Memoria Preview

The passionate development team at Daedalic Entertainment sat with us at E3 to show us their upcoming games.  While we were there, they were eager to share a project they are currently working on, entitled Memoria. A sequel to The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav, Memoria is set in the Adventuria universe, and follows a familiar character named Geron.

We begin our journey following a bird catcher named Geron, who meets Fahi, a mysterious merchant in the forest. In the previous adventure, Geron’s girlfriend Nuri had been transformed into a raven, and Fahi promises that he possesses the ability to transform her back into a human. All he requests of Geron is that he solves a mystery involving the fate of a princess named Sadja. While we did not get a chance to see how this occurs, it becomes obvious that Fahi’s consciousness somehow travels five hundred years into the past to witness the occurrences surrounding Sadja’s fate.

Players will have full control of Sadja at this point in the game, while she is trapped in a tomb that belongs to an evil mage. Here, Sadja discovers a magical staff that can speak, but the staff has no recollection of who he is or how he got there! This companion offers much in the way of useful spells, and even comic relief. At one point while we were playing, we needed to gather a gold-scarab leg to use on a door, and had to wrap the staff’s head with bandages to pick it up. Immediately the staff began to grumble and complain about how dark it was – he was clearly not amused with Sadja’s use of him. The first spell Sadja learns to use is to command magical artifacts, including stone Golems that are lying in the tomb. This twist helps to further the puzzles by giving players a unique tool to use in the form of a companion, and it makes for interesting commentary between the two characters when Sadja uses the magical staff to complete her tasks!

While we only received a brief glimpse at the game, it was clear that this Memoria is much less cartoony than other Daedalic Entertainment titles, such as Deponia, Edna and Harvey, or even The Night of the Rabbit. While it still has the hand-drawn animations, there are much more realistic tones to the game, and the storyline is more serious. There were certain points where the visuals seemed like they could be computer-animated instead of done by hand, making the artwork that much more impressive. The characters are much more true-to-life, and the atmosphere has a very Dungeons and Dragons feel to it. The adventure is still point-and-click, and players will continue the storyline right where Chains of Satinav left off (after the land fell into a peaceful sleep).

If you haven’t had a chance to play many point-and-click adventure games, Daedalic Entertainment creates some incredible titles, and the first title in this series (Chains of Satinav) would be a great place to start! That way, if you are interested enough, you can purchase the sequel when it becomes available. Memoria is tentatively set to be released in late 2013, so keep your eyes and ears open to catch a glimpse of new trailers and announcements on this game!