Games need to start coming out again, ASAP. I’ve been looking for stuff to play, and I’m kind of just drawing a blank as far as new stuff to play. So I kinda have to go… experimental.

So anyways I had Bright Memory: Infinite on my Steam wishlist for a while. I saw it was discounted. I knew it was a short game, but I figured it would at least give me something to do for one evening. And yeah that prediction was pretty good considering I not only finished the game but wrote this review in the same evening!

So let’s go and talk about this one… very quickly.

Developer: FYQD Studio
Publisher: Playism
Release date: November 11, 2021
Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbone (PC version reviewed)
Genre: FPS

Review

There’s hardly a story here. You play as Shelia, who I guess works for some government or something as an agent of sorts who does… stuff. Her newest mission brings her to someplace where there’s a black hole opening, sucking in rocks and planes. You gotta go forward, kill bad guys, and stop whatever this black hole thing is from happening. REALLY not a game you’ll play for the story. It’s shorter than the average movie, and since it’s so gameplay-focused, there’s hardly time to even develop a story. It DOES end on a pretty fun cliffhanger that will never get resolved though!

I will talk about the PC performance, which was basically perfect. With my 3700X/3060Ti, I was running this at 1440p, 180fps average. Fairly stable, sometimes it would drop as low as 150fps, sometimes it would go up as high as 220fps. I had my settings pretty high (though I had Raytracing off) and DLSS on Quality mode. I even have to compliment something I rarely compliment, that being the textures. They’re actually great. Like, for most games textures will look fine-ish until you start zooming in on shit, even with textures set to high. This game though? You DO see a slight lowering of quality on zoom-in, but it’s not too bad. The effects look great, the lighting is amazing, and this game looks really good. The only part I noticed something to dock it for is when Shelia is swimming in a very early scene, there’s not much going on with the water physics.

This is a fast-paced FPS game. It doesn’t have particularly complicated mechanics. Shoot, aim for more precise shooting, you know the stuff. You get 4 weapons total. A full-auto rifle, a shotgun, a full-auto pistol, and a sniper rifle. Each gun also has special ammo to make them broken as shit. The rifle shoots a ton of small homing missiles, the shotgun basically sets things on fire, the pistol shoots a really powerful rocket that kills even elite enemies in a hit or two and the sniper shoots a sticky grenade that fucks shit up too (kills enemies with riot shields in one hit, for example). You have limited ammo for those special shots, but there’s a decent amount of it all over the place.

But shooting things isn’t all you’ll be doing. Shelia can run, slide, wall run, and double jump as her pretty normal abilities, as well as dash in any direction (if you’re not running). But that’s not it, because she’s got a sword, and her left arm allows her to do some psychic-like things.  The sword can cut shit close-up and deals a pretty solid amount of damage, and you can launch enemies too. Any way you launch enemies causes them to slow down in the air so you can pump them full of lead. The other way to launch enemies is with the psychic-like thing, where you can force push them to have them float in the air a bit. Both the sword and arm have different features if you hold their button. For the sword it’s the launch attack, for the arm it’s a force pull rather than a force push (though the force pull is also used to blow up enemies when they get close to you, dealing damage in addition to making the enemies float).

Killing elite enemies, finding these jade statues, and breaking boxes gives you points that you can use to upgrade your abilities. The sword and the arm get 2 extra skills. Each gets one skill you can use while sprinting, and one skill you can use while jumping. These are quite strong, especially the jumping ones. Each ability, as well as every special ammo, has 3 upgrades, which basically boost their damage and/or range. Very nice. You’ll likely have most of the abilities fully upgraded by the end of the game.

I will quickly talk about the combat design though it’s obviously pretty straightforward. Some enemies have no HP bar and die very quickly, there are enemies with an HP bar that die faster but are heavily susceptible to your arm powers, and there are enemies with a white shield meter above their HP which require dropping the shield down before you can start damaging their HP. Some enemies are ranged, and some are melee-based. Either way, you can block some incoming damage by holding the block button, but you can also parry the damage completely by timing the block as the attack hits you. This is great for shield enemies as it causes shield damage and gives you extra time to shoot/slash the enemy. Of course, you do have the special ammo, which just wrecks every enemy type. Also, there are a few bosses, they’re pretty cool. Combat overall is all about parrying what you can, using your tools to deal with enemies correctly, and being observant.

The game isn’t very difficult at all. I had 10 deaths, though some were me being dumb and thinking I could drop down places I couldn’t. If you’re not careful you can die fast (though waiting long enough regens your HP), but using all your tools correctly should deal with enemies pretty easily. With how strong the special ammo is, you can really fuck enemies up. That said, there are many difficulty levels, so if that first playthrough was too easy… play it again. After all…

It’s short. My first playthrough took me 1 hour, 27 minutes, and 46 seconds. This is NOT a long game. It’s just going through a bunch of pretty cool combat scenarios, and suddenly the game is over. It’s pretty surprising though how good this is considering how short it is. There’s actually a good variety of enemy types (some get introduced even pretty far into the game), and the fact that there’s a pretty well-designed upgrade system too and fun, well-designed abilities… the fact that it’s short kinda doesn’t bother me. Also, there’s a stealth segment that is… eh. As well as a car level that’s not too bad.

Overall

Bright Memory: Infinite is super fun. It’s a fast-paced, exciting, well-designed, really fun game. It was so good that I felt it was just the start of a game when I finished it less than 2 hours later, ready to start the second level… which unfortunately doesn’t happen. This game is short as fuck, but man is it a blast the whole way through. Also, it performs amazingly and looks awesome. I legitimately hope there’s a sequel that expands on the mechanics and lasts more than 2 hours.

Despite it being EVEN SHORTER than Shadow Warrior 3, it is also a considerably better game with guns that feel better, melee attacks that feel better, and overall just a more enjoyable gameplay design. If a game is short, it should leave me wanting more and incentivize me to replay it with super-fun gameplay design. Bright Memory: Infinite did that, while SW3 did not.

If I have any complaints other than the length (which tbh isn’t a problem), it would be the fact that it starts with a QTE and ends with a QTE. There are basically no QTEs for the rest of the game, so it’s kinda weird. Also, the stealth segment is not great (but very short). That’s about it.

I was thinking I would play it, finish it under 2 hours, and get it refunded since Steam will just let you do that… Nah. I’m keeping it. I may play it again, why not!

Yeah, I do recommend this game. I think it’s a bit much to ask for most people (due to people caring a lot about length), even at the current discount, but it’s certainly a game you’ll enjoy if you pick it up.