TL;DR - A visually overdeveloped, mechanically underdeveloped game whose narrative is severely hampered by its developmental misdirection of being a linear platformer/beat-em-up rather than an RPG.

LOOK, BUT DON'T TOUCH!
This game is strip club rules, folks. A beautiful setting rarely calls for linearity, as it traditionally beckons exploration. That is exactly why it is so puzzling that this game decides to allow glimpses into the fantastical world of Neo Paris with barely any chance to actually explore it. What you will explore in vast quantities are the dirty alleys, abandoned subways, filthy sewers, sterile labs, and HVAC covered roofs of Neo Paris as you linearly run, platform, and fight your way across the city; interspersed between the connect-the-dots platforming and the button-mashing combat are copious amounts of expository dialogue via comlink and the inner monologues of the drab, cardboard protagonist known as Nilin. It's this initial hour or two of teasing that sets the tone for the rest of the game as it descends into total lifeless eye-candy as far as the environment and player immersion goes.

CRACKHEADS, SECURITY GUARDS, AND THE ODD ROBOT
The bulk of the actual gameplay consists of punching and kicking insane transients, security guards of Evil Corp, and shooting the occasional robot, sometimes requiring a QTE to finish them. With minor variation to their patterns, the novelty of the fighting system wears thin rather quickly as Nilin safely dispatches the army of cannon fodder with the same handful of tactics. The other half of the gameplay consists of absolutely straightforward platforming which is frankly difficult to even elaborate on due to its simplicity; there is the occasional separate ledge to explore for all of 10 feet to grab a collectible which is about the extent of the exploration granted by this game. There are a handful of "avoid the instadeath searchlight" segments, as well as the famous Memory Remixing scenes, but both of these are so inconsequential, sporadic and brief in their execution that they barely qualify as deep mechanics. To my recollection there are a total of 4 Remixing scenes in the entire game, one of which is rehashed, and even the controls for them are rather wonky.

The irony is that the "build your own combo" mechanic, which I initially welcomed, caused its own irrelevancy as you can essentially build a single, simple combo that is effective in nearly every single circumstance. Sure, you can use less powerful combos or vary them at your pleasing to make it more visually interesting and challenging, but I think it was up to the developers to make it more engaging rather than myself by purposefully hobbling the mechanic and not taking advantage of the combo building system that they encourage you to use.

I’VE SEEN POTATO-CAM, GHETTO FIGHTS WITH BETTER CAMERWORK
I liken the camera to moving an 18th century naval cannon attached to a pivot: it is slow, limited, and downright unwieldly to readjust. Spyro the Dragon(PS1), Super Mario 64, hell, even the original Tomb Raider(I'm talking '96) gives Remember Me's camera a run for the money, at least during non-combat sections; during combat, the camera ranges from mediocre most of the time to "OMG A NORTH KOREAN PRISON CAMP SUCKS LESS THAN THIS" at its worst. Fortunately there is a center camera key bind, a relic which mostly died out around the late 90s/early 00s, and one which I found myself spamming to near nauseating effects. Even more ironic is the sad fact that simply attempting enjoy one the many gorgeous rooftop vistas of the Neo Paris skyline is a chore in and of itself as you must awkwardly attempt to drag and pan the boat anchor of a camera across the scene with your mouse as you apply far more force than should be needed for such a simple action.

LIKE A BAMBOO PLANT STUCK IN A SMALL POT
Taking inspiration from Philip K. ♥♥♥♥’s “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale(Total Recall)”, and William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” series, it employs the familiar tropes of a dystopian setting, memory tampering, generically evil corporations, and a seedy underworld of hackers/resistance fighters. Much like Neuromancer, Remember Me insists on using proprietary, techy slang to reinforce its cyberpunk cred: “Procedural Mastering Power” is XP, “Pressen” are basically combat moves, etc. I especially loved its pretentious attempts at imbuing philosophy with random Descartes quotes and Nilin periodically questioning her motives for all of 20 seconds before she immediately goes back to pummeling a battalion of security guards for the next several hours. The impression could be garnered that the developers wanted to create a very deep and introspective game yet were constrained by the fact that the publisher reminded them this is a video game needing to make a profit and that it will be sitting next to the latest Call of Duty release at Gamestop. Simply put, the game's themes do not lend themselves well to the format by which its story is forced to be told: a linear platformer and button-mashing brawler providing little time or space to elaborate on the narrative or the deep world in which it unfolds. You could say that Remember Me's narrative failure is probably the fault of the business/publisher aspect, and I would agree, but I am here to critique the game as presented and not the game it wishes it was.

SHE’S TOUGH AND SHE’S DOING STUFF?
Many people have praised the developers’ choice of protagonist as she is capable and unsexualized. This is true, she isn't sexualized...or personified for that matter. Save for some atrocious lines of dialogue like "This little red riding hood has a basketful of kickass", she seems to have very little personal motivation, nuances, or general character; she only once ethically questions her main objective for a brief moment and expresses some degree of relatable emotion during final twist(s) which are, in and of themselves, mildly predictable and fairly shallow. For the overwhelming bulk of the game she is merely a passenger to the story and rarely expresses anything other than a general and occasional sarcastic reaction to the situation.

MAN, YOU COME RIGHT OUT OF A COMIC BOOK!
Remember Me uses every cliché in the book as far as most characters, especially antagonists, are concerned. Evil CEOs gazing at the slums from the penthouse of their ivory tower as they soliloquy about how evil they are. A power tripping, fancy-cane wielding prison warden with a penchant for fine fashion and absolute control. A dramatic, body-building bounty hunter that pursues Nilin as part of a game show, replete with a rooftop cage match melee and TV cameras. These are not characters spawned from good story writing, these are anime villains. It’s especially jarring to see Nietzsche quotes on the loading screen and narrative parallels to George Orwell whilst the crooked and comically sleazy police captain enters a locker rooms and screams “OK ladies, time for a cavity search!”, like a bad Benny Hill character. Sometimes it’s charming when highbrow meets lowbrow, but this time, it’s just embarrassing.

BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENTS AND A FANTASTIC SCORE DOES NOT A GOOD GAME MAKE
Unfortunately for Remember Me, it’s a game that begs to be anything other than the derivative, button-mashing platformer that it is. The philosophically and ethically challenging concepts the writers intended to portray through the actions of the resistance hero Nilin have little room to flourish and subsequently become nothing more than window-dressing during an otherwise dull experience. There appears to be a small cult following with many fans using the words “masterpiece” and “hidden gem” in its description, to which my only retort is, “DID YOU PLAY THE SAME GAME I DID!?” I’ve even seen fans calling for a remake, but I remain skeptical as I am of the belief that that it was executed poorly enough for a single outing.