REVIEW: Always Remember Me


Title	Always Remember Me
Developer	Winter Wolves
Publisher	Winter Wolves
Release Date	April 27, 2011
Genre	Visual Novel
Platform	PC
Age Rating	N/A
Official Website

The story in Always Remember Me starts off with a lot of promise. You and your boyfriend are out for the day when suddenly you have been in an accident! Your boyfriend, Aaron, did what he could to protect you and suffered injuries including the loss of his memory of the last couple of years. You are OK. A bit beat up, but nothing major.

With his memory loss, Aaron can no longer remember you. Since he was more injured than you, Aaron is going to need to stay in the hospital for a while but you can go home. It’s up to you to decide how to help him regain his memories. You can either push him or gently remind him who you are. The Dr. recommends you are gentle with him, and of course, a ton of complications get in your way like ex-girlfriends, parents who blame you for the accident and etc. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, right?

You will need to work through the week, but aside from that you can pick where to go. There is a park where you can jog or relax, a library where you can check out books, update your blog etc. You can go shopping at the mall, or grab dinner. If you want something a little more up class for dinner, there is a restaurant. When you are in the mood for dancing, or to possibly catch a show, you can go to the club.

The locations are each pretty to look at but are nothing spectacular. You see one shot basically of most places and that is it. It would have been nice to see a bit more of each location. The park location looks like a very inviting opening to what could be an awesome park where I would love to spend my days. I’d have enjoyed seeing a bit more of it.

The music and sound effects in Always Remember Me are decent. I prefer the sound effects to the music, but that could just be me. It feels a tad generic like it’s background music but nothing else. It isn’t bad to listen to, it just doesn’t help a whole lot with immersing you in the game as the overall tone doesn’t change that much from one scene to the next. We all know how important music can be to a game so this was disappointing, to say the least. The sound effects, however, are quite charming. The cash register sound when Amy earns money at work and her “woo hoo!” when she does something right add a lot to the overall game and help you become part of the world. The park sounds are nice, you can hear birds chirping in the distance, and the club does have a bit of a decent beat when you go there.

After I played for a little bit, I noticed that things are getting a bit repetitive. There really isn’t enough story or interaction to keep me intrigued. I feel like I’m going here, there and everywhere for no particular reason other than to keep the days flowing. I’d like to find out a bit more about 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. You would think with a guy suffering from memory loss there would be a ton of backstory included while you two spend time together. No. There isn’t.

You have your afternoons and evening free after going to work and can do as you wish. Well, what I wish is for more character development. At this point in the game, there is almost none. There are a few other men in the game you can spend time with, but it really doesn’t seem to matter who you spend your time with since there is little to no character development. I don’t feel as if I know any of these characters at all. When you interact with any of the characters you don’t get any reward of seeing how things went. Instead, you just see a basic screen of success or failure. 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. It isn’t helping keep me interested in the game. At this point, I’m playing just for the review.

If you go to the mall and purchase things or get new books to read to Aaron, you will possibly see something other than the normal success and failure screen. This is very limited though, and when it does happen, it mostly focuses on how you two are getting along now. If they do talk about the past, it’s all about the book you read him or whatever. They don’t give you anything about the relationship you two used to have. There are scenes that pop up (very rarely) when you go certain places that give you a little insight into the characters, but it’s too rare and too little too late. These scenes help, but honestly, they just make me wish for more.

I was quite thrilled with the prospect of reviewing this title, but it left me wanting for more. With the lack of character development, less than stellar music, and repetitive nature, there just wasn’t enough to keep me excited, esp. for a $17.99 game. I spent 40-50 hours with this one trying different things to see if I was missing something, and my opinion never changed. There is a great premise here, but without the character development there just isn’t enough to make you care about what happens.