It’s been almost two years since I reviewed the game, but more along the lines of a paid demo that is Bright Memory. While I found it to be an experience that was rough around the edges, it showed promise, and I was eager to see what the whole package brought when it saw the light of day. That time has come, and I almost feel like developer FYQD Studio read my review and took my feedback to the drawing board, releasing a package that mostly felt like a complete game. A really short game, but a complete game nonetheless.

Jumping into the boots of Shelia again with
the same abilities and weapons, in addition to a sniper rifle and alternate fire options I don’t remember from the original demo, I was tasked with investigating a black hole that mysteriously appeared during the Chinese New Year. Again, the game is light on story, with most of the cut scenes limited to showing transitions that attempt to add variety between the shoot-y segments and introduce new enemies. Since this is a game where its strongest suit is combat, I was okay with it, but I just want to throw it out there for the folks who need a little more backstory to their violence.

Just like the original, the combat is the main selling point and it works well. Aiming is quick and accurate, the guns feel like they have a proper weight to them, and the powers add a nuance that really sells the whole theme of you being a badass super-soldier with a bionic arm, a sword, and a few high-powered guns. Shelia is just as effective at popping heads with a rifle as she is picking up an enemy with her mind, pulling them in within melee range, and then turning them into chum all in one swift motion. By the time the credits rolled (abruptly I might add), I was left sitting there coming down from a mild adrenaline high that the only cure for was to jump right back in and do it again. So I did.

On my first run through the Revenge (Hard) difficulty, I found the game to be mostly enjoyable with minor hiccups. I was always able to bounce back from any lulls, and while I came across minor technical issues, the only notable one was a framerate dip when the stylish slow-mo death of the final enemy of a group came into the picture. My second run was on Hell, which is reserved only for those who want a real challenge (per the menu), and this is where the cracks started to form. I would compare it to picking up a great book from your local library, where every chapter keeps you on the edge of the seat, but only to find the last person stuck a dog turd in the book between each break and then closed it.

You’re mostly going to be blasting away at the same enemies found within the demo version, but in different locations and with the weird rat creatures being removed entirely. Actually, most of what was in the demo outside of Shelia and her associated powers, and some of the regular variety of baddies were cut from this version of the game. You have a decent cast of bullet sponges from soldiers, otherworldly sets of enemies, and a total of four boss encounters, two of which are exact repeats of the same battle – they use the same mechanics, only in a larger and more open battlefield. The other two are also very similar, just with mildly different appearances and new attack patterns. I wish it included the cut content in a reworked fashion, or even the original presentation, because this was a painfully short game that left me saying “That’s it…?” when I finished the story. There are no real collectibles outside of upgrade tokens that respawn each time you reload a chapter or start a new game, there are no leaderboards, no multiplayer, nor any other draws that would bring you back after the credits rolled. With a combined total of about five hours across two playthroughs to see everything the game has to offer and complete the achievement list fully, I was ready to uninstall this and move on.

Outside of the combat, the game tries its best to avoid monotony by injecting unresponsive QTEs, multiple lackluster platforming segments with invisible wall boundaries that will give you a hard stop mid-air, and wall running where you attach to the wall and stand there like you’ve got magnetic boots, leaving you to fall to your death, just like the invisible walls. We also need to talk about the stealth area, where the enemies are either Stevie Wonder, ignoring you even when you are nose to crotch level right in front of them, or they come equipped with some X-ray vision and can see you through two or three barriers. Saving the absolute worst for last is the driving section that felt about as welcome as an AR-15 at an elementary school. This is seriously the worst case of a driving area being added when it shouldn’t be across the history of gaming. There’s not just one thing wrong with it, it’s literally everything, like playing with the fastest of cars in a Forza game while driving through three feet of wet mud. Long story short, I would’ve rather had the time I spent doing any of these things rerouted to more gunplay, even if it came at the cost of walking the line of becoming repetitive. I am not sure if I was just falling out of love with the game during my second run, or I just got lucky on the first, but Hell mode ran like a potato in comparison, despite being played almost back to back on the same system. Not only did the issues I mentioned become even more annoying the second time, but the game became prone to crashing anytime I would pause, die, or unlock an achievement, booting me back to the home screen.

Visually, the game looks almost flawless, and thankfully, the nausea-inducing condensation effect from the demo has been removed fully. Outside of the non-masked character models, which is basically some bigwig general of the rival faction, and Shelia herself (I really want to know why her ponytail keeps getting sucked into the back of her head) who looks a little dated compared to everything else, this is easily one of the best-looking FPS games to come out of the indie market. Years back, Crysis was the benchmark of visual fidelity in gaming, and this is on par, if not better, in almost every other way. If you’re the type to get giddy over some action-movie accurate blood spatter and gore, this is the game for you as the blood flows in buckets. Seriously. I would not want to be the guy who has to clean up the body parts and fluids left in the wake of Shelia.

Bright Memory: Infinite is a shooter that I would recommend if you’re okay with it being on the short end and having some mild gameplay issues that will pile up after a few playthroughs. Hopefully these will be ironed out by a patch, but even if they are not, they are not outright game-breaking by any means. If anything, it gives me hope that FYQD Studio’s next release will show the same level of improvement as this game.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Outstanding Combat
• Impressive Visuals
• An Upgraded Arsenal
• Fixes Many Issues from the “Demo”…

Cons

• …While Adding a Grocery List of New Issues
• Shelia’s Ponytail
• Still Light on Story
• Driving, QTEs, and Platforming are Kind of Awful

Bright Memory: Infinite was developed by FYQD Studio and published by PLAYISM. It is available on Mobile, NS, PC, PS5, and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Bright Memory: Infinite, check out the publisher’s site.

 

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