![]() ![]() You’ll likely spend longer watching Eike than controlling him, but don’t let th at put you off. One of Konami’s early PlayStation 2 showcases, Shadow of Memories is what we’d now think of as a narrative adventure, albeit with a fair bit of explor ation and item gathering thrown in for the sake of player involvement. Kitted out with a time-travelling device, Eike is returned to the quaint town of Lebensbaum (Life Tree), to change his destiny and discover the identity of his assailant in the process. However, as Eike soon discovers, avoiding one attempt on his life won ’t solve the overriding problem. After his unceremonious murder in the opening cut-scene, Eike is resurrected by a mysterious entity, who tells him he can avoid his fate by changing aspects of the past. Before 24 hours have passed, he’ll have been stabbed, burned, bludgeoned, poisoned, run over and pushed to his death from a tower. The 8 th of April 2001 is a really bad day for Eike Kusch. A couple of decades later, it’s easier to appreciate a story- driven game that uses time travel and exploration elements to involve its player. Thus it’s left to a convoluted and eclectic story to do most of the heavy lifting. SoM was without many of the staple gameplay aspects of its contemporaries: there’s no combat and its puzzles are largely confined to the realms of fetching and using prescribed items. As evidenced by the magnetic beach-landing level in Medal of Honor: Frontline, d eveloper s sought to fuse the special-effects bombast of movies seamlessly into their games, something that’s be come more prevalent as the years have passed. The big -hitters from the early part of the next (sixth) generation would instead help usher in a style of gaming dominated by visual impact. To some degree, however, this would prove a false dawn. G ames were becoming more cerebral, focusing on sophisticated narratives and immersive, creative gameplay mechanics: a media finally growing up, alongside its audience. Konami’s recent successes, most prominently Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill, had mirrored the industry’s promising late-nineties trajectory. At the time of the game’s release, it would have been understandable to look upon this quaint adventure with a glass-half-empty outlook. The last two must be unlocked by achieving the first six.Though it might not have seemed likely in 2001, time has proven fairly kind on the quirky whodunnit that was Shadow of Memories. Shadow of Memories consists of eight endings, with six available at first. When the clock arrives at the time of Eike's death, the chapter restarts however, if Eike is not in his time period at the time of his death, the game ends. The cut-scenes and dialogue takes up varying amounts of in-game time. The amount of time Eike spends in the different eras also passes in the present-day one. Actions taken in one time period affect future ones for example, if Eike removes a seal from the squire's manor in 1580, the seal will not appear in the present era.Īdditionally, the game keeps two digital clocks: one depicting the time in the present-day era and another for whichever era Eike time-travels to. Gameplay primarily consists of time-traveling through the different eras, finding items, and interacting through dialogue with the non-player characters. The digipad, a time-traveling item given to Eike by Homunculus, requires energy units, which the player can find scattered around the town. In the prologue and each chapter, Eike dies, is resurrected by the non-player character Homunculus, and travels back in time before his death with the intent of changing events to prevent it. The game takes place in three parts: a prologue, 8 chapters, and an epilogue. The objective of Shadow of Memories is to guide player character Eike Kusch through the fictional German town of Lebensbaum (Life's Tree) as he travels through time to prevent his murder and unmask his murderer. However, instead of resting in peace for eternity, Eike finds himself in a surreal room, summoned by a strange androgyne voice, who grants him the opportunity to go back in time to prevent his untimely demise. After a dozing off while having a cup of coffee, your protagonist, Eike Kusch, gets assaulted immediately as soon as he leaves the cafe, knowing neither who killed him nor why. The story of Shadow of Memories opens with a murder - your own. ![]() ![]() The game features English voice acting and English, French, German, Italian and Spanish text/subtitles. ![]() The Xbox version was only released in Europe. PS2, PC and PSP versions were released in America as "Shadow of Destiny". A PlayStation Portable version was released in 2009, featuring new voice overs and some other minor differences. Originally released for the PlayStation 2, it was later ported to the PC and Xbox in 2002. Shadow of Memories is an adventure game by Konami. ![]()
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