by Omar (@siegarettes)

• Amnesia: Memories
  
• Developer - Otomate
  
• Publisher - Idea Factory 
  
• PC (Steam), PS Vita, iOS+Android (TBA)
  

This is an impressions piece based on a single playthrough of the game. The full game has multiple worlds and endings.

Amnesia has to be one of the most played out narrative devices in fiction. It’s an easy way to create a sense of mystery and give the protagonist the same denial of information that the audience has. That gets weird real fast when you drop that into the context of a romance, especially when you’re not trying to build up a relationship but figure out what it was to start with.

This wrinkle provides a good contrast to the otome genre’s typical approach, starting with an existing relationship rather than ending when one is established. Which character becomes central to your story is decided right upfront as well, with a fantastical explanation bringing you to different worlds of your choosing. It’s a way to circumvent the traditional “routes” and provide wildly varying stories from the go. 

Each of these worlds coincides with one of the suits from playing cards. I’m not quite sure how thematically relevant they are at the moment aside from appearing upon the corresponding character’s outfit. (Though it seems possible that there may be some fortune telling associations to them).

Regardless, I started my playthrough with the Hearts world, in which I was tasked with finding out the details behind the accident that wiped my memory, and if it was indeed an accident. There’s a sense of unease here, with your understanding of your relationship with the love interest being unreliable, and the question of whether or not to trust them up in the air. His actions can be read as both playful or threatening. 

The dialogue runs a bit long thanks to the addition of Orion, a player character that’s stuck inside the protagonist’s head. He mostly serves as a commentator and stand in for the protagonist’s thoughts, as she’s left unvoiced and rather blank for the player to project themselves into. He’ll sometimes give a bit too much commentary, basically telling you how to feel or removing the ambiguity of a situation by telling you exactly what something could mean. He’s not unjustified, but it feels like an inelegant way to skirt around developing a character for the player. 

The writing is for the most part naturalistic aside from that, and characters for the most part have enough motivation to make them feel believable, even if a lot of archetypes show up. 

The characters themselves are rendered with some gorgeous art, and there’s no shortage of attractive people on display (provided you dig the bishonen look). The backgrounds are rendered as digitally manipulated photographs, with a color wash to communicate the current time of day. 

The music is likewise well produced, though it suffers from the common problem in visual novels of repetition. 

So far Amnesia seems to be another well produced story from Otomate, with a few interesting twists to the structure. It’s smaller and more intimate than something like Hakuoki , which largely works to its advantage, and its use of pre-existing relationships is refreshing. 

It’s hard to talk about it too much at this point, however, as I’ve only achieved a single ending, which let a lot of the questions about the story still on the table. It’s something that demands you return to it to get a proper understanding, which unfortunately does make certain endings feel a lot less legitimate.