So it would seem that this site has a generous enough character limit as to fit both my previous review from Steam and this little preamble, neat.

Few things to note, One, I didn't exactly list all the enemies in this game, I missed these beast like creatures that also existed. Does it really matter? Do they serve some different purpose from the skeletons in the combat? Not really, forgot about them for a reason. Second, watched a friend play this recently, they drastically decreased the air you can get in this game from when I played it. Probably a necessary balance thing, it's a bit lame tho, yeah? Third, Ultrakill exists now, you can play it, it's great.

Ok look, I get it, you see a bunch of pretty effects, an implication of style, and learn that this game is an early version of what's to come from someone who's not a faceless organization and you can't help but have a little hope for the potential of what's to come, enough to overlook that you paid 10 dollars for virtually none of what was promised. If Bright Memory Infinite comes out and people are still talking about how it's the shit, maybe look into it, but don't buy this. And if holding S and firing is your idea of engaging combat then well... at least Serious Sam's devs haven't been accused of stealing assets... granted those assets don't speak loads for their uh... character... but they definitely made them.

Original Steam Review below, do I agree with all of it? I don't know, not spending any more time on this game until Infinite rolls around.



I don't necessarily like being the contrarian in this situation but when you buy a game hoping it will fulfill an advertised premise, and then it just... doesn't, and there's not much else to fall back on, what else do you say? I can at least say I see why it's getting the praise it is, it does make the developer in charge of this project look impressive, the game looks nice, and the premise alone makes it worth holding on to some hope for it, I'm just not particularly impressed with the design of this game at this point and unless the dev pulls out some really clever changes in the future, I don't see it improving much from where it already is.

Bright Memory is an FPS where the protag gets some neat abilities, but unlike Bioshock where many of said abilities are made to interact with the environment, these abilities are made to be able to string together a cool little combo, complete with a style meter and everything. It's a cool idea, I'm sure many people have dreamt about the idea of a FPS with Devil May Cry tier combos and other such cool things happening and it somehow not being a total mess. If there's one thing I can say about Bright Memory, it's far from a total mess, but unfortunately it's also far from being this cool system that will produce sick combo MADs for decades. Ok sure, it's far from being some DMC, Bayonetta, or God Hand, most games aren't like that so what's the problem? The problem is that a lot of conventionally good FPS design got the boot in this experiment, so once you've mastered what bit of a combo game there is here, there's not much to fall back on.

Let's start with what we're all here for, combos. The idea is simple, you use a bunch of different abilities, enemies get flung, shot, and sliced into pieces, game tells you about your Smokin Sick Style, everyone has a good time. That's the gist of it and to that end, the abilities in this game do serve that function correctly, they let a combo happen, but that's it really. Due to how keyboards are you can only realistically expect people to be able to access so many abilities (and with inputs like, press F three times and Q+E, we're definitely already running out of space) yet so many of these abilities are combo starters and combo extenders that the only other moves left are gun,sword(which is basically gun but better), and tether. So the basic combo looks like EMP(or some other floating ability)->tether->Sword->Gun, there can be remixes and extensions to this combo but when you have so little moves to work with and your position in relation to the enemy is barely something you have to think about when it comes to making sure the entirety of the combo connects (since all moves are projectiles and if you're in range for one floating ability, you're in range for them all) I can't see the combo game evolving from, Float->Shoot->Suspend Enemy->Shoot->Re-float->Shoot, you know when I say it like that it almost makes it sound like this game is one Infected Chopper away from being DMC2,but that would do the rest of the game a disservice.

Onto non-combo talk, there's a lot of enemies in this game that take the form of melee only skeletons. The visual telegraphs seemed fine for dodging them although I think they could use some better audio cues, especially considering there were many situations where they ended up behind me, but besides that these would be pretty well designed enemies in a game where the optimal strat to fight them isn't just backing up so they never hit you. It isn't all that wise to shoot them while backing up like this is some discount zombie game as they do block your shots, but they won't block if they are floating in the air which to do so is really only a matter of "Is one of my many abilities that floats enemies off cooldown?"The answer is yes, it's always yes. So these types of enemies are pretty much just combo fodder and nothing else which I guess is a typical "character action" thing to do (although they typically don't dedicate an entire boss to being combo fodder). Regardless there is one type of encounter where they do work. As long as they are paired with a with projectile flinging bats then you are given something which you have to avoid while keeping in mind the terrain and the position of any skeletons that might not take so kindly to you dashing into them. It does work but it is open to a lame ending where you take care of the bats and the skeletons are back to being a non threat, and you can probably figure out that this is the optimal strat to boot. In other words, these bones are gonna need some more "meat" on them if they're gonna actually work.

So we have good projectile flinging bats, skeletons that are... there, not bad but not really contributing much, I suppose it's only fitting that we have the classic bad, out of place, gun-toting soldiers to truly balance out the quality of the enemy design, it's like Half Life 1 all over again. Hitscan enemies need specific setups in order to make for interesting, fun encounters, with level design being the most important factor. To make a long story short and probably over simplified, you'd need more cover in this game to make hitscan enemies work, but that'd get in the way of the movement that this game focuses on, so it makes the whole idea of these soldiers being here to begin with seem weird. The encounters they're in right now aren't too bad but they boil down to killing everyone before they kill you. For that reason I'd hate to see a version of this game later down the line where this game is long enough to have an actual difficulty curve and these enemies show up the way they are right now. I can't see that being a fun time.

I suppose that's all the important stuff I can fit here. I'd love to be proven wrong because I did want to like this game, I'm just not sure where to find the fun in this game.

this is a demo that costs 8 bucks plus tax. im all for short games, some of them are my favorites, but this didn't even take an hour to beat while also asking for 2 dollars short of 10 USD. pricing aside, the game is alright. the shooting does feel good, but enemies are decently tanky, so you'll find yourself constantly reloading all your weapons to interrupt your flow. the guns are fine, but the response from the enemies is nigh-existent. The only good feeling response out of them you get is launching them in the air. it's only that initial launch though that feels good. even when they're in the air, there isn't much punch to your attacks. To add insult to injury, the movement is awkward at worst and okay at best. It doesn't feel good but also fails to be satisfying. it has the call of duty sprint that cancels if you strafe, as well as double-tapping buttons to dash, which can make the combat feel weird when trying to avoid attacks. Everything feels very weightless. i remember seeing this game get a bit popular with content creators, calling it insane. i was originally interested in it because i heard it was made by one dude and thought that was crazy. having played it, it's very average. it does cool things with the enemy designs and combat abilities but then ruins that with how boring it is to fight the enemies and the pretty boring level design. if anything, this game is a proof of concept rather than a full game, which boggles me when it's being sold as a game.

Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked (1,000G), with mandatory three playthroughs. Arguably more of a tech demo than a full game, Bright Memory is a graphically very impressive first-person shooter, with some interesting tech powers augmenting the standard gunplay. A complete playthrough here takes only around 30-45 minutes, so it's all over very quickly, even if you go after the three runs required for all achievements. However, while it lasts, this is a fun experience, with particularly smooth and satisfying movement - and then upon realising that this is the work of a solo developer, it becomes an extremely impressive achievement! A few bugs cause frustration, with sometimes random-seeming amounts of ammo upon respawns alongside occasional loss of experience, but the short runtime means that these don't have the chance to become too pronounced.