11-11: Memories Retold is an adventure game with two very unique elements. The first being its art style, and the second being that the story is focused on telling an emotive story set in World War I. The art style is based on impressionist art. While it looks nice at first glance, everything feels too blurry at times. It’s hard to pick out the facial features of certain supporting characters because they have none, and objects tend to blur into each other. You get used to it but it is not the charming art style that you would expect from something of this nature.
Two narratives intertwine within the plot, being Harry and Kurt, who are on opposite sides of the war. It tells of their involvement in the war, how both reluctantly enlisted, and how both changed from what they saw. The plot will swap between the two viewpoints with the story being split into three parts. Harry is a Canadian photographer. To impress the girl that he loves, he enlists and travels to the front-lines to become a war photographer. At first, he was attracted to the glory of a soldier but the things he sees changes him. He was not supposed to be in any danger but will eventually be put into situations where his life is at risk.
Kurt on the other hand is a German engineer. His son, who was in the front-lines, goes missing. Refusing to believe that his son is dead, he enlists to find clues on what happened to his unit. He is persistent but also feels more down to earth and less idealistic when compared to Harry. The gameplay is minimal and can make the beginning of the game a chore to play through as it is very boring. Ultimately, as the player, your only input is to make the characters walk to their next objectives, interact with a few objects, and then watch cutscenes as the story unfolds. There are a few mini-games but they involve little more than either easy QTEs or rearranging items.
The second half of the game varies the game-play a little bit more. During some parts, you can voluntarily swap between the characters. The result is some light puzzles requiring teamwork. One character will hold something open before you switch to the other to grab something. In other sections, you’ll have to stealth through an area so that you don’t get caught or to avoid gunfire. These sections are not hard at all but still manage to give you the tension and threat that would be present in such a scenario. Harry also gets the ability to take photographs. The photos that he takes as part of the story may seem to be insignificant but does eventually tie into plot points that gives you a “aha!” moment.
Despite your objectives always clearly stated, it doesn’t tell you how to get there. So you’ll end up running around hoping to find the person or find the place to trigger the next cutscene. You’re usually put into a medium sized area with no map as you run around to try and familiarize yourself with the location. The game falls into the trap of including too many pointless collectibles, especially where it doesn’t feel like it needed it. Scattered in each chapter are numerous floating pieces of paper (and sometimes, objects that you need to photograph). At least it does encourage you to explore the often larger than expected environments.
The central theme of war not being black and white, as well as how it changes people is executed nicely. You can see how some other characters’ personalities have slowly changed as time goes on. The strong music and emotional moments come to the forefront in the scenes before the ending. Those scenes are really powerful and you don’t realize how engrossed and invested you were in the characters until that moment.
The game has multiple endings, however, there is chapter select so you don’t have to repeat too much of the final parts to see them all. It’s still grinding since there’s a lot of repetition but it is acceptable. Unfortunately, it seems that no one ending is the perfect ending; each has something in it that is bittersweet. It is a short game though, taking only around 5-7 hours to complete.
Overall, 11-11: Memories Retold is a surprisingly good game. While the game-play is nothing to write home about and more often than not, feels clunky, the storytelling is its strength. The plot takes some time in order to get going but once it does, you’ll be invested in its characters, care what happens to them and then stay in your thoughts as your ponder about the various endings.
-----------------------------------------------------
For other game reviews, have a look at this page.