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Always Remember Me is a nice dating sim, starring a female protagonist. As those familiar with the genre would expect, after a brief set of introductory events the game gives you nearly complete freedom of what to do and whom to meet. There are only four potential romantic partners, though they are fairly well-detailed and likable. Protagonist herself, Amy also gets a lot of characterization rather than just being a stand-in for the player. And your every action, successful or not, gets a description of how it went, done in Amy’s quirky style! Also as expected of a dating sim, your character has several stats, and doing your daily job for money as well as variety of activities to increase one or more stat is integral part of the gameplay. Storytelling-wise, there are some lovely moments, but nothing truly touched me as some moments in other visual novels and dating sims did. Overall, I enjoyed the story well enough, although I wouldn’t call it that great either. I can recommend Always Remember Me to all fans of dating sims. And those unfamiliar with this genre but interested in a nice casual game may consider giving it a try as well.
I wanted to recommend this game. But seriously… I can’t. The art style is pretty, the backgrounds were also pretty.. But the characters lack emotions and personality. Everything is just.. Plain. Simple. Waaaay too simple… The story itself was kinda cliché but I tried to give it a chance. I regret my previous decision… There are irrelevant characters (like Amy’s aunt), and to be honest, it’s all about status raising. I’m not a fan myself of games like that but depending on the stories, characters and events, it can be done right. But Always Remember Me lacks ALL THAT. The events (where you know, you can actually interact with the character you want to date) are so short and they happen so rarely. And they are just.. Bad. Too simple. You can’t feel a connection between the characters. The endings, both normal and special, are too fast and… Meh. I honestly cleared the whole game just because I wanted all the achievements. :-/ Oh, and there’s the music. It’s not bad, honestly. But it plays so often and SO LOUD that it pierces my ears and makes my brain scream in agony. Also the instrumental version (or whatever version that suddenly plays when you’re going to the icecream shop) sounds so out of place. Makes no sense, I don’t know how to explain… And the main song keeps playing over and over, at weird times and… Jesus. What a mess. 3/10. I only gave 3 points because the art style, like I said, is actually pretty. This could have been a good or at least decent game, but unfortunately… It isn’t. It’s bad. Ain’t worth even on sale.
Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened ~T.S. Eliot This is the first visual novel that I've played from Winter Wolves, and I must say that I'm not impressed. Always Remember Me is an otome game with a somewhat ordinary concept, annoyingly stereotypical characters, suicidally repetitive choice actions and a scarcity of events about the main story to keep you interested. At this point, I must confess that I've completed my first playthrough quite easily and gave in a reaction of "seriously?" at the first ending that I've discovered. During my second playthrough... I got bored and wandered off to do something else, forgetting the game running. When I remembered that I was playing the game, I came back and gave in 2 more hours of the gameplay to collect the missing achievements - a.k.a. fast-forwarded through some repetitive actions and only read event dialogues. Thus, my gaming time. Let me introduce you to Amarantha - called as Amy by friends - literature student, part time worker in an ice-cream parlor and a boringly plain young woman that you could define in 3 adjectives completely: fickle, stereotypical and automated. At the start of our gameplay, Amy has a motorcycle accident alongside her boyfriend Aaron - which fills in the young, rich and handsome stereotype. Amy survives with some moderate wounds but alongside a slight concussion, Aaron now has amnesia. He doesn't remember a thing about Amy. At this point, it is up to us to either patiently wait by our amnesiac boyfriend to help him regain his memories or run after a limited selection of other handsome young man who might become equally interested with us - namely Lawrence, Eddie and Hugh; appropriately filling in the shy cutie, the workaholic overachiever and the charming artist stereotypes in that order. So... As you may observe, our heroine hypothetically overcomes the trauma of losing "the love of her life" quite easily. She - and any other cute boy that she may end up with - are written really badly. They all consist of stereotypes with shallow reactions, superficial dialogue options and boringly unimaginative personalities. One could claim that I shouldn't expect much literary narrative or originality from an otome game to begin with, but without the visual novel quality of an interesting story or interesting enough characters - or at least decent narrative - I most certainly see no reason to spare my time specifically to experience a couple cute pictures of pretty anime characters kissing and some really lame dialogue note at the side. Sorry, but this is what the game eventually ends up being so. For the gameplay: you have 4 romance options, 4 stats that you can raise through completing more or less the same actions for a period of 3 months. Each stat concerns one of the romance option as a target. You wake up, work in the parlor, visit the romance option, raise stats with a limited selection of actions, sleep and repeat. Oh, and once in a while you stumble upon an event where you'll get a relationship raise if you are to choose the right one in the dialogue options. Eventually, you hit an ending for the boy that you picked, witness a cheesy "happily ever after" scene and carry on. Nothing else. No surprise factor, no real challenge, no in-depth story. Nothing. You repeat the same action for the millionth time while getting harassed by the endless repetition of the same 8 note soundtrack to be rewarded by a cute picture and 3-4 sentences telling how happy you ended up. Brilliant. Many would blame me to already know what I would get myself involved with when I picked an otome game to play, but with games from Cheritz or Hanako Games of the same genre in the market, you really should skip this if you are not getting it in a bundle, like super cheap. Else, consistently avoid this one to enjoy another VN or otome with more imaginative gameplay or at least better character concepts and/or story. Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page here [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ladystoryteller#curation] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!
