The visual style in Memoria has a definite fairy tale feel to it, which is kind of what you'd expect for an adventure story set in a fantasy world. The characters on screen are rendered as models, but the backgrounds are flat 2D scenes. The style is consistent throughout the game and it's very well done. There's no sense of pixel hunting like in a lot of adventure games, but occasionally, the hot spots don't always show up well. There are some nice touches here and there, particularly with the interface and how it adds new abilities as the story advances. The interface does a pretty good job of staying out of the way visually when you're playing.
Voice acting and music are quite good in the game, though they're both a little uneven. Some of the actors hit their lines right, but it feels like their hitting their lines instead of bringing out the characters. Other performances feel like performances and are definitely worth playing through to the end to enjoy. The music is good, but if you get stuck on an area, hearing the same theme over and over again gets to be a little wearing, much the same as the voice actors when you can't quite find the right item or can't quite get a sequence worked out. There are some sound effects which fit the action on the screen, but they don't quite feel right. It'd be more noticeable if they were gone and that's not a good thing to have when you're trying to make the world sound more natural.
For an adventure game, Memoria does have a couple of novel twists to the standard formula. You take on two characters, Geron and Sadja. One is a reluctant adventurer continuing his story from Chains of Satinav, the other is a princess from centuries in the past. The two stories are linked as Geron tries to find a way to undo the spell which has transformed his would-be girlfriend into a bird. Aid is promised by a wandering merchant who might know the right spell, but only if he solves the riddle posed to the ancient princess Sadja.Although it's not necessary to have played any previous entries in the Dark Eye series, those who have will likely get more out of the story than gamers who are just coming into it now. The writing and storyline do take some twists and turns, some of them genuinely surprising, but it's hard not to want to punch some of the characters in the face, particularly one or two of the supporting characters.
Most of the puzzles make perfect sense and players can solve them quickly if they've been paying attention. But there are two areas which are just annoying as hell, and probably the most egregious offender is a maze level which has you wandering around a forest trying to hunt down a treacherous underling. Yes, there are ways to mark the trails and there's a way to skip it if you get too lost, but that should have been a sign to maybe cut that element from the game.
Good adventure games are like good books. Even if you've finished them, you should want to come back to them at some point and go through them again. That critical aspect feels missing from Memoria. While there are a few spots where you do things slightly differently to gain a different achievement, they're not a big enough motivator to immediately try another runthrough. The game plays well enough that you don't want walk away in disgust, but there's not enough there to make you want to come back for more. Fans of The Dark Eye setting will likely have this down to complete their collection. The rest of us get a decent introduction to a setting we've probably not heard of before and
might want to check out if we have the time.
- Axel Cushing
The Good:
- Good art direction
- Nice work with the “evolving” interface
- Well written storyline
The Bad:
- Bad level design in a couple places
- Music occasionally gets dull
Score: 7.0 / 10
