I ended up feeling like there was either half a chapter or a full chapter missing.

The environments are beautiful, especially for the time, and are rich in environmental storytelling. They are especially spotlighted in the parkour segments where Nilin has to get from point A to point B, typically another battle arena. News reports, characters running in and out of frame, and signs all convey the current state of the world incredibly well. The parkour segments are easy and very hand-holdy, however: to make it clear where you should go, orange arrows appear around ledges and ladders you can interact with. There's very little exploration, and instead it's more about being along for the ride. The exploration is only through the collectibles, which are hidden in out-of-the-way corners that aren't too hard to find, and some will be structured like a scavenger hunt: a picture will appear and you'll have to find where it is in the surrounding area.

These parkour segments are also varied enough to stay at least modestly interesting despite their corridor-like design. Sometimes there is light puzzle-solving and light stealth elements thrown in, just to spice things up, and it goes a long way to prevent the game from feeling too samey. It's linear and you're just along for the ride, but you at least don't always do the same thing over and over. There's even two simple riddle puzzles in the game. And thanks to the in-game technology, pop-ups appear on storefronts and dangerous areas, fully in-universe and adding a ton of charm. From bar menus to corporate messages, Remember Me tries its darnedest to immerse the player into its world, and I'd say it succeeds far more than it falters in this endeavor. One small inconsistency, however, is how much text is in English despite being set in Neo-Paris, which wouldn't be an issue if there also weren't some signs and messages written in French. The characters all seem intended to be French, or at least French-speaking, but they all have a variety of British accents. It's not a deal-breaker or anything, it's just an odd choice. A strange remark is that a lot of NPCs don't react to Nilin during the parkour segments, and don't even have voice lines. They just either stand there or sit on the ground, ignoring everything around them. It's a bit strange.

It's worth noting that, for the most part, the graphics have held up despite being a 2013 game. Textures don't get too blurry, and the focused nature of the game allows environments to be designed with notable artistic intent; nothing really ends up feeling like an afterthought. Character models and designs are all very good, with Nilin again being a highlight. The one big flaw visually, though, is how stiff all the faces are. Characters just can't emote very much, and even big exaggerated expressions feel lifeless and forced. Nilin's face, for example, is stuck in a sort of permanent slight squint with a neutral expression. She never particularly looks angry or happy, with only incredibly subtle mouth movements and unmoving eyelids, which betrays the performance Burrows gives. This is a problem for every character, who seem stuck in one facial expression with a few minor changes.

Don't Nod created a fascinating world revolving around an intriguing concept, and then refuse to pull punches with the subject matter. There are enough twists and turns to the story that I found myself riveted the whole way through, and I found a couple of moments in the narrative genuinely shocking, or at the very least unsettling enough in concept to disturb me. While too short to really go deep into these concepts, I feel it went deep enough to make me reflect on concepts such as individuality, which is all I could really ask for. 

To supplement the story and worldbuilding, 40 pieces of lore in the style of social media posts can be found scattered throughout the game. These, alongside other collectibles, make the game more replayable than it would be otherwise, and while I didn't truly look for all of them, I did find myself wanting to replay the game to find them all. There clearly was a lot of love, care and effort placed into crafting the world and story of Remember Me, and I think that's something should be acknowledged and celebrated.

FIGHTING TO RECALL

As an action game, Remember Me is a bit of an odd duck. The battle system of the game is based around Pressens. Pressens are essentially different kinds of attacks, tied to either the X or Y button, that all have a different animation and one of four categories: Power, Regen, Cool Down, and Chain. Power Pressens deal higher damage, Regen Pressens heal you a little, Cool Down Pressens lower your S-Pressen cooldowns, and Chain Pressens duplicate and double the previous non-Chain Pressens effect. While each attack animation is tied to a specific button and category, you get to pick and choose where each one is in your 4 predetermined combos using the Combo Lab feature. While aesthetic to a point, it does mean that players will invariably value different Pressens in different spots, giving each player's playthrough that little touch of individuality.

