Bright Memory: Infinite is a game that had me flip-flopping back and forth on whether I enjoyed it or not. On one hand, I think it’s a very impressive project made by a one-man studio and has decent mechanics. On the other hand, it has overly simple encounters and the story is complete nonsense. It’s a game that struggled to keep my attention — yet, for the most part, Bright Memory: Infinite still looks really good around every corner.
Like a typical midrange action movie
My first run through Bright Memory: Infinite took me just an hour and a half to complete on normal difficulty. It’s a very short game, and to this point, I still don’t quite understand what was happening in the story. The game takes place in a futuristic Asian countryside area where you play as Shelia, who is a secret agent for some kind of secret service watching weather patterns that can cause significant damage. You are brought to an area where a black hole has appeared in the sky and is wreaking havoc. Your journey is to reach that black hole while fighting your way through present-day military forces and (quite randomly) ancient samurai warriors time travel to fight you as well. I could play through the story again and probably not be able to tell you why they are here, but they at least keep the enemy variety loose and free.
In short, the story here is completely incomprehensible. That said, it’s the absolutely absurd moments where Bright Memory: Infinite exceeds. After ejecting from one of the most boring vehicle sections I’ve ever played in any video game, I was fighting enemies across the rooftop of two commercial airliners as they were pulled towards the black hole. Not long later I fought a six-armed giant. None of this makes sense, but that nonsensicality was highly entertaining. The worst thing you could ever do with this game is to try to take it too seriously. This is essentially a silly action movie filled with guns, your sword, and a lot of enemies for you to work your way through.
Gunplay to easily take advantage of
Overall, Bright Memory: Infinite’s gameplay is solid and engaging. You unlock four weapons along the way, each with a special ammo type that deals more damage, and your sword can carve through enemies and protect you from incoming fire. There are also some upgrades you unlock along the way that give you a couple more abilities in your arsenal. My big problem here is that the game tries to push too many abilities into this simplistic control scheme. For example, you have a force-pull-like ability to bring enemies towards you. You also unlock an ability that puts out a forceful rocket punch. They are both used with the same button input, the only difference being that one activates when you are sprinting. After unlocking that ability, I quickly ditched it, never to come back.
With the above being said, there are definitely certain weapons and abilities that easily stand out from the others here. The ground slam ability was the easiest to spam for quick kills the entire time after I unlocked it, and I bet that the entire game is beatable with just the sword if you upgrade it. The late-game sniper rifle is also an easy one-shot kill on a large group of enemies.
Until I reached the final boss, I was constantly ground slamming any enemies in front of me while sniping far away ones quickly. It was simple and enjoyable enough to keep doing, which isn’t a bad thing, but the game is pretty easily exploited with the tools it gives you. Boss fights in particular are super simple. While you face a couple giants and fast-moving enemies, they are all quickly taken down by spamming your special ammo into them and dodging their attacks. They’re fine, but nothing special.
The verdict
While most of the game is fast-paced because you are running around shooting enemies, there are two instances that take a significant step backward. The second level of the game removes all of your weapons and exo-suit upgrades to force you into a monotonous stealth section that requires you to crouch walk around with a cleaver. All I wanted to do was to sprint through the area, but you die so quickly here that you are forced to play it slow and methodical.
The second bad area of the game is when you get into a super high-tech car equipped with a rocket turret. It sounds like it should be great, but it moves so slowly and all you do the entire time is follow a road while spamming rockets that lock onto the enemies in front of you until you hit the end of the road. The game knows how to handle gun action pretty dang good, but the moment it veers away whatsoever, it falls drastically.
Bright Memory: Infinite is serviceable entertainment if you go in with low expectations remembering that this was made by one person. The environments are very impressively made, but the characters, not so much. Don’t even try to understand the story because it’s very much not worth it. Come for the good visuals, stay for the chaotic gunplay, and leave before the sun goes down — because it’s over in under two hours.
Final Score:
5 / 10
| + | Impressively detailed environments |
| + | Weapons and abilities worth playing around with |
| – | An absurd and laughable story |
| – | Very unengaging stealth and car sections |
| – | Overly simplistic boss fights |
Gamepur team received a PC code for the purpose of this review.
