In recent years, the first-person shooter segment has been in serious decline. The genre, which previously numbered a dozen releases a year without any problems, today is able to offer only rare numbered parts from its largest representatives. And it becomes doubly sad when the brightest event in the genre is not the release of a new major hit, but the release of a forty-minute game made by one person in his free time.
Such an event in 2019 was the premiere Bright memory from a Chinese developer with the nickname FYQD for personal computers. With the arrival of a new generation of consoles Microsoft announced the release of the sequel – Bright Memory: Infinite on Xbox Series X | S – and at the same time released the first part on new consoles, which we will talk about today.
First of all, yes, you read the introduction correctly – the game really takes one hour. This duration is due, of course, to the limited resources and generally any funding for development. All this is important to understand and remember when evaluating Bright Memory.
So, we are thrown straight into the gameplay without any introduction. Our heroine is Shelia, a mercenary, attracted by a certain scientific organization, so as not to give another organization, already a military one, to take possession of the ancient mystical forces. It is not worth going into the details of the plot, firstly, because of its general insignificance within the framework of the game, and secondly, given the extremely short duration, you will not be able to dive into it with all your might. To be honest, while writing this paragraph, I had to go to Wikipedia for key details.
Much more important is how the gameplay is. The developer himself understood this, because if it is assumed that it will take very little time to complete the shooter, then all elements of the gameplay should be clearly dosed and appropriate. And just with this, the game has no problems. Here we are surrounded by enemies in a closed arena, here is the platforming stage, here is a simple puzzle that will not take much time to solve, and then a boss battle and an escape episode. At the same time, the developer did not forget to hang meat on the basic skeleton from game mechanics, albeit a little.
We have three types of firearms at our disposal – a pistol, a submachine gun and a shotgun, as well as a sword (which, however, has the ability to conduct combat at medium distances) and several abilities that affect the heroine’s mobility, such as double jump and side sliding. At the same time, the shooting is very pleasant. The closest analogue is the Titanfall series, the feeling of gunfights is very similar.
