Forgotten Memories | Android

Amnesia.. dark, claustrophobic and terrifying

📖 Storyline: Rose Hawkins, a social services detective from Massachusetts, wakes up wounded, without memory and with the only memory of being in a worn-out psychiatric hospital searching for a little girl, Eden, kidnapped by a sinister kidnapper.  You will soon realize that you are in a place animated by disturbing presences!  A place haunted by forgotten ghosts transfigured into disturbing mannequins and dolls which represent (depending on the static movements) what really happened to him in life and which will be her thrilling company!  After getting back on her feet, Rose will meet the mysterious Noah, a red-haired woman who speaks only through a reel-to-reel tape recorder with recorded messages and who promises to help her find Eden as long as she finds her nurse friend in the asylum, Dorothy Simmons, killed in a bloody manner to introduce her into the macabre and frightening depths of the psychiatric hospital.

🎮 Gameplay: It undoubtedly deserves some attention, if only for the references to famous titles: Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Alone The Dark with an excellent technical component to provide an absolutely positive, if not even surprising, first impression!  From the first moments of the gameplay you can feel the extremely strong influence of the sources of inspiration in a gloomy place full of interactive elements (indicated with an exclamation point to be plugged) for a constant search for clues and subsequent escape route.  The latter can be completed thanks to the torch, in fact, by pointing it wherever we want we will see not only the effect of the light and its reflections, but also the projection of the shadows of the surrounding objects, creating a true survival horror mix!  The entire structure is then inhabited by mannequins, at first immobile figures, but soon destined to transform into dangerous animated enemies who will suddenly attack us, emerging from the darkness, grabbing us and fatally wounding us very quickly.  There are few bullets for firearms, and melee weapons are not that effective (Normal and Hard Mode).  To make everything even more engaging and distressing there is the third-person view which slowly becomes black and white and darkens more and more as we are wounded.  Impeccable work also from a sound point of view: the author's dubbing, the thrilling soundtrack including the various environmental noises.  The features of the protagonist were modeled on the appearance of the actress Dawn Bournand.

🕹️ Controls: The on-screen controls are invisible: On the left you move while on the right you admire the 360° environment.  The movements are not very fluid with a certain rigidity to instill that sense of general uneasiness making the interaction via taptap a kind of nightmare, within which a heart-pounding combat system anxiously stands out!  Difficulty modes include: Normal and Hard which will make survival even more difficult.  Here the rescues can be completed by recovering precious floppy disks to be used on computers scattered throughout the asylum.  Dying between saves means having to redo entire sections from scratch!  The only ally in the dark while crossing gloomy rooms and corridors is the torch which unfortunately has a charge destined to run out quickly, however, the Easy mode guarantees more energy to the protagonist, a torch that never runs out, automatic saves without floppy disks, more ammunition and enemies weakened!

🎨 Graphics: Gloomy but incredibly detailed environments, the torch light that illuminates and projects dynamic and realistic shadows that it's hard to believe is a game intended for the mobile landscape!

🇮🇹 Personal Conclusions: It is rare to find such a well-finished and complete title on mobile, an old school title from 2015 created by an independent software house, among other things, right on its debut.  It takes us back to a world that no longer exists, to the glories of the first Playstation, a world that remained imprisoned like a beautiful chrysalis of pixels in the 90s, a world that no longer exists except in the memory of those who played it.  So with the passage of time, of our hair which from wild has become holy fields, we have learned not to be afraid, indeed to regret that fear, seeking in new products the same sensations felt with Resident Evil and its mansion infested by living dead , Silent Hill and its perpetual fog, remaining inexorably disappointed.  Videogames have not been the same, at least survival horror: times, tastes, current gamers have changed, inevitably and fortunately.  Yet, nostalgia is rogue and having had excellent remakes of Resident Evil over the years, not least of Dumbledore Hill, the minds of us old men over 40 go back to that imperfect gray Playstation, the only one, the most ramshackle, but the one that more than all others (I don't want the magnificent PS5) made us dream!  This mobile title doesn't care about times, fashions, everything that keeps kids happy all the time online from Fortnite onwards!  It's not a walk simulator, it's not a horror shooter, it doesn't pump its muscles with its 4k mega FULL HD, but it doesn't want to be as paraculously retro as those mess of pixels and nostalgia that look like Resident Evil that never made it , sold at exaggerated prices but, what the fuck, they would have been shit even in the 90s, instead, Forgotten Memories: Alternate Realities is Konami's Silent Hill, but more Silent Hill than its sequels after 2 (the one you will soon play on Ps5) .  It has the same great atmosphere, it's scary and has minimal graphics but on a small screen, like that of a smartphone, it's perfect!  It is not free from defects, first of all the exhaustion of the torch in the aforementioned modes and the rare rescues and the lack of the Italian language where, between story and dialogues, which reign supreme, it is an unnerving absence, however, the fighting is the state of art with the old and tested steel tube, with a few gunshots, the torch, the pitch darkness, the constant fear, etc.  they are horror elements that, placed here and there, in a dirty setting, with attention to the smallest details and with spot-on sound effects, complex and never banal puzzles, and the constant comings and goings around the environment, in order to solve the continuous puzzles that disseminate it with documents that provide clues, with that ability to save only if you have a floppy (a bit like RE was with the ink ribbon!) here I found the perfect mobile game!  As mentioned, you can breathe the air of Silent Hill when suddenly, leaving a room, we find ourselves in front of some living mannequins, they are beautifully structured, with various places, an inspired creature design, many twists and turns, perfect even in its two and a half hours of gameplay.  Oh yes, its only flaw is that it is short and probably requires a DLC;  it was announced several times for the defunct PS VITA, for the PS4, but they never saw the light of day even on PC.  It is now available on playstore, for just €5 after Apple had boasted its exclusivity for years.  I advise you to take it, turn off the lights, switch on airplane mode and feel, as you have never felt in a long time, fear.  When the two and a half hours are over you will be left with that chemical hunger that the great works that have fascinated us always leave us with, from Silent Hill to Resident Evil 2. So if you are even slightly passionate about the Survival horror genre you certainly cannot miss out on one an occasion like this, believe me, will make you sweat so much with fear because in that "short" time everything happens!

By AlessiaBNERD