When the clock arrives at the time of Eike's death, the chapter restarts, however, if Eike is not in his time period at the time of his death, the game ends. The cut-scenes and dialogue takes up varying amounts of in-game time. ![]() The amount of time Eike spends in the different eras also passes in the present-day one. Actions taken in one time period affect future ones for example, if Eike removes a seal from the squire's manor in 1580, the seal will not appear in the present era.Īdditionally, the game keeps two digital clocks: one depicting the time in the present-day era and another for whichever era Eike time-travels to. The gameplay primarily consists of time-traveling through the different eras, finding items, and interacting through dialogue with the non-player characters. ![]() The digipad, a time-traveling item given to Eike by Homunculus, requires energy units, which the player can find scattered around the town. Shadow of Memories lacks traditional action elements, and Eike cannot attack nor does he have a bar displaying his health. In the prologue and each chapter, Eike dies, is resurrected by the non-player character Homunculus, and travels back in time before his death with the intent of changing events to prevent it. The game takes place in three parts: a prologue, eight chapters, and an epilogue. But this is not the way stories should be told.The objective of Shadow of Memories is to guide player character Eike Kusch through the fictional German town of Lebensbaum (Life's Tree) as he travels through time to prevent and unmask his murderer. I ended up reading a book in order to stem the boredom.Īt least Konami have done a good job of converting it, with high resolutions and mouse support. It's not as though much happens in the cut-scenes either. Would you sit through a pompous, five-hour anime movie? No, you wouldn't. The main criticism SoM got from PS2 reviewers is that it's too short (despite the several endings, which depend on a couple of those dialogue options). You're supposed to just sit back and watch. There aren't more than a handful of dialogue options in the whole thing. The main character is straight out of a Japanese Mills and Boon novel, and the quality of the narrative isn't far off one either. There are as many as five objects to pick up during the course of the 'game', their use always obvious to the point of utter imbecility. ![]() of course) and then going back to the present. The adventure element has you dying in a fire, travelling back in time from the limbo you end up in, seeing a boy starting the blaze so you can stop it (all this in cutscenes. The other 10 per cent has you walking round the streets of a quaint German village, sparking off cut-scenes by, say, clicking on a character or turning down an alleyway. Ninety per cent of the 'game' is made up of interminable cut-scenes and loading screens. The problem is you might as well not be there for all the input you have. ![]() You save yourself from one death, then do it all again only in a different place and time, as you move ever further along the game's timeline. The premise is not without its merits, beginning as it does with your character's death and his subsequent time travels as he attempts to thwart his own murders, one after the other. The way people have been talking about it you'd think none of them had ever read a novel. Never mind that there's barely the bones of a game to support it, that the characters are one-dimensional marionettes and the dialogue is functional at best. The reason? That it tells a complex, dramatic and slightly original story. The PC version, which came out in the States a few months ago, has been getting the same sort of rave reviews. Shadow Of Memories received scores of eight or nine out of ten in almost every PS2 magazine when it was released a few years back. IF any further proof were needed that storytelling in games is primitive, childish and in need of a revolution, this is it.
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