However, the combos in the Combo Lab are set in stone and cannot be changed; you cannot place a Pressen that uses the X button where the Y button would normally be used. This does limit creativity to an extent, but this is also mitigated somewhat by an additional mechanic: the further in the combo you go, the more effective a Pressen will be. This means that a Regen Pressen, for example, will recover far more health at the end of a combo than at the start of a combo. As a little aesthetic bonus, each category of Pressen is based on a different martial art. There are also three bonus Chain Pressens that are available as DLC, and have Nilin perform iconic Street Fighter moves: a Shoryuken, a Spinning Bird Kick, and a Flash Kick. This does mean that buying the DLC gives access to three extra Chain Pressens as soon as they are unlocked, though, so it's not quite purely aesthetic.

As you progress through the game, Nilin will remember 5 S-Pressens, essentially super moves. These moves all have individual cooldowns and can be activated when enough of the Focus Bar is filled; this bar fills up when Nilin damages enemies or takes damage herself. While the cooldowns for four of them are three minutes (!), this is to incentivize the use of Cool Down Pressens. Against enemies who are vulnerable to certain S-Pressens, this creates a sort of push-and-pull mentality in combat where you use your Cool Down Pressens to reduce your cooldowns and raise your Focus at the same time.

Speaking of enemies, the game has 14 enemy types, but they can really be counted as five, with two of them having a few variants, and the rest are minibosses that are seldom encountered. Enemies will start out simple, where just button-mashing will work just fine, but as the game progresses, more specific methods need to be used to take them down, from using certain S-Pressens to using your projectiles (which you unlock early on) to even requiring you to take down other enemies or waiting for an opening. One particular enemy type deals damage whenever hit by anything other than a Regen Pressen, which can make the encounter very tricky. There are three "real" bosses in the game, but they aren't anything to write home about. The first boss is like an elongated fight against a big enemy, while the other two are more puzzle/gimmick bosses where the answer, at least to me, wasn't particularly obvious and I had to mess around until a tooltip told me what to do.

I must say, though, that Remember Me does end up faltering as an action game as you make progress. Most damningly of all, unfortunately, is that it parrots the free-flow combat made famous and popular by the Batman Arkham series but fails to make it particularly satisfying to execute. It has all the ingredients to do it, but a simple flaw results in it becoming a bit of a mind-numbing affair: changing targets or dodging away breaks your combo. In a game where getting further into a combo strengthens your moves, having that combo consistently broken, sometimes by accident, is not great design. As a result of this, I found myself funneled into three combos: using the shortest one for a quick heal and cooldown, the second shortest one for a bunch of healing, and the second longest one purely for damage; I didn't even use the longest combo available, since I never would've gotten the opportunity to get every hit to land  either way.

Battles end up feeling like having to multitask: avoid attacks, decide which combo to do and execute it correctly, and keep in mind the specific weaknesses of whichever enemy is present. Thankfully, the game shows the combo you're doing at the bottom of the screen, with the appropriate Pressens icons and even associated sounds, so it makes it a bit easier to follow... sometimes. Nilin lacks a real AoE attack and even Pressens with animations that look like they should hit all around her don't, meaning it's easy to get overwhelmed by groups, but it's also easy to run around and not get hit.

The way they are designed as part of a level, battles came across to me as a pace changer and a storytelling tool rather than the main focus of the game. The design philosophy behind the use of combat is more outdated, both by today's standards and 2013's standards, as the game will regularly make enemies appear out of nowhere in a suspiciously wide open area to break up parkour sequences. Nowadays, I'd say this is almost more charming than outdated, though. It brings me back to a simpler time, in a way.

A MEMORABLE SOUNDSCAPE

Remember Me's soundtrack is composed by Olivier Derivière and performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, then modified. Derivière nowadays is better known for his work on Streets of Rage 4, Vampyr, and Dying Light 2. This is dynamic orchestral soundscape that changes and adapts to the gameplay, reminiscent of a film score. However, Derivière occasionally throws in "glitches" into the music to make it feel futuristic and fragmented, such as modulating the volume and cutting off parts of sounds to create a more mechanical, percussive sound. Sometimes, the orchestra is almost all removed, leaving synths and digital drums in the forefront, so there's even some variety there.

