For all of those that don't like generic settings (like FUSE), Remember Me is the game for you.
I've played about 5 or so hours of the game so far.
Aesthetics: 9/10
While the graphics are a step below the top tier overall, the attention to detail is amazing. The slight cut below top tier graphics is more than made up for in style. Each of the NPC's you encounter have unique faces, clothes, and jewelry. The environments you explore are all extremely detailed and vary from slums to high tech, with both detailed areas indoors and outdoors.
It's an immersive game. It's the exact opposite of what the complaints about FUSE are. It's the kind of game you take the time to stop and look around instead of running right through to the next encounter/challenge. There's stuff going on in areas you can't even access. I was going through an interior building and looked out the window and saw robots watering plants, a fully detailed terrace that you might not even see if you didn't happen to look that way, going through a room that had nothing to pick up or encounter so stop you from running right through, yet it had all sorts of unique detailed furniture and items. Things like wall shelves have been different in each place I've seen them. There's very low reuse of assets in this game. Absolutely not generic looking.
Another example of the this game not cutting corners is when you are asked at one point in the game to return to a location you've already been, you take an entirely different route to get back there that looks completely different.
Game Play: 8/10
Elements of Assassin's Creed/Tomb Raider come to mind. You do a lot of climbing and jumping around while exploring/moving to objectives. It's not the frustrating kind although you can die from falling off. There have also been a few timing jumps which I had to attempt a few times to complete, although the timing stuff so far usually involves a fall back where you don't die but maybe fall to a lower ledge and have to climb up and try again.
With the environments being so interesting, all the climbing and jumping is fun as it feels less about wasting time since you're always looking at something new. Through 2.5 chapters of the game, I'm really impressed at the uniqueness and thought put into the look of the character and levels.
Combat is fun once you get the hang of it. The Combo Lab is a little confusing when it's first introduced, but basically you create your own combinations that involve damage, regeneration, chaining, and cooldowns for major powers. The longer you build your combo, the more power it does and there are rare "pressens" you can add to the combo that double the damage/healing of the previous part of the combo. The deeper in the combo the "pressen" is placed, the more effect it has to it encouraged you to finish your combos. I'm not big on combos/fighting games but I got the hang of this pretty fast, especially since you design your own. For example, I filled my X Y Y X Y Y combo full of healing regen so use it when I'm low health. You can of course mix it up and place both healing and damage in the same combo.
You also have an effective dodge ability and indicators from your enemy that allows you to evade attacks.
I have gained one special attack which is basically super high damage for a few seconds without taking damage that you launch off of a selection wheel by holding in the left trigger. The refresh on it is 60 seconds. If you place one of the Cooldown "pressens" in a combo, each time you use it, it will cut 15 seconds of the refresh.
You also can overload an opponent and once you do, you hit a button to finish that particular enemy off. The left trigger also "bullet times" you if you have built up some focus points so you can slow things down to assess the situation.
Your average mob is pretty easy to kill but of course there are mid and high level mobs which feed off the smaller mobs. For example, one mid level mod is extremely hard to kill until you take out lessor ones around it. Later on, these support mobs will climb up walls where you need to zap them down with a ranged power you acquire so you can take them out before the higher level mob.
I'm currently in chapter 3 out of 9 total chapters. Chapter One's boss fight wasn't super intense but Chapter Two's was memorable. On average, I suck at combat in games. Chapter 2 boss came close to me rage throwing my controller and took me probably ten tries to kill. As with Fuse though, thankfully, there are multiple stages to taking out a boss and if you die, you reset to the beginning of the stage you're in. There's strategy for taking out the boss. With high HPs, the only serious damage I was doing with with my special attack which only happens every 60 seconds (unless cooldowns are used). I ended up constantly using my regen/heal attacks to keep myself from dying until my high damage attack was available. You can run around to try and buy time but when you do that, the boss starts using AOE ranged attacks. Best to stay in close and keep dodging out of the way. Eventually succeeding was satisfying.
Memory Events:
These are strange but so far cool. This part has a little Assassin's Creed feel to it with a lot of white "dream" type backgrounds. My first Memory Event had me jump into the mind of my attacker and watch an event from their past. I then had to find glitches in the memory to attempt to alter it in order to change my attacker's opinion of me (basically have them decide I was an ally) It was different. I can see how it might be a little frustrating as you try to find the right combination of glitches in order to change the outcome. You are literally rotating your left joystick to rewind of forward the memory, looking for glitches and then once you find one, enabling or disabling it.
There are also real time memory events where you are in the present but activate someone else's memory to see what they did (like avoiding security droids, hacking things, etc)
Story/Voice Acting: 8.5/10
The story starts off intense and involves escaping from somewhere which gives time to introduce you to some of the game mechanics. It's story driven so while you have semi control of your character, you're guided along.
There's a pretty early sequence where some big robot is chasing you where the the screen shakes and movement is like you're drunk. The robot caught me a few times and I started having second thoughts about the game very early but since that initial odd scene, I haven't run into that type of encounter in about 5 hours of game play. There are some minor Tomb Raider (keep running as stuff crashes around you) type sequences but it's not the main part of the game.
The main female lead has an English accent and the voice actor does a pretty good job. The voice isn't annoying or distracting. The mysterious guy that is talking to you via some sort of communication device has an American accent and also is OK.
The environment has a "Bioshock" type feel to it in the sense that there are people rambling on about things that you can either listen to or walk on by. It's definitely a positive as combined with the detail of the world, they didn't ignore the movements and actions of the NPCs filling the public areas.
The female lead has a nice pooper. Any game that's third person with the camera primarily behind the avatar while they walk/run/climb/jump around the world is better with a nice pooper to look at.
The story is solid from the start. It's a memory loss "cliche" beginning but since the whole game is about using other people's memories it works.
The camera control can be a little whacky at times.
The way the virtual "heads up" display is implemented is also cool where you see information about stores and other things as you pass them by. There are collectables. The character building is minimal. You are basically gaining additional "pressens" to create your combos with as you level up. You also find items that when you find enough of them, increase your HPs, etc. This is a game for those that appreciate effort made in making the world you explore interesting and unique. It's not an all out action game so it's better suited for those that enjoy a story and visuals as well.
