The Story:
Hey, it's your lucky day and you receive an amazing book that details EVERYTHING that has ever happened in your avatar's life. I mean everything. You soon find that if you rewrite parts of it you can actually change the way your history played out. You just have to deal with the nightmares and real horrors of the past to get your ideal future.
Hated:
Let's start off with how repetitive the game play is. Each 'zone' is pretty much comprised of a bunch of different rooms to explore, some filled with monsters, some filled with loot, and some with just story type elements. You move from room to room completing one overall major quest while searching for puzzle pieces to exit the zone. Once you've found the puzzle pieces you can go to the exit where you are required to solve one giant puzzle. The only real break from this is that every three or so 'zones' you are met with a boss fight to end the chapter you are rewriting. Rinse. Repeat.
There just doesn't seem like any kind of variety here. Granted that is the case in most games if you really think about it, but there just wasn't a feel that made it seem not the case. I'll give the benefit that this was an attempt at something a bit new for the franchise, but it just didn't feel executed the right way. It really made me want to stop playing and pick up another game for a bit so I wanted to continue playing SH: BoM. Not the best way to implement.
Speaking of implementation of things. I could have sworn we were at a place in technology to where we could all but eliminate load screens or get them down to a few seconds. Not the case with Book of Memories. I found myself waiting too long between zones and each 'zone' doesn't even load all that much into memory. Or at least it seems from what is shown in game. In one instance I was able to play a level of Plants Vs. Zombies in the time it took to load the level. Way too long. When that mixes with the above I quickly get to the point of should I beat this zone now or come back when I have more time?
Loved:
In general, I enjoyed the overall story of the game. I rather enjoy those timeline breaking stories where the protagonist has total control or at least the resemblance of it. Who wouldn't want to re-write their past in some aspect? This could just be a guilty pleasure of mine as I am one of the few who rather enjoyed The Butterfly Effect as well. But all that aside, and still trying to stay spoiler free, I loved the story just as I did most of the others in the Silent Hill franchise.
Another fun deviation that I enjoyed was the RPG element mixed into the game. Leveling up, altering my stats with each level, and adding on artifacts to boost those attributes was just as fun as with DnD. Granted there was a bit of min-maxing that could be done based on play skill and style, but that is the case with almost every game like this. Either way, it was nice to have this added in as I may rely more on my strength and speed more than what fueled my supernatural abilities. I mean why would I raise my Intelligence when I could focus on Strength that I used every time I took a swing.
Lastly, as I am only able to cover single player currently, the combat. It keeps the action part that I've always enjoyed and adds the fun of dual wielding mapped to different controls. Not only that, but it definitely forces you to keep an eye on weapon degradation for each weapon as well as focus to mix it up. Given that the overall game was a bit repetitive, it was a good mixer to keep my attentions elsewhere so I could focus on some good old fashion monster murdering in the lands of Silent Hill. Either way, it was another one of the shining points of the game.
Overview:
In the end is Silent Hill: Book Of Memories going to win game of the year; most likely not. But it is a great reason to pick back up the PS Vita that some of us picked up earlier this year. It also shows that the minds behind the franchise are at least looking into new concepts and trying to push the franchise forward. If anything I would say it was worth the time I invested into the game, even though some of it was spent waiting to get to play. If you have the funds and enjoy the franchise, do yourself a favor and give it a go. There is a demo out there for those on the fence, if you still don't trust my words and want to give things whirl.
Silent Hill: Book Of Memories was developed by WayForward Technologies and published by Konami for the PS Vita on October 16th 2012. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
