Bright Memory released back in early 2019 and was created by a single developer. It made waves when it first came out for looking and playing great. It has been almost two and half years since then and now the game has been been completed and rebranded as Bright Memory: Infinite set to be released on PC by November, 11, 2021 made by FYQD Studio.
The first thing that should be said about this game is the fact that it is very short. I played and completed the game in about 2 hours in my first playthrough (and this was me going through the game exploring as much as I can). The story of the game is completely nonsensical and left almost no tangible impression on me.
Our main protagonist Shelia is sent in by some secret organization, the name of which I barely remember, to a place when suddenly a black hole appeared and along with it an “evil” organization which is trying to get there for some power while there are some ancient warrior looking enemies randomly popping up around said black hole. I tuned out of the story pretty early as the cutscenes are not skippable.
The music of the game is very generic and lackluster. The cutscenes are boring yet obtuse with pretty stiff character models and most irritatingly – unskippable. But the game does look great both with raytracing both on and off.
But despite all these complaints, I was having fun. Because Bright Memory stands only on its strong gameplay. The gameplay of Bright memory is mostly first person shooting combined with a lot of melee combat.
As Shelia gets access to guns and super powers, the get more options in dispensing enemies. These powers allow the player to act interact with melee combat, specifically using them to push and pull enemies upon grabbing them. Along with the infinite dash and double jump, the game is really fun to play with all these super powers and movement options.
There is a very useful parry move with the character’s sword which allows one to parry melee enemies, and more importantly rockets, bullet & arrows. These powers can be upgraded to a point where the players can pull off some crazy stuff as one levitates various enemies in air while shooting and parrying rockets with the the sword dashing around.
It is really damn fun to play as the melee combat feels really good and the guns feel chunky and weighty when you shoot. This applies to all four guns namely the assault rifle, shotgun, sidearm, and sniper, with each with its own secondary fire which adds a bit variety to the mix.
All this combat is really fun but even in this short game, I feel like that there was not enough of it. The game is divided into seven chapters out of which two are essentially cutscenes and two more chapters are gimmick levels with mandatory stealth and driving sections. By the end, there is way less combat that I would have liked there to be.
The game is also very very linear in its layout. And even though the movement and gunplay is really fun, the AI is as dumb as rocks. The dullness of the AI is not limited with the various difficulty options as that only increases the damage the player takes, and I guess the heath of the enemies as well.
The hardest possible difficulty unlocks after playing the game once on the hardest available difficulty which was the one I have done my playthrough on. Even when as I played the game at the hardest difficulty, It felt as though the game was easy with huge spikes during set piece moments where the player has no real control. But this aspect of difficulty may vary from player to player.
Bright Memory was clearly made to be played over and over again in order to complete it as soon as possible in the hardest difficulty possible. There are cosmetics in the game which are only made available after getting certain amount of kills with each gun, which are not possible to get with single or even a second playthrough. But replaying the game is still a bit irritating due to the various unskippable cutscenes.
I did encounter a few bugs where a few sections of the upgrade screen were not translating into English and this was visible only on specific sections. This problem even appeared on some subtitles which were not translated into English. I had two hard crashes during level transitions but other than that, there have been no other bugs and the game ran great with raytracing on my 3070ti but this may vary depending on the setup.
Bright Memory: Infinite is a pretty game with fun gameplay and movement but unfortunately is bogged down by obtuse story, unskippable cutscenes, dumb AI, and bad gimmick levels. At the end of my two playthrough, I still found the game enjoyable. But before anyone considers buying the game, do take note of all these short comings as well as it lasting roughly a couple of hours per playthrough.
