Collecting My Thought on 11-11: Memories Retold—Loving Our Fallen

I was taken by surprise when I began 11-11: Memories Retold. The living-painting art style hit me like a ton of bricks. It was undeniably eye-catching and I could not wait to see what else was in store. But as caught as my eye was, none of my other body parts were as taken by the game. Doing a bit of reading post-play, I learned that director Yoan Fanise was behind another World War I game, the successful Valiant Hearts: The Great War (a game I have known about but have not had the pleasure of playing). So it is clear Fanise had experience in the genre, and it did come through in the effective re-creation of the world during World War I, but he, with his fledgling studio, DigixArt, only managed a mediocre expression of what was quite the tall tale wrapped within.

11-11: Memories Retold is presented as the retelling of experiences by two soldiers on either side of the battle line at the Western Front: the stethoscope-wielding German, Kurt Waldner, and the camera-toting Canadian, Harry Lambert. Kurt enlisted to look for his missing son, Max, while Harry enlisted because he wanted to impress his crush-worthy childhood friend, Julia, with a soldier's uniform. As unfortunate as the genesis of the latter's storyline is, it was the presentation of Kurt's character that caused the more head-scratching. This German soldier retells his memories and corresponds with his wife through snail mail in English, yet to everyone else in the game, he speaks German. This was not only confusing, but also disingenuous. Let the damn German speak German; you already provided English subtitles by default for every character! Outside of that, the moment-to-moment flow of the game was extremely spotty. I also felt the switches between Kurt and Harry's stories were too hasty. As a result, the process of bonding with the characters was retarded. This is in sharp contrast to similarly multi-protagonist games like Detroit: Become Human and The Pillars of the Earth, where you easily fall deep with the characters and their plights.

I have to say, it wasn't all bad. I loved the frequent attempts at levity and humour, even though comedic timing was largely overlooked. I liked that there were a couple of scenes that genuinely shocked me. I also thought the depiction of suffering and humanity within the war was successful, despite the highly-stylised visuals. Speaking of which, how those experimental visuals were pulled off impressed me the whole way through. I just feel there was a massive missed opportunity for a more-abstract-less-wordy style of storytelling and gameplay to complement the visuals. Ultimately, I didn't think it added enough to the game to truly celebrate. In fact, the jittery effects annoyingly hindered me in finding collectibles needed to unlock the bonus reels that contained historical insights. If you know me, then you know I love my history in games, so this was a big fat minus.11-11: Memories Retold turned out to be a hit-and-(mainly-)miss affair, however, I applaud Fanise for continuing to explore such a significant yet rarely touched-on subject matter in video games and commemorating the brave who fought 100 years earlier. Lest we forget.

#ReminiscentOf Loving Vincent (film). Some chord progressions were also reminiscent of Interstellar (film).

#SMH Suit-based World War I Snap. The absolute low of 11-11 (though can be comical at times).

#LearntANewWord Canuck.

#ForThePlaylist German Auld Lang Syne.