Irony doesn't even cut it when saying Remember Me has been utterly forgotten by even the most devoted Dontnod fan. Dontnod's first project had an admirable scope with Alain Damasio's gigantic story bibles and the aim of its female protagonist, and if one actually plays the game, the well built world (and the multitude of supplementary material the player can read if they collect all the Mnesist Memories) showcase this ambition in spades. Yet, the dull combat with its five and only five combos—albeit customizable to a large, kind of arbitrary manner through Pressens—dilute the singular best part of Remember Me: Memory Remixing. Dontnod should've focused exclusively on Memory Remixing and its explorative functions to carry its narrative and supplemented small segments with combat—because whew! Nilin and whoever the fuck else was in the game are not at all memorable, except Jax, you murderous son of a bitch. I can't complain too much for something I had yet not played for years, but Dontnod really came out with the most pathetic whimpers for a studio who followed this with Life is Strange and Tell Me Why, vastly superior games with characters I actually like.

Remember Me is a brand new IP from Capcom. I always welcome new IPs because you never know when you’re going to get the next Assassin’s Creed. Once I started to Remember Me I instantly fell in love with it. The art style is fantastic, the story is engaging, and the characters are memorable. This will be a game I talk about for years to come…at least the story anyways.

you are Nilin, a memory hunter fighting against M3morize. M3morize is a corporation that invented technology to let you forget any memory you want and gain memories. As you can tell, this leads to a civil war because everyone eventually becomes Leapers who are completely corrupted and bereft of memories. It turns out that there is some sort of new world order to wipe out everyone’s memories and make them all mindless soldiers. That’s the jist of it, and if I say any more I will give too much away. The story is fascinating and really plays well with the art style and atmosphere.

The problem with new IPs is that the developers concentrate on just one aspect of the game and the rest of it gets left behind. This is apparent in Assassin’s Creed 1 after playing AC3. You can see the difference. Remember Me has an amazing story and characters, but the gameplay is just lacking, it just feels useless and unnecessary. The tools you have to play don’t really mean anything in this game, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The first thing is the combat system. While it’s unique it is very limited and actually holds the player back. Nilin has four different combos she can do over the course of the game. You fill these combos with two different attack buttons called Pressens. These Pressens can increase your health, decrease S-Pressen cooldown timers, give you more powerful attacks, and cause a chain reaction. This seems really interesting, gaining health during combat? It’s more frustrating and limited than you think. With just four combo chains you have to memorize all four of them and also remember what Pressens are in each one. I had one as a focused cool down combo, then one for health while the third was for power. The further in the combo the Pressen is the bigger effect it has. With just four combos combat gets really repetitive and super boring, it just never picks up.

Once you unlock S-Pressens things get a tad bit interesting but only during boss fights. These are powers that can let you attack really fast, stun everyone, place a bomb, and even turn invisible and get a one-hit-kill on an enemy. You can use two different ones on robot enemies that will attack you. These S-Pressens are key to winning tougher battles later in the game. That’s all there is to combat, and it is so limiting and repetitive. I actually only kept going because of the story.

Another part of the game that is never fully developed are the puzzles. There are only four in the entire game. These allow you to remix people’s memories to make them think something happened a different way. You watch a cutscene then rewind it looking for glitches that can change the scene. You have to set off the right glitches to change the memory. The problem is that there are no multiple outcomes. You just keep retrying until you get it right, there’s no fun in that. If I mess with someone’s memory, let me decide how it goes. I also wish there were more of them. There are also Remembrance puzzles that you interact in the world with. They are usually really easy and the answer is given to you after just a minute. I hate how these things were so underdeveloped, they are great concepts. There are a couple of move-the-stuff puzzles using your arm’s special powers, but I felt these were useless. You unlock a gun type of thing that can blast enemies and move things. Why do I need to unlock this throughout the game? Honestly, the moving and blasting open doors just felt like pointless filler.

Lastly, the exploration is very linear. The controls respond well, but the best part is just viewing everything. You get taken from the slums to the richest areas of the city. The journey is fascinating and breath-taking. Remember Me feels like a mix of Mirror’s Edge, Steven Spielberg’s A.I., and Blade Runner. I ate it up and the characters are very memorable. I just wish it had better gameplay to compliment it.

After you finish the game you will be talking about the amazing story for a while. While none of these mechanics are bad, they are just underdeveloped and feel like they need more work. The combat is interesting but very limited and repetitive, the same 5 enemies repeat often, and the puzzles are underdeveloped. I hope Remember Me comes back because I love Nilin and her journey through this break taking world, just give us better tools to explore it.