About twenty months ago, I reviewed the sub-$10, bite-size version of Bright Memory: Infinite, which at the time was just called Bright Memory. Lonewolf developer FYQD Studio has since released the full version, and not just onto the Xbox Series X as I think it was originally exclusive to. Bright Memory: Infinite is available now on multiple platforms, and priced at $20. My completion time was still just 2h40m, but I have to say it was a fun ride while it lasted.
The fact that a single developer did this game in his spare time is impressive, and something I kept in mind while playing. He hired out voice-acting, PR, publishing, and things like that, but the vast majority of the game was made by one person, and that’s pretty awesome. It’s not Thomas Happ/Axiom Verge awesome, but Bright Memory: Infinite (BMI) is still quite an accomplishment. So, in playing the Platinum Edition on XSX, I was given the option at the outset of the game to choose a variety of different skins for the Shelia Tan, the protagonist that players control. Most of these skins were risqué clothing like short skirts and bikinis, so I opted just to stay with the default full black sci-fi looking suit instead. Players can also choose from a variety of skins for each of the four weapons, too, and that’s pretty neat.
With those selections made, I began the game, which takes place in the relative near future of 2036. Shelia works for the SRO, a special military organization of the Chinese government. The Chinese New Year is interrupted when reports of strange weather events and a black hole appearing in the sky cause SRO to respond, dispatching Shelia to investigate. A nearly-omnipotent Director Chen talks to her (you) in her ear as you fight off waves of operatives from a rival organization known as SAI, telling her where to go next and so on.
Gameplay in BMI is fun, familiar FPS action, with some neat additional gameplay elements. Shelia wears an exo-suit that allows her to wall-run and double-jump, as well as quickly evade/dash. You also have a light sword, a grapple you can use at pre-determined points, and other suit powers like an EMP pulse, a tractor beam to pull enemies in, and enhanced single-punch attacks. The suit, sword, and your weapons (assault/shot/hand/sniper guns) can all be upgraded. The guns have secondary fire modes like sticky bombs for the sniper rifle and tracking bullets for the assault gun that are well-worth upgrading. Upgrades are done by finding jade statues called reliquaries and also by finding these blue orbs you get from defeating some enemies and breaking wooden crates.
The exo-suit has a cooldown mechanic and one part in the game it’s even disabled, requiring you to go full stealth for a little while as you execute bad guys with a literal butcher’s cleaver. The AI is really bad across the board, with sniper’s wearing flashlights that make them really easy to spot, and most enemies making themselves easy targets, patiently waiting for you to gun them down. I also thought it was weird that at times, Director Chen could tell me exactly what was around me, and other times he had no idea what my status was. Did I mention there is a car driving sequence? It’s kind of fun, but felt like it was thrown in just for kicks.
BMI doesn’t master any of these gameplay elements, but it’s pretty fun anyway. Level design is also very linear and has plenty of invisible walls to bump into. These various gameplay elements mix to create a pretty fun experience, but also one that I was hoping wouldn’t run on too long because it’s not particular satisfying. Progress is very steady and easy, I think I died a total of nine times in the game and probably half of that was environmental, like missing a long jump or something like that. The game also crashed on me twice, but it checkpoints so often and loads up so quick I was back in action in about thirty-five seconds.
As I was downloading the game, I was trying to figure out how it was only about 10GB in size. Finding out the game was so short was one reason, but a second reason why the game is so small is how much reuse there are of the textures. Many of the locations in the game look very similar to other locations — Chinese style architecture, a blend of some green vegetation and buildings, it’s very repetitive. Still, the graphical quality is good, neat rain effects, support for options like DXR, and some of the bosses look really cool, but the amount of graphical variety is limited. Then again, the whole game blows by so fast it doesn’t matter all that much, but I couldn’t help but notice that many areas look very much the same to one another.
In terms of audio, I liked the little action music tracks, without these the game would have been noticeably worse, but having these generic action tracks playing spruced up the experience. Voice-acting is pretty cardboard-like, but sufficient all in all. Sound effects were also fine, nothing special, but pretty good.
In sum, Bright Memory Infinite is an impressive feat for a lone developer, but even at $20 it’s not without some hesitation that I recommend it. I thought the game was fun and worth the less-than-three hours it took to get through, but I don’t see myself ever going back to play through it again. If you’re an avid fan of FPS action games and are willing to overlook some glaring issues (AI, repetitive textures and design, crashes, linear level design), BMI is worth checking out.
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