Bright Memory: Infinite Review
Not Recommended
Not fun, restrictively linear, overwhelming (no pacing on concepts).
Starts with cutscene with two sudden quicktime events, then has a cutscene without them. Very suddenly puts you into control while you are already being shot at.
Then introduces you to all the many control mechanics in a row, overwhelming you with a lot of information. Controls were not intuitive to me, so I adjusted the three confusing, unclear mouse sensitivity sliders without any numeric value, speed or understandable context indication, and aiming still felt off (is there mouse acceleration?).
Then it puts you into water and instantly the sliding mechanic you just learned does not work anymore. Then it puts you onto a platforming section presumably to introduce the grappling mechanic, but many issues make it just very frustrating. The single expected path to use is not immediately clear. Touching the ground outside of platforms means instant death. Death resets you to the start of the section. Grabbling hook does not consistently work even when the environment cue is there. Enemies spawn and come in from all sides, with very varying shooting hit rate (whether they even hit you).
The tunnel levels are super linear with not even the smallest freedom of even moving around. Even then collectibles in boxes are added as padding and extrinsic motivators, which just ends up as another hassle to grind.
If I remember correctly the predecessor introduced it’s mechanics mostly with popups. This game does too. Mostly concept teaching is embedded into the game world, with contextual cues, but then game-pausing popups appear more for additional concepts anyway. Unfortunately the game introduces all concepts at once, even when some are only usable situational, and contextual. Really bad pacing, with no room to practice/learn, or use consistently and as expected and wanted.
I didn’t think I’d ragequit from frustration, especially frustrated about controls and death. The predecessor (smaller section presenting gunplay/combat) was worthwhile. I think the introduction of story and (bad) level design made it worse.
Starts with cutscene with two sudden quicktime events, then has a cutscene without them. Very suddenly puts you into control while you are already being shot at.
Then introduces you to all the many control mechanics in a row, overwhelming you with a lot of information. Controls were not intuitive to me, so I adjusted the three confusing, unclear mouse sensitivity sliders without any numeric value, speed or understandable context indication, and aiming still felt off (is there mouse acceleration?).
Then it puts you into water and instantly the sliding mechanic you just learned does not work anymore. Then it puts you onto a platforming section presumably to introduce the grappling mechanic, but many issues make it just very frustrating. The single expected path to use is not immediately clear. Touching the ground outside of platforms means instant death. Death resets you to the start of the section. Grabbling hook does not consistently work even when the environment cue is there. Enemies spawn and come in from all sides, with very varying shooting hit rate (whether they even hit you).
The tunnel levels are super linear with not even the smallest freedom of even moving around. Even then collectibles in boxes are added as padding and extrinsic motivators, which just ends up as another hassle to grind.
If I remember correctly the predecessor introduced it’s mechanics mostly with popups. This game does too. Mostly concept teaching is embedded into the game world, with contextual cues, but then game-pausing popups appear more for additional concepts anyway. Unfortunately the game introduces all concepts at once, even when some are only usable situational, and contextual. Really bad pacing, with no room to practice/learn, or use consistently and as expected and wanted.
I didn’t think I’d ragequit from frustration, especially frustrated about controls and death. The predecessor (smaller section presenting gunplay/combat) was worthwhile. I think the introduction of story and (bad) level design made it worse.