Forgotten Memories Review
:: ATMOSPHERIC EXPLORATIONPrice: $4.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5
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Overall Rating:
Forgotten Memories is a good survival horror game on the wrong format. It’s creepier and more atmospheric than Lost Within, as well as a lot tougher, but it suffers due to its uncomfortable combat and an old-fashioned save system that struggles on mobile.
There’s the almost formulaic setting of a woman waking up in a strange place and attempting to piece together what’s going on. While it could feel cliched, you’re too busy being unnerved by mannequins and encountering strange people to think too much about it.
Often, Forgotten Memories feels more like an adventure game than regular survival horror, with plenty of exploration and doors to unlock. There are puzzles too, keeping you involved in all its goings on. Lighting is frequently restricted with a flashlight/torch that offers limited battery life and requires you to wait to recharge at certain points. It adds to the atmosphere well, proving quite unsettling at times. In particular, who wants to sneak around amongst a bunch of mannequins? You’ll be consistently nervous and rightly so.
There are issues, though. Namely with combat. Sometimes you’ll need to fend off enemies and the controls don’t quite work out here. Swinging a pipe to strike them requires the kind of timing that this game can’t quite pull off. Similarly, shaking your iOS device to fend off an attack feels a little gimmicky and detracts from the previously cultivated atmosphere.
Forgotten Memories also suffers for its old-fashioned save system. Similar to games gone by, it requires you to find floppy disks in order to save your progress. The gaps between these can be quite long. It’s something that’s not an issue on a home console, but mobile play frequently requires you to do something else for a time. That’s a sure fire way to lose progress, meaning Forgotten Memories is better played at home than while going about your business in the day.
It’s an enjoyable game for sure, and quite atmospheric, but such issues stop Forgotten Memories from being great.