People tend to get anxious about the future, and too involved in the present, while rarely mindful of the past.
Some Distant Memory is a game focused on the past, and in this case, you don’t need a sword to travel to it.
Humanity’s done for. It’s the apocalypse, after all, it’s part of the package. Some 300 years ago, an event known as the Collapse spelled the end for humanity, with only a small portion left on the fringes of ruined society.
In Some Distant Memory, you play as Professor Zay, an archeologist devoted to discovering what humanity left behind as you make your way to the sunken city of Houston. Helping you is ARORA, an AI that can recreate human memories from abandoned relics, your main way of navigating the story. Nearly everything can be scanned, but it’s up to the player to be able to make sense of what they’re shown.
The game is story-based, with much of your time spent recreating memories, and subsequently analyzing them trying to piece things together about the past lives before they were ruined. A single house serves as a major setting; you’ll need to look through journals, pictures, and more to find out what happened, and not just to this singular family, but what led to the Collapse in the first place.
More and more story-based games come out by the day, and since the lack the explosive action most games usually do, they make up for it with having the story be memorable and engaging, and that’s what Some Distant Memory offers. Whether it’s reviewing the first kiss of a pair of lovers, or discovering an old video game buried beneath the rock, Some Distant Memory takes you on an introspective journey of remembrance, love, loss, relationships, and honoring those who came before.
But all isn’t soothing instrumentals and marveling at the game’s beautiful hand-drawn style. Something had to happen to trigger the Collapse, and if the cryptic, haunting, red-tinged mantra of “I have to start over!” is any indication, history could be on the verge of repeating itself…
Some Distant Memory comes out on Nintendo Switch and Steam November 14th, 2019.
