Summary
What should I do before I get killed?..
The Good
Somebody murders you. But you get an opportunity to correct things. You are sent back on the Earth shortly before the tragic event took place. Now you must save yourself, do something in the time which has been given to you, and reverse the wheels of fate. You receive a special device which allows you to travel in time. You can travel one hour or several centuries in the past. During those travels, you must investigate the mystery, reveal the secret of your premature death.
"Shadow of Destiny" (or "Shadow of Memories", the PAL title which I happen to like more) is a unique, bizarre time-based game. The genre it belongs to cannot be clearly defined. It has virtually no puzzles to be considered a full-fledged adventure. There is no action sequences in the game, but there is always great suspense, as your time is limited and you have to act quickly. There are no monsters to fight, but the feeling of horror hangs in the air...
I've heard a definition "'Shenmue' without fighting", but can't really agree with it. Even the most obvious similarity between the two games, their unusual real time concept, is more superficial than essential. The time in
Shenmue was flowing according to the game's own internal clock, and the game itself was divided into quickly passing days and nights. "Shadow of Memories", on the other hand, is a true real-time game, one of the few known to mankind. The only other game that pops into mind now is
Last Express, that treated the time problem as strictly as "Shadow of Memories": the time is real, the time flows, the time doesn't stop and you must act according to it.
"Shadow of the Memories" is, so to say, based on time, and the real time gameplay is its core. It is strangely involving to wander along the narrow streets of Lebensbaum, to feel the seconds tick away and to think what is to be done in order to avoid the horrible death. The game is divided into small chapters, each one of which has the same objective: to escape from the claws of the mysterious assassin. Every time you figure out how to avoid death, your enemy invents new ways of murdering you. The chapters are small and have a time limit, forcing you to act quickly. At the same time, you explore the town in various time periods: today, several years ago, hundred years ago, five hundred years ago... The game begins with fairly easy and elementary tasks, but soon you find out you are exploring much more than the cause of your own death, and become involved in a complicated story, that becomes even more complicated because you can go to the past and change the face of present and future.
The game's atmosphere is really well done. Strangely deserted is the small town Lebensbaum, and deserted is also Eike, who must fight the destiny all alone. The graphics do their job and reflect well the atmosphere of a small European town. Some cinematic sequences are very creatively designed, for example, the beautiful introduction to the game, which is shown in black in white. The excellent music dominates the game's atmosphere. There are no lovely melodies, but short, weird tunes create a feeling of suspense, horror and nightmare. An impressive score, that can be compared to that of
Fallout.
Technically, "Shadow of Memories" belongs to a genre with a long tradition, which is nearly neglected today - pure adventure. It is one of the few pure adventures made for a console, and it makes me very happy such a game has been produced by a famous and successful company. It is a finely made horror game, where the horror is not very obvious. But it is there. You feel it everywhere while running around in the town and desperately trying to survive. The game is strangely scary, although it has no monsters or demons or other typical attributes of the horror genre.
The game's story is hardly any less original than its gameplay. Konami's games are famous for their complex and intriguing storylines - check out
Snatcher or
Metal Gear Solid 2. "Shadow of Memories" is no exception. In fact, the story soon becomes so complex that you'll really have to sit back and to
think about what the hell is going on. There are many plot twists that drastically change everything you have learned until that point, and the most stunning revelations await you when you reach one of the several endings. Only then the identity of your murderer is revealed in a totally unexpected way. Learning about the
reasons for the murder is as important (if not more) as knowing who the murderer is, like in every good mystery tale. Really shocking is also the discovery of the hero's true identity (which follows only if you have reached a specific ending). The storyline is deep and interesting, revolving around the figure of a famous medieval alchemist who is determined to find the secret of immortality and to create the Homunculus, an artificial human being.
"Shadow of Memories" is not a linear game. Since you can really influence the course of events in this game (unlike most adventures), there are a lot of branching points in the story, from where you can drive it to one of the many endings. Your decisions really matter, and every ending is the fruit of your own hands. There are also some nice little mini-quests scattered around. Konami's well-known attention to detail is evident for example in my favorite (albeit pointless) side-quest, where you can transport a kitten through time and populate a house in the present with countless cats.
A highly original aspect of "Shadow of Memories" is its replayability. Not only the game has several different endings - we have seen that before in such games as
Pandora's Directive or Konami's own
Silent Hill. But the game actually doesn't really end. After you have completed the game for the first time, the next time you play you'll have an option (presented as a dialogue option right in the beginning) to play the game in a different way, with other time events and other actions needed to perform. Sounds like a simple idea, but it creates an almost magical feeling. Your ability (as the game's protagonist) to change the reality shown in the game now can change the game itself! It is like a mysterious artifact, which always shows some other, unexpected sides. Those who welcome non-linearity in an adventure game and enjoyed experimenting with the time in "Last Express" will love "Shadow of Memories".
"Shadow of Memories" also treats very interestingly the "death" aspect of a game. The hero can't really die, yet he dies constantly. But since the whole idea of the game is to have an opportunity to "correct" the fate, Eike's death means only that you haven't found a solution and have to try again. Again and again Eike dies and is resurrected again, but his memories are not lost, and he is fully aware of what has just happened. This aspect creates a very unusual continuity of the game. However, there are certain circumstances under which you
can really die - for example, when establishing a contact with your own self.
The Bad
There are a few flaws here that hardly matter. Some situations seem contrived: once you figure out the correct solution for escaping death, you realize there could have been a much more straightforward and simple way. The time aspect is not always carefully and logically handled. Eike, the hero of the game, is too weakly portrayed in its beginning, he doesn't evoke immediately our sympathy and the player might ask why the hell should he care for the fate of such an unimportant person. This is a plot point, but not one you realize right away.
The interactivity of the game is a bit too restricted. The game world, reduced to a small town due to the game's plot, offers only few things to do. On one hand, it adds to the feeling of you being lost. Wandering around in a seemingly dead town where you can't perform the simplest activity fits well the game's strange plot, but it might frustrate a player who expects a game which offers a vaster choice of actions and more exploring. The game's extremely easy (to the point of being non-existent) puzzles are not a welcome change to some adventure gamers, although I didn't mind at all the lack of challenge in puzzle department.
The Bottom Line
Konami is known both for its mega-hits like
Metal Gear,
Silent Hill, and my favorite
Suikoden series, and for less known, but equally fantastic titles such as
Snatcher or
Policenauts. "Shadow of Memories" is yet another proof the guys from Konami can handle every genre, even a genre they define themselves. "Shadow of Memories" is survival horror without monsters, nerve-tickling suspense without action, adventure without puzzles. It is a bizarre, original masterpiece, that doesn't follow any tradition, and that is sure to interest anyone who seeks newer forms of gameplay and content in video games.