I had been debating over getting this game for a while and I must say I'm disappointed. The endings seem to come out of nowhere and there aren't enough big plot points to make up for how much skill grinding it takes to reach the ending. I really wish there was more focus on the growing relationship with the character and whomever they pick.
This is an... interesting game. It seems to be one of Winter Wolves's earlier efforts, as it is slightly unpolished (compared to more recent titles). The plot is decent enough, as your character Amarantha (Amy) has just been in an accident with her boyfriend Aaron. Aaron protected her from most of the impact, at the cost of amnesia. Amnesia that wiped most of the last few years from his mind... including your relationship. Do you stick by him, or do you fall for someone else? (Think "While You Were Sleeping", except you actually were in the relationship.) I was unsure about this game for a while, but finally decided to try it, as Winter Wolves make some great visual novels. But I think this is a decent enough game to buy (though maybe wait until it is discounted). Also, note that it has a sequel "Never Forget Me", which likely makes the "Happily Ever Afters" of this game a bit... premature.
Pros: -nice art Cons: -steep price for what it is ($19 for deluxe) -dull "gameplay" -really poor writing -music not especially gripping -much more of a visual novel than sim game. I'm not a dating sim person, I bought this to play along with a friend on twitch.tv who's into these kinds of games. That said, I came into this with an open mind, but unfortunately I just can't see any redeeming qualities here. The writing is flat out terrible, very amature level stuff. The music is pretty bland (and I paid extra for the soundtrack) and the gameplay is DULL (if you can even call it gameplay). It's more of a click-and-read-along story, and occiasionally you get to specify what activity you want to do, with apparently random results that require no action or effort from the player. I'm not opposed to dating sims by any stretch, but if you want to build relationships within a game, companies like Tell Tale and BioWare did it much better. And while I realize those aren't exactly apples-to-apples comparisons, I think it's fair to demand better writing and character interaction from a game that is essentially 100% text based, and maybe expect just a little more to engage the player rather than occasionally clicking a choice here and there. I'm sure I'm not the original intended demographic for the game, but I like to think I'm objective enough, and sadly that's the best I can say about this. That said, I'm sure many will enjoy this game for what it is, and that's fine. I hope this information is useful.
This game has its flaws, but if you can look past them it's a nice playing experience. Great art, nice characters, dramatic, but realistic enough backstory and 9 different kind of endings (if you count 'alone' ending to be one). Music is also nice, but for my taste maybe a little too repetitive. After all, it's a really beautiful and kind of cute game. How ever there is a big problem with this game. After a little while playing it really starts to repeat itself, like REALLY repeat. When you become familiar with how all of it works you're just basicly waiting for some random events to trigger and your friendship to increase with your chosen character. Also you have to know who you are going after from the day one in this game. Otherwise you'll just run out of time and end up getting alone ending. I can't say much about endings, because I haven't played all of them yet. But from what I've seen... they're not that strong and feel kind of flat. But well, after all I still must say that it's okey game. I've played better visual novels before, but can't really say it's bad either. If you like visual novels then I'd say give it a try.
A pretty nice decent dating sim with pretty cute artwork. The story is a neat premise, the main character's boyfriend has amnesia so she can either stick it out with him or pursue three other dudes. The characters themselves aren't annoying, but they don't really stick out that much either. That's unfortunately because you don't actually get to see most of their personality unless you pursue them as a love interest and even then you only get a few choice-related events with them. Then again, maybe it was meant to be that way since they're suppose to be simple characters and not soap opera cliche characters. Although, its neat how the game incorporates morale and energy levels in it, and its pretty simple to figure out how to best balance out those stats. As far as this review goes, I've only played through Aaron's and Lawrences's normal and special endings. Aaron's special ending was the only ending from those four that had a smooth transition for its end relationship. The other four endings just pop up abruptly once you max out the guys' love meters, almost as if they were an after-thought in the story designing process. And I'm unsure if those endings take place right there or later on in the future. Don't get me wrong, I still had fun playing the game, but those ending transitions needs a bit of work. I'd recommend picking the game up when its on sale if you want a nice short dating sim.
