Beneath the gimicks, there lies a very fun and addicting ARPG.
Sillent Hill: Book of Memories is a game that sounds awesome on paper, but somewhere on the road to realization something seems to have gone wrong. Even at that, though, Book of Memories is good fun. I don't regret buying it or spending time with it, in fact - I'm currently eagerly writing this review, while waiting my Vita to recharge, so I may continue my endless demon-slaughter.
In it's core, Book of Memories is a Action-RPG Dungeon Crawler. The game often feels like a graphical mod of a Diablo or Neverwinter Nights game.
The story revolves around a character you create. The character creation options are not a lot, but are satisfactory. You will find a lot of cool customization items along your demon-slaying jihad.
The story is very convoluted. It's told not much through cutscenes, but rather through audio logs and notes, scattered around the levels. Notes you simply pick up, but the Audio Logs are very easy to miss - they are available at certain rooms, after clearing out all the enemies in the room. The story is quite cryptic, however I do sense that it's not a bad story - just a badly told one. Some Silent Hill fans might dislike the plot, but I did not mind it. After all, it is an ARPG - it's the addicting action that matters here.
The game looks nice, but most new designs (not SH) look bland. From time to time, there is a very eerie feeling accompanying you in your quest. Monsters look gross and disgusting as per usual with the theme. Sound effects and voice acting are ok, the soundtrack is fitting of the game.
Gameplay is very satisfying and addicting. It mainly consists of the famous dungeon-crawler formula - go in, beat stuff up, level up, boss, loot, shop, repeat. Notable are the facts that the game offers only use-based items (ammo, medkits), relics (items that permanently raise stats) and weapons (which have very low durability, so you have to switch often) to the player . Clothes and accessories are only cosmetic. The worst of the gampelay is the Karma system, which is never explained well. It has to do with choosing the direction in which the story should progress - as in good or evil, but the missions provided themselves contradict the choice you want to make. One might argue that that was the idea, however in the long run - it just isn't fair. The Karma meter also has something to do with the powers you have, but neither the powers, nor the effects, are explained well either. Also, at the end of each stage, a puzzle will have to be solved. This puzzle is the same, every time, just with a slight variation. It's extremely pointless and annoying, but it's equally easy to do and not notice. Beyond the sins of not explaining itself well, being grindy and, rarely, a bit buggy, the demon-slaying is fun and challenging, therefore I didn't care to notice minor annoyances. The biggest problems that this game has are the constant need of changing your weapons - the idea of durability just seems like a needless addition, and the frequent difficulty spikes. When these two are combined, as in - when you encounter a needlessly hard enemy AND your most useful weapon breaks, it is almost gamebreaking. This is this game's biggest sin.
Overall, Silent Hill: Book of Memories has a lot of potential that it doesn't live up to. It's not a good game, but it's not a bad one either.. I found that the game was well worth the time and money - it's fun, addicting; easy to learn and interesting, even though a bit unfair. A bit creepy, a bit buggy, a tad scrambled, but fun none the less, Book of Memories gets a recommendation from me. It might be the weakest WayForward game, published by Konami no less, but this combination is precisely what you can expect - it's fun, yet disgusting at the same time.Read full review
