The Dark Eye: Memoria

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in “The Dark Eye” Bundle, along with The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav and Blackguards 2.)

The Dark Eye: Memoria is a “Point and Click”-style Graphic Adventure released in 2013 on PC, and then in 2021 ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game is the direct sequel to The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav, a game set in the Dungeons and Dragons-esque universe of The Dark Eye.

Once again, we follow the story of Geron, the prior game’s protagonist who’s sullen and unlikeable nature has grown no more charming since the prior game. However, this time around the story alternates between his tale and that of Princess Sadja, whose adventures hundreds of years prior are directly tied to Geron’s current troubles. Compared to Geron, Sadja is a wonderful protagonist, clever and witty but also generally kind-natured and empathetic. Honestly, I really wish this game just shifted the entire story to her and shed the direct ties to the prior game altogether.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case here, and in fact those who didn’t play through Chains of Satinav will be feeling a bit lost about the characters, motivations, and prior events that fuel much of the plot of this story. While you can play this game without playing Chains, you’re clearly not getting the full picture if you do so.

When it comes to the gameplay, this is still fairly standard “Point and Click”-style Graphic Adventure straight to the marrow of its bones, for better or worse. You’ll be picking up and at times combining items to solve puzzles, and these won’t always make sense until after you’ve done them. Overall, I do think this game’s puzzles are better, and in fact early on Sadja comes into possession of a few tricks that give her some wonderful versatility, but overall this is still a game where many players will prefer to play with a game guide not far from their fingertips.

At the very least this game still has the wonderful presentation we saw in Chains of Satinav, with gorgeously hand-painted 2D environments and characters, though once again the animation is somewhat lacking, particularly the odd stiff way mouths move when characters talk. And once again every line is fully-voiced, with the voice actor of Sadja doing a particularly good job.

In the end, players who were fans of The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav should consider The Dark Eye: Memoria an absolute must-buy. It’s a continuation of the same story, with better puzzles, and a new deuteragonist who’s much better than the first game’s Geron, who we’re sadly still stuck with half the time here. Players who skipped Chains of Satinav but enjoy Graphic Adventure games still may find this worth playing, but it’s a little harder to recommend this game to those players, as this game so heavily depends on having played Chains of Satinav first, and even though I absolutely think this is the better game of the two, you still may be better off playing Satinav before Memoria.

tl;dr – The Dark Eye: Memoria is a “Point and Click”-style Graphic Adventure that is a direct sequel to The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav. This game is definitely an improvement, thanks in part to the first game’s unlikable protagonist Geron now sharing screen time with the far more interesting new protagonist Princess Sadja. However, this story’s strong ties to the predecessor’s probably means you’re better off not skipping that game if you want to play this one.

Grade: C+

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