Desta: The Memories Between game review by the Monument Valley team for Netflix

Available for subscribers only NetflixDeveloped by UsTwo, the authors of the famous Monument Valley, the new mobile game aims to bring mature themes mixed with seductive roguelite strategic mechanics to iOS and Android devices as part of what stands as a genre. psychotherapy session based on unblocking.

The protagonist of the adventure is Desta, a non-binary person who, one night, in the grip of anxiety, has an extremely realistic, sometimes sinister dream, who must confront the key figures of his past life and clarify his feelings. once in everything, only after you beat them.

A mix that works? we reveal to you. Epic: Memories Between review.

History

As noted, History of Epic: Memories In between takes place within a dream: the hero’s conscience intervenes to somehow resolve the conflicts that have gripped him through a series of (fictitious, of course) dialogues with the characters who have accompanied him over the years, and from this, for one reason or another, he has finally distanced himself .

The game is dubbed in English, but includes Italian subtitles that allow even those who don’t chew the language to follow the game’s development. complo. What flows before our eyes seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a session with the psychotherapist, the elaboration of relationships and events that left their mark on Desta’s soul.

In all this, a deeply incongruous note to us,gender identity A move we cannot understand, given that the writers have all the necessary skills to realize these elements within the narrative.

In short, there is emotion a little strain, maybe it’s promotional and related to the collaboration with Netflix and it’s a shame because the work done by UsTwo at the story level is valid with interesting characters slowly being introduced and we’ll have to transform. from rivals to comrades. How? By hitting them in the face, of course.

Gameplay

Pallonate, actually: Gameplay Each stage of Desta: The Memories Between features a sort of dreamy diorama divided into boxes, with the possibility of controlling the hero of the adventure and his two friends (unlocked so far) to capture the scattering balls. scenario and use them to shoot the enemies.

this shift system is the traditional one, each of our units usually has two actions and therefore it is possible to move to the point where there is an automatically collected ball and then attack by throwing it with a mechanism that mimics the famous Angry Birds slingshot, in a three-dimensional context it also consists of bounces and passes.

These aspects, along with the vital energy system and both “good” and “bad” special abilities available to each character, follow an approach, let’s not forget, that adds depth to the experience. roguelite in terms of progress. This, yes, starts over with every game in the campaign, but our characters retain the improvements achieved up to that point.

The system works very well, but sometimes the view gets a little “jammed” and the touch controls pop up right away with a horizontal swipe that lets you rotate the script at any time to better see the relevance of the boxes. It’s too bad the zoom doesn’t work the same way, which makes some sequences difficult to read, which causes some frustration when a shot doesn’t hit.

Technical realization

A blend of narrative and atmosphere developed by UsTwo technical realization It definitely depends on the situation, which uses stylized characters during cutscenes and then greets us with pastel colors and visual solutions appreciated by millions of users in Monument Valley, but certainly less important.

There graphic of Desta: Memories Between can therefore rely on a particular personality, but also soundnot only from the previously mentioned English dialogues, but also with a bold and interesting musical accompaniment that can enhance various game situations.