The game is really repetitive in terms of action without enough actual dialogs and scenes to be a proper visual novel. There aren't really any choices to make during the game but one, straight from the beginning: who to date? And the choice is given at the beginning, before the actual start of the game, as long as the key attribute to level to get to the "special ending" that is not brought really step by step, just comes from "It's nice to visit" to "we'll spend the rest of our life together" in a blink. I'd pay a few euros to play the game, but for this price, it is disappointing.
Always Remember Me is less a VN than a stats sim. You spend a ton of time grinding through simple, repetitive actions only to get a few snippets of story that are maybe a few sentences long each, and are typically about something utterly mundane. With so little writing, there's no time to get invested in the characters, or even learn much about them at all.
Pretty good game Pros: -Cute artstyle -Variety of guys -Different tasks throughout the city -Stats to level up Cons: -Sometimes the dialogue choices can be a little confusing (Which one to pick for positive outcome) -Having to play through the same guy for different endings (Usually like that in a lot of dating sim games imo tho) Cute game to feel good about doctor is best girl
If you love skipping inane dialogue and clicking the same activities hundreds of times just to get a miserably unsatisfying ending, this is the game for you. If you want an actual visual "novel" with, like, writing that doesn't repeat itself a trillion times and has the same quality as a Newgrounds flash game (not an exaggeration in the least), maybe with voice acting or decent music or meaningful event sequences, maybe even some animation--forget it, it's not there. Don't be sucked in by the good premise. It goes absolutely nowhere. I love VNs and I love story-based games, and dating sims can be done well. There's almost no writing, and all of it is atrocious. Nothing works. The art never changes, the activities don't change, the events repeat hundreds of times, and reaching an ending is nothing more than repeating the same actions over and over and over again. It's not fun, and it doesn't lead to anything interesting at any point. Not even Cristina Vee singing the game's theme song can save it. The best part of the game is the title screen and the intro. Beyond that, don't expect anything better. I'm serious, I'm super-forgiving when it comes to this, but this is absolutely no deeper than a standard flash game. There's about as much dialogue and content as there.
I would not recommend this game at full price. Maybe on sale. It was terribly repetitive. Very grindy. The mechanic, once figured out, is so simple it is easy to find all the "hidden" scenes. Maybe, just maybe if you were new to dating sim games and had no idea....it might be fun for more than an hour. The story was so full of common themes and tropes, the cup runneth over. Amnesia, no parents for the main character, the back-stabbing ex. It was all just so predictable. Not much imagination went into the art either. It was quite typical. There were several times when characters were having an important scene that the camera was focused on some irrelevant part of ONE picture. That is right, you work several hours just to get to a pan of one picture at the end. Or in the middle of a defining moment of dialouge the focus stays on a character...who isn't even speaking. A lot more care could have been taken with this. I mean this is supposed to be a heart-string-pulling anime inspired romance. How are you supposed to have your heart-strings pulled on with no character face to pull emotion from. It was very disappointing. In the end I played through all the endings just to see them. But I wouldn't even invite my friends over to try this one.
Enjoyable gameplay and a very sweet story! The flags needed for each character are made clear at the beginning, so it's very simple to romance whomever you've decided (but really everyone should be picking Aaron anyways ;D ). The art and music are also very well done. As others have mentioned, your actions do get a little repetitive once you figure out what works best, but it didn't bother me. On a side note, I'm happy to see that more people are starting to release romance games on Steam!
After finishing the main guy's route, I didn't feel compelled to continue playing any of the other routes. It felt bland, uninspired and didn't leave much of an impression on me. It's superficial at best and it's all about stat raising and not enough story. Though the art looks well done it's additionally let down by the UI which I firmly disliked and didn't allow me to fully immerse myself in it. Everything is cookie-cutter and failed to employ cliches effectively and I won't be looking forward to any Winter Wolves games in the future.
