The story in Always Remember Me starts off with a lot of promise. This is definitely important in a visual novel, where the story is what keeps you going. You and your boyfriend are out for the day when suddenly you have been in an accident! Oh noes! Fortunately, you are OK. A bit beat up, but nothing major is wrong. Your boyfriend, Aaron, on the other hand, has lost his memory, and he can’t remember the last couple of years. Of course, that means he can’t remember you.
You have to decide how to help him regain his memories, by pushing or gently reminding him who you are. As you go about your day-to-day life, you come into contact with a few other men with whom you can maintain a friendship. Here is where the choices come into play. Who will you spend your time with? Will you remain faithful and spend every free moment with Aaron trying to get him to remember that epic love that you once had? Or will you need a break from his constant rejection if he doesn’t remember you?
Once the initial story points are told, you are on your own. Right now, things are getting a bit repetitive. I’m essentially going to work, spending time with someone, going home, reading, rinse, repeat. There really isn’t enough story or interaction to keep me intrigued — to keep me wanting to make different choices, go other places. I’m hoping this doesn’t continue and that more storyline is introduced into the game. I’d like to find out a bit more about my Aaron and his condition. After all, it is really hard to stick by someone’s side when you don’t feel as though you know them.
As the game continues, I’ve been left to my own devices, aside from having to work in the morning. I have my afternoons and evening free and can do as I wish. Well, what I wish is for more character development. At this point in the game, there is almost none. I’m wondering if this is because I chose the wrong action with a couple of the guys from the start?
I could also not be going to the right areas at the right time. The game is set up into morning, afternoon, and evening so maybe I need to go somewhere specific in the morning, or afternoon. There are many things that could have gone wrong. For now, I’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt and try again. I think I’ve fallen into a rut of go here, do this, go home, do that, go to sleep.
When you choose to interact with any of the male characters, you don’t get any sort of scene that shows how things went. Instead, it’s just a success or failure screen that lets you know if the visit was a success or not. At most, this screen might tell you if a joke was told and appreciated, or if the other person was being overly shy so the visit wasn’t a success. This isn’t helping me to get to know these characters. It isn’t helping me decide which guy I would like to be with.
If you purchase some items from the mall, then present them to Aaron, you do get an actual scene that helps a bit. I kind of need a bit more than this, however. Something. Anything! Show me a still screen with a bit of dialogue between the characters or something, since, currently, I don’t care about any of these people. Not even Aaron — who I am supposed to be in love with. Right now, he seems more like a guy I hung out with and read a couple books with than someone I should be in love with, and fighting for!
I thought maybe I would find a kinship with Amy. She enjoys reading, writes poetry and such. There are a lot of things that she and I have in common. Since she is the main character, who you play as, it is a bit important that her and I bond in some way. So far, I haven’t really felt a connection with her, and I worry one thing is keeping me from becoming as involved as I could in the game.
I’m going to reload, make the correct decisions with Lawrence and Aaron at the beginning, try to get myself into the mindset of this character and see what happens. Amy seems to be a bit more open than I usually am, so this could be a bit of a stretch. I like it when a game makes me go outside of my comfort zone, so I am welcoming this challenge.
I’m going to shake things up a bit and find out if that helps. I’m usually pretty good at fleshing out full storylines of the VNs I have played in the past, so I am a bit perplexed. I’ll stick with it, though! Time to restart the game, make the right decision and find out! After all, that is the best part of a VN!
Wish me luck as I venture deeper into Always Remember Me. I was quite thrilled with the prospect of reviewing this, and I am hoping that things line out a bit and I start to care about these characters. I am interested to see where the VN will go from here! Be sure to check back in the coming weeks for my full review of Always Remember Me where we will find out if the game progresses, gives me a bit more depth or if it falls flat. As always, I’ll discuss the look and sound of the game, as well as get into a few of the cool aspects of this VN, like keeping up morale, gaining romance and other points!
