Remember Me Review: Worth remembering on Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Written by Brandon Hofer  on June 04, 2013

Remember Me Review: Visit 2084 Neo Paris as Nilin tries to recover the memories that were stolen from her in Remember Me

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Games that use amnesia as a storyline are nothing new. Some of the more popular games out there had at least one character that battled with amnesia. Remember Me is different and I really love the spin they put on this idea. For you see, in Remember Me your character hasn’t lost her memory, it was stolen. The game takes place in Neo Paris in the year 2084 and the game opens up with you as a prisoner having your memories stolen and there isn’t anything you can do about it. As you stumble around the detention facility you are trying to get your bearings before it is too late and all of sudden you hear something. It appears that your character Nilin, has a communication device on but that is never really addressed. In any event you hear from someone who calls himself “Edge” and he warns you about what is to come. After a little bit of talk he convinces Nilin to try and escape and he helps her out along the way however he can. Once you escape from the facility you are introduced to Neo Paris and your adventure is ready to begin.

Remember Me is a good game but not a great game. I really enjoyed the story and the concept but the game lacks in some other areas. It does have the potential for greatness though and I do really hope that Remember Me becomes a franchise and not just a once off. Remember Me is a third person action adventure title where Nilin is trying to simultaneously get her memory back and figure out what is going on in the world around her. It appears the only one that she can trust is Edge who helped her escape from imminent doom in that prison. Remember Me is a fairly linear game and there are going to be some people that have a problem with that. For me personally I didn’t mind it at all in this instance as I thought most of the level design was well done. I never got lost as I was playing as there are usually indicators on where to go next but there are times when the game tends to hold your hand a bit much. That falls off as you get further into the game but it was something I did notice. The upside to that is that you know about all of the game mechanics. Remember Me features a customizable combo system where you can decide how your combo works and how much damage you will dole out when you successfully hit that combo. Once you gain the ability to unlock a new Pressen you go to the combo lab and then decide whether you want to unlock an attack Pressen, health, cooldown or a chain Pressen. Each of these Pressen’s is represented by one of the buttons on your controller like the “X” button or the “B” button. There are a total of four combo sequences in the game which range from a quick combo to one that is pretty long and do a lot of damage if your perform it correctly. The damage your combo does will depend on where you place each Pressen. For example, if I place an attack Pressen right before a health Pressen then it might not do as much damage as if I put the attack function after the health. You’ll want to experiment with where you put everything to try and maximize your combos. The more Nilin fights and the farther you get in the game, the more combos (and potential combinations) open up to you.

The combat system itself is a brawling style where you tend to get face to face with your enemies and beat on them until they go away. You can unleash your combos here but you will have to practice your timing if you want to successfully unleash a combo. You won’t be able to do it by simply button mashing your way through fights, although, in some instances, I did find that to be the best course of action. The combat system is also one of the missteps for Remember Me. The beat-em-up action is all well and good but it doesn’t work as flawlessly as it should. When an enemy is about to attack you there is a red exclamation mark or other shape indicating they are about to strike. It is nice to have a little bit of a heads up here but Nilin wouldn’t always get out of the way in time for me. If you are surrounded by a group of enemies it can be pretty hard to really keep up with what is going on and those are just the average, run-of-the-mill enemies. When you get to the enemies that can teleport around the area and won’t let you get near them unless you unleash one of your Pressen’s then it can be really frustrating.



By the time you get to the end of the game you will have unlocked five S-Pressen abilities. These include Fury, D.O.S., Camo, Logic Bomb and R.I.P. The Fury S-Pressen makes you stronger temporarily where your hits do more damage and you can freeflow from enemy to enemy much easier than you normally can. The D.O.S. S-Pressen stuns all enemies, including those that teleport around the area that I mentioned above. The only way you can combat those enemies is by utilizing this specific Pressen and then quickly hitting them while they are temporarily stunned. The thing is that you usually can’t take them out the first time and you will have to wait two to three minutes before you can use that ability again, unless you created a combo that allows your S-Pressen’s to cooldown quicker. The camo S-Pressen turns Nilin invisible and allows her to instantly overload an enemies memory, basically making this a finishing move. This can’t be used on every enemy in the game though so you’ll have to figure out which type of enemies it will work on. The Logic Bomb S-Pressen deals heavy damage to all targets in range. You simply run up to an enemy and attach the bomb to that enemy and then watch it explode and send enemies flying everywhere. You’ll want to get out of the blast radius though or you too will be sent flying. Then there is the R.I.P S-Pressen where you can turn robots into allies who attack all ground units. As I mentioned above all of these S-Pressen’s have a cooldown period so you are going to have to strategize as you go along so you can stay alive long enough to utilize these again once they become available. In my opinion the cooldown periods are much too long and if you are in the middle of an intense fight there are times where it could be the difference between life and death. The camera doesn’t really do you any favors here either as there were times where I couldn’t see everything that was going on so I tried to quickly jump over enemies and get to a better location.

One aspect of the game I did find very intriguing was the memory remix sequences. This is where you had to comb through someones memory of a specific event and change the outcome. Early on in the game there was a bounty hunter looking for Nilin. She wanted to capture and take Nilin in for a crime she thought Nilin committed. As Nilin you go into her memory and remix it so that instead of an enemy she becomes an ally. It really is an intriguing concept. If you are someone who enjoys puzzles and piecing things back together you should enjoy this. If not you might find these parts a bit tedious but the overall concept is great.

When you aren’t fighting or remixing someone’s memory you will be doing some platforming. There are a lot of pipes to climb, window ledges to jump to and short puzzles to solve such as using a cart system to cross an open space in a warehouse. As I mentioned above there is almost always an indicator showing you where to go so you really shouldn’t get lost. With that said though you can certainly explore the environment if you so choose and you are rewarded for doing so in the form of collectibles and various perks such as increased health or more focus gauges so you can perform more than one S-Pressen at a time. The development team did a great of creating Neo Paris and it really is a sight to behold when you can see it. You will spend time underground fighting off enemies but the city does look really nice when you are going through it.



Remember Me is a good but not a great title. There is the potential for greatness here and I hope that we see a sequel so that the potential greatness is realized. The combat needs some work and needs to be balanced a bit better. There are some who might not like the linearity of this title but for me it wasn’t a problem. Remember Me is one of those titles where it will be what you make of it. You can absolutely plow through it and have a fine time doing it. Or you can explore and find the collectibles, take advantage of the customizable combos, learn how to effectively use your powers and more. It really is up to you. In the end Remember Me is a fun new IP and it is one that I hope Capcom will return to in the future.

This review for Remember Me was based off of the Xbox 360 version.