I keep forgetting to write a review for this because, despite the title, it's Always Forget About This Empty Game. I'll summarize it using my notes from finishing the game's routes back then. If you want something short, sweet, but ultimately meaningless: Go for this game. If you want a more substantial VN/stat-raising game, go for something like Backstage Pass. Always Remember Me was nice on a shallow end, but ultimately not something I'd ever touch again unless it was simply to bust out the last achievement I failed to get for completion's sake, and I honestly don't feel it's worth it. During earlier days when there was almost nothing substantial or worthwhile for otome game lovers to play, this was an option. I simply don't think it's worth it anymore when there's infinitely better things to play these days, and I felt like I'd wasted my time even before that. There's some cute elements to this game, and one surprising one - I was surprised by the stalker subplot, but it's so tiny it hardly bears being called a subplot, and it could've been handled in a much more interesting way. TL;DR: Do not recommend. There's better stuff out there, and unless the sequel to this game that just game out is a SIGNIFICANT improvement, there's no point in peeking at this one.
I enjoyed this vn/otome..but there were some major flaws that made it all just feel a little lacking. The ending was the biggest flaw. I got both the special and normal ending for Eddy and I felt zero difference between the two. There also was absolutely no build up to the ending. The male characters just sort of eventually confess to Amy, with not much having happened between them since this game focuses just a little, little too much on stat building...and then the player is left a little confused as to whether or not Amy is actually dating the love interest (because even if a different guy confesses to hear and she says something like "I think I have feelings for you, too", she still visits her boyfriend with Amnesia at the hospital and gets upset when his ex girlfriend is there). After that, once you either fill the 'love meter' or play up until the 'deadline', it just skips straight to a short ending scene with your hubby without any build up or conflict in the story (besides the whole amnesia storyline). Despite all of this, I did very much like three of the love interests. The boyfriend with amnesia was a little too plain to be so much trouble for my tastes..but these bishies were still interesting and the sort that plenty of people can get attached to (such as myself). Amy, the heroine, is also very likable and the game has fantastic artwork (not to mention a fairly nice soundtrack which I better liked by purchasing the deluxe edition of the game). All in all, not the greatest otome and it didn't handle the stat building particularily well (and I think the new game Backstage Pass did a better job of that..), but it was cute and charming. It just is NOT the sort of thing if you've played a lot of visual novels or otome games. There's very little text and it's mostly stat building (which is great if you prefer it that way..I just am used to reading a lot and making tough decisions in my vn's and otomes).
What if the person you planned to spend the rest of your life with suddenly, abruptly, really soon like, forgot who you are because of a car accident? Same here, I don’t have no money for doctor bills. It’s time to dump em’ and find a new squeeze. You play as this red head chick who is hella randy and it is your job to make her experience “true love.” That’s right guys, no knockers, no hooters, no lady berries, and no love buttons. This chick keeps her shirt on the whole time and the guys don’t pressure her to put out. Not only does this take away from the realism (‘cause the libido of anime dudes IS real) but one potential love interest is a shy guy with glasses. THE SHY GUY WITH GLASSES DOES NOT GET FRIEND ZONED BY DEFAULT. I couldn’t believe it either. I did everything in my power to put this fool in his place, but then I… fell in love with him. His long hair glistened in the sun and this was accentuated by his inability to shower because his hair retained its natural oils. When his baggy bloodshot eyes met mine I looked away of course. When I looked back to see if he was still staring at me, he was. It was like his eyes never left me. That he would never leave me. This game completes me. 10/10
As a huge fan of dating sims, I've already experienced many different types of Otome Games / Visual Novels and yet, I have to say that I was quite disappointed by Always Remember Me. I had some expectations before playing this game since the visuals seemed fairly appealing and I actually wasn't disappointed by the (few) CGs - they were drawn well and the character designs weren't bad either. But that's it, everything else made me - bluntly said - dislike the game. The characters' sprites during the cutscenes looked weird (e.g. when Amy cried her posture/gesture didn't change at all, her posture stayed the same throughout the game and the same with the other characters). Additionally, the game seemed to focus more on the stat raising mechanic than the romance plot itself, leading to some annoying and boring "save & load" back and forth since you want to raise your stats as soon as possible in order to get both endings easily. Lastly, the endings to every route in this game. Briefly said, they were also very disappointing. A short cutscene with CG as a reward and during those cutscenes, you couldn't really feel the love between the protagonist and her final love interest - you just couldn't feel this achievement which you want to have as the player in every dating sim. All in all, I'm glad they took another step forward to localising dating sims in the west and I don't regret buying ARM since it helped supporting the localisation. Still, I probably wouldn't have bought it for another reason.
I recommend getting this game on sale. It's fun, but I wouldn't pay full price for it mostly because it lacks replay value. However, all the boys are adorable and it's a very heartwarming dating sim! So, I recommend playing it, just when it's on sale :P