You can never trust that you’ve exhausted the possibilities in any given location, because it’s quite possible that a new point of interaction or new character may just show up there out of the blue. Nonetheless, showing up there makes Mizuki see the new issue of a magazine (denoting time passing, pushing the plot further), and, later, introduces a completely new, one-off character offering a plot-critical item for no particular reason. Twice, this hinges on returning to a screen outside of Mizuki’s house an area you can’t immediately jump to with the map’s (otherwise extremely helpful) fast travel system, and one which you’d almost certainly have no other pressing reason to revisit. Points of progression are often arbitrary, relying on specific actions or Mizuki’s return to certain locations in order to advance the plot and open up new areas of the game. A pair of morally ambivalent talking owls also make a good impression during their short cameo, and showcase an amusing range of human-created hooting sounds.īut while there isn’t too much to criticise about the game’s presentation (the voice-acting falls victim to mic hiss at times, that’s about it) or use of Magical Realism as its stated inspiration, it makes some pretty fundamental adventure game mistakes. I’m a big fan of The Dabchick, an aquatic fowl in a suit who helps to transform others into human-animal hybrids, and who may be involved in organised crime (at the very least, his business is operating outside of normal legislative boundaries). The re-discovery of Mizuki’s name provides the main impetus for Memoranda, though simply walking around and interacting with the town’s bizarre citizenry is a convincing secondary incentive.
Memoranda game voices how to#
Luckily she can still remember how to obtain delicious pastries. She’s a lady troubled by a serious lack of sleep, unable even to retain a grasp on her own name (we know it though, thanks to the subtitles). But it retains a feeling of underlying melancholy, both in its cast of odd characters beset by obsessions and problems, and in the spidery, slender frame of its protagonist Mizuki. Memoranda is much more down to earth than Ice-Pick’s hellish afterlife, taking place in a sunny, coastal town of cafes and cottages. In part, it reminded me of softer tracks from Ice-Pick Lodge’s The Void, another (albeit very different) game where the player is bombarded with strangeness.
Memoranda game voices full#
Instead, Memoranda has an unobtrusive ambient score, full of extended tones which evoke a dreamlike, slightly off-kilter state. The only Murakami trait arguably missing is a whole lot of 1960s jazz and pop records though an indie studio can easily be forgiven for skipping this expensive indulgence. Not being as familiar with his shorts as some of his novels it’s hard to say for sure, but it’s safe to assume there were more references I didn’t pick up. Certain aspects and characters are direct references to his short stories, including a missing elephant, a chap named ‘Superfrog’, and the abundance of cats. It’s been a few years since I read a Murakami novel ( Wild Sheep Chase and Kafka On The Shore are good choices for anybody curious about his work), but his influence is certainly felt throughout the game. 1993’s Sam & Max Hit The Road got this (mostly) right. It’s not quite a case of ‘anything goes’, but you can imagine how carefully an adventure game’s puzzles need to be constructed in a world where the bizarre is commonplace. If a talking cat shows up, the characters tend to simply talk to the cat rather than exclaiming “holy shit that cat can talk, what is going on here, am I losing my mind?” Basically, it’s when strange or unusual events bleed through into an otherwise realistic setting, and the inhabitants of the story treat this as completely normal. Memoranda, a Kickstarted adventure game inspired by the short stories of Haruki Murakami, shows that while Magical Realism may be a terrific style from which to pluck characters, it can cause some structural problems.įor those unfamiliar with the term, Magical Realism is literature’s equivalent of the videogame Rogue-like it has a broad definition, and people will argue endlessly about whether an author or book fits into the category or not.
0 kommentar(er)
