Exclusive Memory Review

1. It is tedious and time-consuming to unlock good endings, let alone the perfect ones.
2. Much time will be spent playing a virtual board game.
3. And, this is just as much a FMV mystery/thriller as it is a dating game.

If these don’t sound bad then prepare to die. Yes, this game will kill you on the first run and multiple times thereafter, often by stabbing. This is the core experience, as you are ‘reborn’ and will replay the story again and again to take new paths, and try to survive. The events take place over three days, with the second day ending with a dramatic cosplay incident and the last day being your wedding where you have to escape threats via the board game.

Getting to the third day is the first obstacle, and it involves unlocking memory clues by exploring branching paths. These memories unlock more paths, but where they are located on the timeline is not always clear, especially when the timeline doesn’t show everything at once. In the first 8 hours or so the memory unlocks are steady, but at the end it can be frustrating to locate the remainder.

Many memories are related to the overall mystery that is hinted at but only fully revealed if you find the truth ending. The player-character has problems with his memory, and doing the time loop will unlock some montages that fill the gaps. On almost every loop you will uncover new secrets behind the bad guys, your company, or the six admirers to help build the picture.

The six admirers are diverse and you go on two dates with any combination of them, which is also a little awkward since you’re getting married soon. These dates are fairly standard and not super long, but you’ll have to loop through them many times to unlock the mystery and buff affection. The admirers include a pushy boss, hostile enforcer, aggressive motorcyclist, smart colleague, alcoholic cosplayer, and of course your forlorn fiancé. Most of their secrets are interesting and link back to the main mystery.

Bad endings are the default, which usually means you die (yes, again) or be left alone. Many of the ‘good’ endings are serendipitous or even toxic. So the only real positive endings are a few perfect endings, the happy ending and the truth ending, which all take quite some time to unlock.

To get the best endings, you need to complete a virtual board game where you are pursued by three foes who interrupt the wedding. The board game is Ludo, and you roll dice to land on squares that grant items or show more plot. There is an element of chance, with opponent movement and plot activation, which is annoying. Understanding how it all works takes time too with iffy translations. You can only skip this board game once you’ve completed it perfectly, by rescuing every character and apprehending every foe. Although tedious, the board game gets easier as you unlock memories because they grant set movements instead of relying on chance.

It is crazy how much content there is in Exclusive Memory, even at the end you might be shocked to see a new long scene that was hidden away. There is even one hour of unlockable story videos in the menu, which expand the endings and a few of these are great. It took roughly 2.5 hours to get to the first ending on day 3 (after several deaths), but there is probably another 7+ hrs of unique video content via branching paths. My approach was not methodical, so it took me 22 loops and 15 hours to unlock everything. This included progression bugs, forcing me to restart loops.

Sadly the game uses Automatic Dialogue Replacement (ADR) for 98% of videos, but at least the audio team changed the reverberation and added sound effects galore (traffic, birds, footsteps etc)—still would prefer live audio. The English translation is fine but the subtitles can move super fast. Phone texts use the Steam avatar, which is cool, and the game never shows a name for the main character. The acting is insanely cheesy when it comes to action scenes, with LARP style combat that is funny because it’s bad. But the actresses do a pretty good job with the romance and the rest.

If it wasn’t so tedious to unlock all the content in Exclusive Memory, it would be one of the best in the genre. Part of me likes the idea of a board game mixed with FMV, but it was mostly a time-wasting chore. The mystery part is interesting, but dying and being reborn goes on too long. The developers still deserve kudos for effort and it would be nice to see them take another stab at it.