Bright Memory: Infinite PC Review

Bright Memory: Infinite is like playing through a 90s action film with lots of explosions, bad guys to kill, and a basic story to wrap everything together. It's a short arena-style FPS that provides high-budget looks and boss fights to match. There are some technical issues but Bright Memory: Infinite delivers what it sets out to accomplish and doesn't try to be more than it is.

Bright Memory: Infinite stars Shelia, a supersoldier sent to observe abnormal weather that turns out to be a black hole that is ripping parts of the Earth up. The narrative doesn't attempt to explain much and just continues to move forward, whatever you see is as much information as you're going to get. There are no collectables to expand on anything and you're told to stop someone named General Lin as you're directed by Director Chen. With ancient humans being brought back to life and parts of the planet hovering in the air.

Bright Memory: Infinite focuses on arena-style combat, each area is designed to complement the high-pace style of Shelia's fighting style. Using her power unit Shelia can move faster than bullets and has access to specialized attacks powered up through relics found in the environment or defeating ancient soldiers risen from the dead. Shelia's primary weapons include an arsenal of guns such as an assault rifle, pistol, automatic shotgun, and sniper rifle. Each one has specific attachments and 1 unique ammo type that has its own ammo count. They shoot well and the developers did an outstanding job of ensuring the player is in constant control regardless of how fast you're moving. There's never really a situation that calls for 1 weapon over another and the game provides plenty of ammo during each encounter so running out of ammo is never an issue.

Shelia's next primary weapon is her sword. This sword can slice enemies with each other and destroy armor more efficiently. Most importantly it can be used to parry melee attacks and deflect bullets back at enemies with proper timing. The game is lenient with the window of opportunity but on harder difficulties, you'll need to master the parry system. This combined with the great selection of guns means making mincemeat of your targets so it's recommended you play on Revenge difficulty if you want a more challenging experience.

Bright Memory: Infinite does support a controller but it's ideal to play with a mouse and keyboard. The reason being when holding down the sights the game will sometimes lock you in this position requiring you to tap the trigger. This isn't a problem when using a mouse and I tried 3 different Xbox controllers that each had the same issue. 

Relics serve as the game's leveling system, with these giving access to Shelia's other abilities. Whereas you get the weapons through progression Shelia's skills are locked behind these skills gates. You can power them up to level 3 and this also goes for specialized ammo for weapons. You'll need to play through the game at least twice to get everything and thanks to New Game Plus all progression is tracked and carries over, even if you start mid-game. It's all a matter of preference but the skills provided give Shelia god-like abilities such as a rocket punch that takes a while to charge but burns everyone once executed. There's always a tradeoff with most being left open to attack during a charge or after the execution.

The shooting and melee combat does encourage fast-paced gameplay, with Shelia's health being tied to a regenerative shield and health bar, the reloading takes some time to get used to. Reloading your gun takes a noticeably long time, especially with the shotgun and any action made during the animation cancels the action. It makes sense that Shelia cannot reload and use her blade but the reloading animations could've been a bit shorter to maintain the game's high speed. This also plays into picking up ammo that requires a button input, to maintain the game's speed this should've been automatic. Another quality-of-life improvement would've been having all your guns reload after a fight instead of having to cycle through them and do it manually.

Bright Memory: Infinite does attempt to mix up the action by offering a stealth level that removes access to the power unit and another driving sequence. These are adequate in breaking up the action but don't do much to enhance the experience. The stealth section in particular was just tedious as you wait for the enemy to turn their back, kill them, and move on.

The mobility system provides enough freedom for the player to experiment with the tools provided. Sliding, dashing, double jumping, and wall running are available but wall-running is rarely used outside of platforming. This is due to its slow nature leaving you vulnerable to attack.

Bright Memory: Infinite is not free from technical issues. Text sometimes remains present on the screen and the NPCs can act strangely at times. During the stealth sequence, I was spotted, regained my stealth position, but an NPC continued to try and shoot me. The game wouldn't allow it so the NPC just yelled, threw grenades, and tried to shoot me as I just continued forward. None of them are game-breaking and some were funny.

In terms of presentation and atmosphere Bright Memory: Infinite has the quality of a AAA game. The constant flurry of rain combined with the fast need to stop what is happening is never lost. The musical score keeps things filled with adrenaline and the boss fights are extraordinary affairs against well-designed creatures. It's a beautiful game and the voice acting is also surprisingly good. The only problem with the visuals is Shelia's emotionless face but considering the small team, it's understandable. If you want to skip the cutscenes unfortunately you cannot and even have to replay the tutorial sections which can be annoying.

Once you complete the game you can replay it with all your unlocked skills and weapons on harder difficulties. There's no horde mode, which this game would've benefited from. There are optional costumes and skills to earn that put Shelia in new outfits but the game is intended to play like a speedrun title. With grades provided based on your performance at the end of the game.

Bright Memory: Infinite is impressive for such a small team. The presentation and visual design match and depending on the game surpass AAA quality. The fast-paced combat captures many of the positive elements found in arena-style shooters. It's a short game, taking about 1-hour to complete depending on skill level but provides a thrilling adventure that you'll want to come back to. The small issues that halt the experience can be annoying such as the slow reloading and inability to skip cutscenes but these are minor problems. Bright Memory: Infinite is a terrific shooter that delivers that high-octane sense of speed and precision fans of arena shooters love.
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed