Memoria

Memoria is a point-and-click adventure game and is the sequel to Chains of Satinav, developed by Daedalic Entertainment and published by Deep Silver. The game is set in the fantasy world of Germany’s most popular pen-and-paper role-playing game, The Dark Eye (Das SchwarzeAuge).

The game’s visuals are a mix of 3D and 2D. The characters are polygonal, while all the backgrounds are hand-drawn.  Everything is beautifully craftedand polished and most of the scenery is simply breathtaking. The game will take you through different environments, from lush forests, to ancient oriental ruins, to flying fortresses and even castles built by dragons that are filled with all sorts of characters, be it amazons, golems, powerful warlocks or even demons.

Music design is another strong point of the game. Knights of Soundtrack have done a stellar job providing the game with some chill inducing medieval, yet modern tunes, breathing even more life into the world.  The game offers both German and English voice-overs and subtitles, but no matter which one you decide to pick you will end up enjoying it since most lines are perfectly delivered. Though the English voices are great, I still think German is the best way to play the game since it adds another layer of immersion.

The story picks up where the last game left off, with the bird-catcher Geron (the protagonist) searching for a way to turn Nuri (the main supporting character) back into a fairy. For this he visits a wizard that supposedly has a spell that can turn things into whatever he desires. The wizard agrees to help Geron, but on one condition: listen to the story he has to tell,and then solve his riddle.

The story is the game’s strongest feature and will keep you on your toes for the entirety of your playthrough, providing one twist after another and an ending that most assuredly you won’t see coming. Unlike the previous game that focused on just the story of Geron and the fairyNuri, Memoria follows two converging stories: that of Princess Sadja, andof Geron and Nuri, focusing more on the princess’ story while at the same time providing closure to the latter. The two stories are intertwined, so the game follows Geron who, in his mission of healing his friend, also progresses Sadja’s quest for glory through different dreams, visions and journals telling of her great adventure.

Like any point-and-click adventure game, you will be presented with puzzles that you’ll have to solve in order to progress. Most of the puzzles are straight forward and the difficulty is balanced enough to make for a fun experience. The game spices things up by providing the two protagonistswith different magic abilities, such as reconstruction of broken things or turning objects into stone.

The puzzles arevaried and will test your memory, intuition, problem solving and even your spatial awareness. Not once did the game have me pull out the old faithful pen and paper to progress, which I find highly amusing seeing as the game is based on an actual pen and paper game. So gameplay-wise, the game provides plenty of freshness to provide a lot of enjoyment.

The game isn’t without its flaws, though. My biggest gripe is the checkpoint and save system. The game only has one auto-save file, so if you haven’t manually saved in a while and the game bugs out (which happened to me once while chasing a messenger), you’ll have to restart from your last save which thankfully in my case it was only half an hour behind. The game also doesn’t have a way to revisit certain chapters, so you can’t replay a specific chapter unless you saved the start yourself or start the entire game all over.

Despite itsflaws, the gorgeous backgrounds, interesting story and beautiful music easily carries the game, creating a vivid fantasy world that will provide you with hours of entertainment. The guys at Daedelic have done a great job at immersing you into the story and the game met all of my expectations and even surpassed some of them. The game is available right now on GoG and Steam for the price of $20.

Cirstoiu Alexandru Constantin, NoobFeed