Remembrance

Most Rpgmaker games fills two big categories:
the Rpg/jrpg fantasy games and the surreal (often psychological) story driven games, like for example Lisa, Off or Middens. Well I can say that Remembrance belong to this second category.

In this game, that's some sort of twisted Alice in Wonderland, we play as Kim, a girl that wakes up alone in surreal weird place, and... soon she will find quirky characters, friends and enemies in this bleak grey world. Oh well and lots of mazes! (was it a reference to Labyrinth?

What I liked
As many other similar themed games this one has a custom graphic style, that while being quite simple and stylized, I think it fits very well the setting and creates the right atmosphere. If I had to make a modern horror/weird adventure I'd use this style, not certainly the chibi charsets and facesets. Someone maybe can be turned off by the simple style, the few colors used or the darkness of the enviroments... but It would be a shame because they express much and enrich a good storytelling.
Oh and there are also cutscenes during some of the dialogues, like the one I posted below. Nice!

Good choice of sounds too, this is another strength that contribuites to the atmosphere of the game. As suggested, use the headphones!

I also liked the characters and the dialogues, clearly there are some parts in which the exchanges of dialogues between the different characters go along for a sooooo much time, but it's ok as everything starts as a mystery and there's much to be told. Also I found no typos, so that's good! I also admit that the story kept me jnterested and I was always wondering about what was going to happen next (and it's one of the rare cases in which I was not able to foresee anything)

Finally combat! Well yes, you have combat. It's not particularly difficult, and only in the beginning you level up, later you'll be of a fixed level. Visually it's side view with battlers, and enemies and characters are drawn in the same style of the charsets. Strangely the most boring character in combat is the protagonist, as the others have better abilities: you have one healer, one combat expert and another that is slow but devastating, while the protagonist is... uhm... a mediocre attacker. Still, I liked combat and how enemies are invisible. It's something already seen (Mouth Sweet, or Killer7, if we speak of non-rpg games), but it fits the genre and the story quite well.


I loved these evocative images, despite the use of few colors. It has a distinct style.

What I did not like
Ok, so far everything was pretty good. I also did not mind the simplicity of the maps (in fact I said before that the "bare bones" setting fits the genre) but... well... the mazes! Unfortunately these were the parts I hated most, while I appreciate the idea of making them different: you have mazes with connected rooms, a normal maze with a top down view, a maze with teleports, and so on.
If you like them you can have a lot of fun!

Final thoughs
This is a nice game that made me curious as from the beginning I was not sure if it was set in a dark fantasy world or inside the mind of the protagonist. But I let you play and figure out. The game has also some strong themes, but I think that they are used well and everything is there for a reason (not just to shock or impress). I liked a lot the story and I love the characters, especially Ashley. Also the game is not particularly long but I think it's of an adequate lenght. Only problem (for me) were the mazes, but maybe someone will like them, and hate the simple but nice combat that instead I liked (even if It can become boring due to the scarce number of enemy types. But again, this is not a game about fighting).

For me It's 3.5 out of 5. (As you can guess the missing 1.5 points are due to the mazes!)