Amnesia follows the story of your unnamed heroine (all the better to project onto), as she seeks to recover her memories after losing them thanks to an unexpected collision with mysterious spirit Orion.  Orion, who has the form of a young boy with strange Ram horns, is apparently a magical spirit who accidentally collided with the heroine, thus trapping him in her soul whilst simultaneously forcing out her memories.

The game begins with a short scene with Orion and after the short explanation and apologies, you are then asked to choose one of four options, each symbolised by a different card suit, thus choosing the route and possible love interest storyline you pursue.

Shin

There are four main options (Heart, Diamond, Clover and Spade) along with a secret ‘Joker’ option to choose, which only becomes available after completing the four main quests.  Each story is different, with each character having a unique personality and back story.  Some are protective and caring, whilst others are playboys with even their own jealous and terrifying fan club!  Amnesia follows Visual Novel tradition with the game being controlled by following the narrative and occasionally choosing from multiple options to progress the story down the route you want.

Some responses seem intuitive if you want to get the ‘good’ endings, whilst other stories are much harder to gauge in order to get your fairytale ending.  In fact, some bad endings are pretty damn dark for an Otome game, with death, disfigurement and captivity making a break up seem like a pretty good deal in comparison. I won’t go too much into detail for fear of spoiling any surprises, but this choose your own adventure romance can get pretty heavy if the ‘wrong’ choices are made.  On the other hand, get lucky enough to do well, and you’ll be rewarded with beautiful romantic scenes and story progression.

kent

Gameplay is typical for a visual novel, with simple prompts using the X button moving the story forward.  You can save your game at any point, and there’s also a quick save and quick load option for those occasions where you’ll panic after choosing a response you didn’t want to make.  For replays, Amnesia has a skip option that fast forwards all the text you’ve already seen before, and helpfully highlights your previous choices in green so you don’t end up repeating yourself.

The music in Amnesia: Memories is nice and complements the game well, without being intrusive or overly dramatic. The artwork is gorgeous, and aside from the slightly ridiculous card themed outfits of the main characters, looks great on the PS Vita. My only real criticism of the graphics, is that occasionally, some scenes will have ‘zoomed in’sections, which when used, look blurry and pixelated, which looks strange in comparison to the rest of the artwork you see in game.

Toma

Review Summary

Overall, Amnesia is a fun little Otome game with high replayability factor and cute storylines.  I’d highly recommend it for anyone who likes the Hakuouki series, but is looking for something a little more lighthearted.