Review of Memoria by Bobbles

I played the German version of Memoria and was blown away by great voice acting (quite honestly, the best I’ve ever heard), very well written dialogues and almost always beautiful art design.

What makes Memoria truly great is that all these design elements complement each other in unexpected and very intelligent ways. I can’t really give examples of this without spoiling part of the game, so I’ll spoil something from the first 20 Minutes of the game:

When the story of the Princess (one of Memoria’s two protagonists) begins, she’s introduced to us through her visual design and through the descriptions of her travelling companions: a young woman with a waving ponytail, of noble blood - the last heir of her dynasty, who became a street urchin after her family was butchered. Do you have that character mapped out in your head yet? Good. Now listen to the Princess’s dialogue a few times and notice that her voice has a harsh, unmelodic edge to it. Does that still fit with your idea of an “orphan princess” or “street urchin” protagonist? If it does, click on the big statue in front of the starting area a few times. It sounds like the Princess has major ambitions of her own, which nobody else in her party seems to know about…

This is one of those select few adventures where the descriptions of random background items are not just written as filler or as red herrings for the puzzles; they provide important pieces of background information, reveal hidden facts about the characters, and can drastically change your opinion about what’s happening in a given scene.

The game’s only weak points are what I would consider strictly subjective quibbles; some of the puzzles can be quite hard (though never to the degree of those time-wasting filler minigames that were in vogue a few years ago), and the new graphics style (a blend of 2D and 3D complemented by partially animated models that are used for close-up dialogues) won’t be for everybody. Particularly the walking animations and the lip synching feel a bit rough at times, though they’re never outright ugly.

Every aspect of Memoria’s design oozes with artistic ambition; I haven’t had such a visceral reaction of delight to any adventure game since Grim Fandango.
The only thing that could possibly ruin the game for English players is the voice acting, which is an integral part of the experience and requires a great deal of nuance on the part of the actors. The German version, at least, deserves a perfect rating; it’s easily Daedalic’s best game, and a viable contender for best adventure game of all time.

(Daedalic bias information: I’d give the Deponias, Whispered World and Night of the Rabbit all 3.5 stars, Edna & Harvey and Chains of Satinav a 4, and Harvey’s New Eyes a 4.5).

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Time Played: 5-10 hours