Release date: 9 november 2018

Genre&Topics: historical drama, World War I, narrative game, 3D graphic action-adventure in TPV

Developers: Aardman and Digixart

Website: 11-11-memories-retold

Have you ever played Valiant Hearts: The Great War ? Well, it was conceived in 2014 by the same author of Memories Retold, Yoan Fanise, now creative director at Digixart (Montpellier, France). Both titles propose human choral drama having First World War as background; they are both war games and fiercely anti-war at the same time, they tell stories not about conflict’s heroics but about protagonists personal tragedies. Similitudes stop here. VH is a little 2D puzzle-based graphic adventure in a graphic style echoing belgian comics (ligne claire).

MR is a long story-driven narrative game, AAA 3D graphic adventure in third person view; its graphic style echoes the animated movie Loving Vincent (2016), inspired by Van Gogh paintings; MR‘s strokes are less defined, more nuanced, continuosly vibrating, particulars are less recognizable. Implementing such style in Video Games is not the same as in movies, you need specific shaders and scripts rendering and processing in real time all the vibrating strokes while player is moving characters and camera. Never seen something similar so far, MR is an innovative title for sure, opening new possibilities to the industry and art of Video Games. Do you remember what i told you about relationships between indie and mainstream? Technological advancement of development tools is in the hands of big industry. MR artistic and graphic development has been supported by Aardman Studios, well reknown for digital animation works like Wallace & Gromit; Bandai Namco Europe funded and distribuited the title.

MR has been released two days before 11-11 2018, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. It comes with WarChild Charity DLC: through a series of moving letters, drawings and photographs found throughout the main narrative adventure, the content of DLC tells the gripping story of Jack and Eva, two naïve and innocent children drawn into the dramatic events of World War I. Letters are directly inspired by real life stories from the children supported by WarChild UK, to which profits from DLC will be donated.

MR tells the interwining stories of two soldiers “by chance”, the young Canadian photographer Harry, voiced by well known actor Elijah Wood and the older German airship technician Kurt, voiced by Sebastian Koch (Des Leben Der Anderen (2006), Bridge of Spies (2015)). Harry is dragged to war by another key character, major Barrett, searching for a war photographer; Harry accepts the offer and joins the Army for futile reasons: he thinks that the charm of the uniform can help him to win the heart of the girl he loves, Julia! Kurt is apparently a wiser person joining the Army in order to look for his missing son. For further description and analisys of story see below. Player can switch between Harry and Kurt, not Barrett. At first you can alternatively play Harry and Kurt while they are in different and distant places; then they meet each other and you can use in turn both the avatars in the same place for solving simple environmental puzzles. I liked the multi-avatar feature of the title. You can even take control of their animal companions, a cat and a pigeon. Flying as a pigeon is one of the most suggestive moments of the experience. I liked also the great variety of locations and settings: Canada, Germany, France, battle fields, trenches, factories, villages, graveyards, trains, hot air ballon, etc. etc.

You’re adviced: MR is not meant just for mere entertainment.

11-11: Memories Retold is an antithesis to the common shooters. It ambitions to echo the centenary of World War I so that the younger generations never forget. Game mechanics are various but simple and intentionally not so challenging: solving environmental puzzles, avoiding to be fired and taking photos during battles, exploring and searching for items and people, eavesdropping the enemy Army, a few quick time events, tightrope walking in an airship factory, assembling and flying with a hot air ballon, flying like a pigeon, a few multiple choice dialogues, etc. etc. Some challenges have an end in themselves, they are here just for saying: this is a videogame!

It’s a story-centered experience. Nevertheless, it’s not one of the best narrative experiences I played in recent years, but yet a good one. Developers have not read for sure my articles about interactive narration here and here! 🙂 Cut scenes take the bigger narrative role, frequently interrupting gameplay. Pathos is confined in cut scenes and in overvoiced thoughts of protagonists. Frequent alternation of cut scenes and gameplay breaks immersion, they seem a bit disjointed; developers have not found the right interrelation of storytelling and interaction. Too much intercalation of static illustrations doesn’t help; while having conversations, you cannot move; sometimes while playing you lose control and avatar executes little scripted actions. Quick time events are few and not so effective; a lot of action scenes could be faced through scripted scenes, on the contrary they are confined in cut scenes or illustrations. You can experience cool and thrilling multiple choice dialogues just in the last part of the game, before then there are not so stimulating choices.

