Memoria is a point and click adventure game from Daedelic Entertainment (Deponia, Chaos on Deponia). Follow the story of Sadja, Princess of Fasar as she tries to become the greatest hero of all time and Geron, who is on a journey to find a cure to break the curse that has befallen his Fairy girlfriend, Nuri. The cure seems to be in the hands of a merchant that wants Geron to solve an ancient riddle before he is able to part with it.

The game itself is based on a German pen and paper RPG called The Dark Eye and is actually a sequel to the game Chains of Satinav. Although Memoria follows on where Chains of Satinav leaves off, you don’t need to have played both of them to understand the story told in Memoria. You will see some references throughout the game if you have played it before, and of course Geron and a couple of the other characters are recurring. There are 8 chapters in total making up the game following the journeys of Geron and Sadja, as they try to meet their goals and how they inadvertently intertwine despite being 450 years apart.

Interlacing the stories of Sadja and Geron work well. Although they never meet, Sadja’s tale becomes part of Geron’s story as he works out what happened to the princess to solve the riddle that Fahi (the merchant) gives to him. Only once Geron has solved the riddle will he provide the means to turn Nuri from raven back to Fairy. He has 3 days to solve it and in that time his thoughts and dreams are riddled with visions of Sadja’s past – while also worrying about the fact that Nuri is drifting further away from herself and once she reaches a point of no return, she won’t be able to be turned back into a Fairy. So Geron doesn’t have much time on his hands as he endeavours to return Nuri to what she once was.

Sadja on the other hand is trying to become someone memorable, someone that will be talked about in years and ages to come. Her journey leads her to a mask that she has been told will help her change the course of the war in her land, which she feels presents the perfect opportunity to make her name known. After discovering the mask she sets out on a journey, where she meets unlikely allies and traitors, and onwards to try to meet her goal.

Each background is a beautifully hand drawn piece where the characters are in 3D over the top. This can make the animations a bit awkward at times and it feels a bit weird to have the close-ups on characters, sometimes due to the out of sync lip movements to the audio. Music in the game is nice and subtle with there not being a very intrusive instrumental soundtrack. Nature and ambient sounds make up the main aural support to the game which allows the player to take in more of the visual storytelling and concentrate on the puzzles that the game throws at you.

Voice acting however is a bit robotic and monotonous at times. Some of the characters have great voice acting, while others not so much which can get a bit annoying. Especially in addition to the out-of-sync lip movements, though as the game progresses you get used to it so it’s not as much of a problem. Geron often sounds as though he doesn’t want to be there and the children voice actors sound as though they are just reading unemotionally off a script. Sadja and her staff however are great, I feel like their voice actors pull off their sarcastic personas very well.

Difficulty throughout the game varies quite a bit between really obvious puzzles and ones that will make you rack your brain for ages to try and think about the solution – which a lot of the time isn’t something that really stands out as the way to go. There is a nice variety within the puzzles with the various magic spells that are made available during the course of the game that you’ll need to use. Varying from destruction spells to petrification spells you’ll need to utilise the magic at your disposal to aid you in the challenges that are presented to you throughout the course of the story.

Now and again I would encounter some lag when moving into a new zone. For example, I would move to select something and the game would just not respond at all. IT only lasted for a moment though, but it did get quite annoying after half an hour or so. If you selected Texture Compression in the settings, just don’t expect the game to run at all. I didn’t encounter any other sorts of problems while playing the game, the only gripe I mainly had was the freezing on top of the sub par voice acting.

This is a pretty solid point and click in my opinion. It has beautiful artwork, the puzzles make you think for ages and the story line isn’t terrible. There’s a good chunk of time to be spent on the game depending on how fast you can solve the puzzles and there are various achievements you can get from choosing one option or the other, so a second playthrough will net you all the achievements. I enjoyed spending my time on Memoria, I wasn’t entirely sure of the game at first, but it turned into a nice game. Although the ending could have been a little bit more substantial, I felt like it ended a bit flat.

The game is currently €19.99/£16.99/$19.99 on Steam. A review copy was provided for this article.

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