IDOLxISxDEAD
Back in 2015, indie studio Psychose Interactive released their first game, which was exclusive to mobile platforms at the time, titled Forgotten Memories. The game is a third-person survival horror title that’s a love letter to the Silent Hill series, and even features the Remothered series’ Chris Darril doing the art design and Silent Hill 2‘s voice actors for James and Eddie voicing some of the characters.
There were plans to port and remaster the game on PC and some consoles in the late 2010s, but lots of complications arose and those plans had to be canceled for the time being. Now, several years later, the team has finally finished the remastering and porting process for some platforms, and it’s now available on MacOS and Nintendo Switch, so we’re taking a look at the first console port, on the Switch.
Story
The narrative of Forgotten Memories is a fairly sparse one that feels like a very simplified version of a Silent Hill narrative, and is interesting, despite not being terribly deep or complex overall. Its short length also doesn’t give you too much time to get immersed in it or expand upon it, so it comes with the territory, to a certain extent.
It’s still relatively cohesive overall, even if it won’t blow you away, and it serves the gameplay just fine, so there’s not a lot to complain about here. Just temper your expectations for that of a small indie mobile game to get the best experience. The voice acting is solid across the board, though audio quality can fluctuate slightly between lines and none of it is particularly nuanced or emotionally-delivered overall, but it does a good enough job of adding a little immersion to the world.
Gameplay
The gameplay is where Forgotten Memories benefits the most when it comes to the new console port, since you can use some proper physical controls instead of the touch screen analog sticks. While a lot of the game consists of just exploration, where the controls aren’t quite as important, there is a combat system you’ll use throughout the game, and it definitely makes things handle better in these situations.
The game starts with many of the potential enemies lying dormant or frozen in the scenery, with a system that makes many of them jump to life and attack you out of the blue, which is a pretty creepy effect. None of the combat is all that difficult, but it does raise the stakes a bit, especially since you’re mostly relying on a manual save system with very few auto-checkpoints.
The general gameplay and exploration here is fun and a callback to classic survival horror titles, with puzzles and routes to find, and most of it is pretty straight-forward for the genre, but compelling enough to keep going. One caveat to this is the lack of a proper map, which can slow things down or make progress more muddled than it should be. Even though the whole game world is relatively small and fairly equal to a single one of Silent Hill’s main labyrinths, it would still be nice to have a visual reminder of the layout.
The experience is rather short, usually taking 90 minutes to two hours to finish, but there’s new game+ content and additional difficulties to play with if you liked the experience enough to go through it again. After finishing the game, it does mention that the devs are working on a sequel that aims to be a bit bigger, but this first game serves as more of an intro to the world, so we’ll see where it goes in the future.
Performance/AV
As far as the visuals, this is a good-looking game that nails a lot of the hallmarks of the classic Silent Hill aesthetic while also throwing in some newer horror gaming influence and a lot of Twin Peaks aesthetic, for one reason or another. The art direction from Chris Darril makes this game stand out among the many homages to Silent Hill that have come out of the horror scene in the last several years, and is one of the best aspects of the game without a doubt.
As far as performance, it’s a bit of a mixed bag on the Switch hardware, since while there are several options for graphics options and performance in the menus, it does struggle to hit 60fps on any of the graphical settings in docked mode, and will still have occasional stutters and dropped frames here and there, even though it does run a bit better and at a higher res than the original mobile version. The graphical options are nice, so you can customize it to a way that fits your preference, but it struggles to hit the fairly standard modern benchmarks of performance, even if it doesn’t ruin the game.
In handheld mode, the results are a bit better, since it’s generally running at a slightly lower resolution, and optimization may have been more targeted at this mode to begin with, even though it will still have some small stutters here and there. Granted, a more cinematic game like this benefits from the big screen, so it’s a bit of a pick-your-poison situation.
Forgotten Memories is a pretty neat little homage to the survival horror titles of the past, but its short length and lack of general complexity leave a little bit to be desired compared to the many other similar games that have been made in the nine years since its original release.
However, if you’re just looking for a new title that’s an homage to the Silent Hill series, this could give you a few hours of enjoyment, especially if you want one on-the-go with the Switch’s portable capability. The price feels just about right, if slightly on the higher side for the two hours or so of gameplay on an initial playthrough, but the New Game+ feature and in-game achievements add some extra replay value if you like the core experience.
(7 / 10)
Good
(7 / 10)Rely on Horror Review Score Guide
(NOTE: The game currently has a Halloween-themed skin to celebrate the holiday, so the screenshots all feature an alternate costume for the main character and masks on all the enemies that are not normally present in the game after Halloween.)
A Nintendo Switch review code was provided by the developer.