Story itself is very good, its’ just the way it is told that could be better. I have appreciated so much the deep contents and metaphors expressed, less the way they are expressed. Video Games are developing their own expressive language and techniques in recent years, the key element is mixing storytelling, interaction and processing. MR‘s developers seems to be not up-to-date with the last generation of narrative games (The Walking Dead 1, Life Is Strange, Quantic Dreams titles, What Remains of Edith Finch, etc.). However content is really deep and impressive, I liked it so much.

SPOILER! Dear reader, if you have not played the game yet, I suggest you to skip the following paragraph.

Analisys of Contents and Story (SPOILER)

As said, MR is not interested in war’s heroics, player is not meant to fight; it’s a drama about the opposite sides of humanity. The dark and irrational sides: egoism aiming at personal satisfaction with no care for others, fear of the different, difficulties in mutual communication and understanding, etc. And the positive sides: friendship, love, altruism, empathy, etc. etc. MR tells us that in the end the dark ones are always overwhelming… War is just the natural consequence of the conflicting sides of human inner nature, with the dark ones winning on the positive ones! Do you really think that wars end with peace? Not at all, there is no peace really. There are only winners and losers, the first enjoying at the expense of the second, as they prepare the ground for another inevitable future war… No, MR is not the happy ending title for families you can expect from a mainstream production! Its message is really pessimistic and strong. It has six different endings and none of them is happy.

Behaviors and relationships of the three main characters, Harry, Kurt and Barrett, are deep metaphors for humanity. There are no heroes or lovely empathetic characters in this game. Henry is a shallow young man joining the Army just for impressing the girl he desires; Kurt thinks that Harry saved his life and is a hero, but it’s not true. When Harry sees major Barret aiming the gun at the prisoner in the camp, he takes the photo with no particular worry ! Even Kurt is not the wise man he seems to be; he joins the Army looking for his missing son, but leaves his wife and sick little daughter at home alone. He is insanely obsessed by the loss of his son. The situation explodes when he finds the photo of his son, the soldier killed by major Barret and photographed by Henry; now he considers Harry as the enemy, the worst person in the world; just a minute before he was a hero and the best friend ever! Then he leaves again his family, looking for revenge on Barrett. The latter is another bad piece of humanity. He likes to be photographed while killing enemies; he is worried just for his own glory and for his country and his soldiers, but has no pity for enemies! In the end Harry is on the hot air ballon; he can choose to leave Kurt and Barrett to their destiny and return to his beloved Julia. This is the most egoistic choice: Harry is interested only in his own happiness and life, he gets married and starts a family, no regrets for Kurt and Barrett and the horrors of war, he declare himself as a war hero in front of his son! Whatever choice you make, Kurt is doomed to die, he represents the defeat of Germany. If Harry chooses to help and defend Kurt against Barrett in the name of true friendship, he is doomed to die or to be considered a traitor to his country, loosing his beloved Julia for ever. If Barrett remains alive, he is honored like a great war hero despite of his crimes. Great pessimistic portrait of humanity with no hope despite the end of the war! Do you still think that 11-11-1918 was the date of peace? No, it was just the armistice day before the next Second World War!

END OF SPOILER!

Well, great admiration for the authors that have had the courage to face similar topics in mainstream production. Just purchasing the game was an odd experience for me: it’s unusual to find a narrative game with not so high mass appeal on the shelves between Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call Of Duty, the other side of war in Video Games! Icy on the cake, the fabulous soundtrack by Olivier Deriviere (Vampyr, Get Even, etc.) with clear echoes of Ennio Morricone‘s masterpieces “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and “Giù La Testa” (“Duck, You Sucker” or “A Fistful of Dynamite“).

Conclusions

Let’s try to weigh pros and cons.

Pros: Good story with really deep and uncomfortable contents, great characters able to give merciless portrait of humanity, excellent voice acting, impressive soundtrack, marvellous aesthetics implementing technical innovations with great impact for future of gaming, multiple avatars selection, a great variety of mechanics and locations, flying like a pigeon, unusual but very meaningful AAA production.

Cons: Oldfashioned and not so effective techniques of storytelling not well mixed with gameplay and processing such to break pathos and immersion, too many cut scenes, static illustrations, interruptions of gameplay, lack of interesting narrative choices except in the ending, few and weak interactive and narrative mechanics, some challenges with an end in themselves, animations could be more varied and better.

Rating: 82/100