Bright Memory: Infinite Review (PS5) – A Rather Short Memory

Bright Memory: Infinite, from developer FYQD Studio, is a fast-paced action shooter that looks to combine compelling gameplay with top notch visuals. The results are stunning to say the least, but does the sum of its parts make a good game? Find out in our Bright Memory: Infinite review below.

Bright Memory: Infinite Review

BM: Infinite plops players into the apartment of Shelia, some girl who apparently works for a government group called SRO, whose aim is to protect the world I think. Shelia gets a call from Director Chen and must make her way to take out the SAI, who are out to do bad things. You then travel to some place, which has a black hole and time travel/warping and yea, that’s about the depth of the story. Forgive me if I don’t remember every single nuance of it because there really wasn’t much attention paid to story elements or character development. Basically, pretty girl, who you can give different outfits, is there to kick ass and there isn’t time in her schedule for explanation or growth or really anything other than causing death. Good guy good, bad guy bad. Now fight.

It’s unfortunate too, as the setting is ripe for an interesting story worthy of your attention. It’s just too bad that you are never given anything to really chew on. Any stoppage in the action will give you a very brief bit of talking from your boss, but it’s never enough to provide any sort of depth or clarity on the situation. Even the main bad guys just kind of show up, yell a few things, and then get right into fighting you. I honestly couldn’t even tell you why they are doing what they are doing, but dammit, they must be stopped!

Hey, at least the combat is good!

Combat really does shine in this game and you can tell it was where most of the development was focused. It is a lot of fun rushing around and switching between gun and sword mid-combo, slicing and dicing enemies into pieces. Players have a selection of up to 5 guns to cycle through and a melee sword to wield. Each gun has it’s main attack and also specialized bullets, like ones that explode, to add some nice variety to your gameplay. Oh, and you get a bionic arm that can pull people forward and suspend them in the air. As cool as the arm is, I never really found myself using it much because it only works on some of the enemies and by the time I would try, it’s just easier to shoot or slash them to death.

There are also skills you can unlock and enhance as you playthrough, but similar to the story, it’s just sort of there and not really thought out. I honestly never had to use many of the skills and enhancing my special bullets for each gun never felt like it made much difference. You can also add different attacks for your sword, but like most of the game, it often doesn’t feel needed. Sure, on the harder difficulties, it helps to use some of these extra attacks, but it was never a must. Boss fights are a good amount of fun, though they are fairly straightforward and only really present a challenge on the harder difficulties.

Combat isn’t perfect however. After you take out the last enemy in a given area, the game for some reason tries to add a slow down effect to highlight the kill. It feels extremely out of place and glitchy, killing any momentum you were gaining. There are also some weird additions to the game, like a stealth aspect only used once for less than 5 minutes in the entire game. You can also go full Mirror’s Edge up a few walls here or there, but like everything else it feels extremely under-utilized.

Bright Memory Infinite Review: Final Verdict

Bright Memory: Infinite feels like a tech demo someone made just to prove they could do it. It’s not a bad game, in fact it looks and feels great to play. It just doesn’t feel like a completed game, as you will reach the credits before the 2 hour mark. Sure, short games aren’t a bad thing, hell Journey was awesome. However, as I completed BM: Infinite, it left me feeling rather confused at what just happened and why it just abruptly stopped. The length is made a bigger issue by the lack of nuance in all the other aspects of the game. Lots of flash and sizzle, with no lasting impression and very little depth. It’s a bummer really, because with just a little more time paid to the story, characters, extending the game just a few more hours, and adding some location variation, this could have been so much more. I commend the developer for putting together a good looking game with solid combat, but it’s hard to recommend shelling out money to play this.