I'm not typically one for film score soundtracks, I usually find that they all blend together into a sort of non-descript orchestral mush, but Remember Me actually manages to stand out for me. It's still not something I would go out of my way to listen very often, but the way it swells and falls and fragments depending on what's happening in the game actually makes it a very immersive soundtrack, I'd go as far as say one of the best of its kind. There are even a few tracks that stood out for me, such as the main theme, with a theremin-like synth carrying the melody, and the theme for one of the minibosses, with a massively overpowering alarm-like intro.

Remember Me's official soundtrack is "only" 15 tracks, but that is due to the way music is used in the game, and doesn't mean the game's music gets repetitive in the least. Notably, Derivière won the "Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media" award at the 2013 International Film Music Critics Association Awards for Remember Me, a testament to the quality of the soundtrack.

PROS AND CONS

PROS

• Fascinating world and narrative in general, with good voice acting all around, highlighted by Kezia Burrows as Nilin
• Interesting concept for combat with Pressens and S-Pressens allowing for some individuality in the player's choices
• Amazing film score-like soundtrack that immerses the player and enhances the experience as a whole
• Parkour segments are kept fresh enough by their variety
• Lots of collectibles to encourage exploration and multiple replays

CONS

• Combos get broken too easily, sometimes by mistake, making the combat more of a chore and more tedious than it should be on paper
• Very linear and corridor-like level design and a lack of life from NPCs makes the game feel a bit like a sterile ride
• Antagonists are almost all very cartoony and unidimensional, breaking the immersion, and are only relevant during their segments
• Part of the story is not foreshadowed correctly, resulting in a major plot point seemingly coming out of nowhere
• Design philosophy that is outdated, even for the time

WORTH PLAYING?

While it's a game that feels outdated and outdone in many aspects, I think Remember Me is worth playing, if just for experiencing the story and world it presents. Being such a linear and focused game, Don't Not were able to truly tailor the storytelling to the gameplay, and it works. The key is to approach Remember Me as a narrative-driven game first, and an action game second, which I'm guessing is the opposite of how it was marketed to players. This is, in my opinion, very firmly a narrative-driven game with action RPG elements. It also helps that since it wasn't much of a success, the game tends to be dirt cheap on Steam. Just make sure to get it on sale.

Being released in the same year as The Last of Us, Grand Theft Auto V, Fire Emblem Awakening, Terraria, Saints Row IV, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Remember Me truly had no hope in standing out to players, with its 8-11 hours of playtime and lackluster gameplay by comparison. Ironically, a game all about memories fell through the cracks and became forgotten itself. There isn't much of a cult following for the game for as far as I can tell, and it sort of quietly sits in Steam's store as an oddity under Capcom's published games.

I don't think Remember Me is a groundbreaking experience, nor do I think it's particularly good (or bad) outside of its narrative, but I feel like it's better than the sum of its parts as a whole. Playing it, I could feel the love and passion that went into its development, and I got swept up in the story pretty quickly. It's Don't Nod's first outing, and it nearly bankrupted them, but I think it's worth experiencing nowadays as a sort of little time capsule.

If the game sounds interesting to you, by all means, seek it out and play it. It's short, interesting, a little frustrating or tedious at times, and won't leave a hole in your wallet, should it be on sale. It's got an outdated design philosophy and is generally outdone by its contemporaries, but I think that makes the package as a whole more intriguing to play. Plus, I always find it interesting to play these sort of "time capsule" games, where their outdated nature ends up adding to their charm, rather than take away from the experience.

If you know what to expect from Remember Me, then I think it's a fine game for what it is. And I'd say it's worth remembering it, even if it's not the best. Because even mediocre games can have value, if you look in the right places.