Deconstructing Memento Mori : Gorgeous Art but Underwhelming Gameplay
Last month (October 2022), I found an interesting mobile game that caught my eye : Memento Mori. At first, I was hooked with the art style and the ambience around it. It gives the “dark” feeling and a very satisfying overall mood. I played through the game and found myself wanting more content and keep coming back for more, despite there being no innovation in the gameplay — it’s very similar to other AFK RPG (like AFK Arena) games.
I checked the performance, and surprisingly, it was veeeery high revenue. Even higher than AFK Arena (one of the top grossing Idle RPG games in the mobile market) at that time, though seems most of the revenue comes from Asian countries (JP, KR, CN).
What makes this game standout?
Story
The premise of the game is around the girls that possess extraordinary power, known as Witches. When calamity spreads throughout the land, witches begin to be feared and detested. Inquisitors have commenced a continent-wide Witch Hunt that has claimed the lives of most of these witches.
The witches were killed one by one. As Madness seizes control, it is suddenly overrun by “Curses.” Most of the witches are actually just trying to live, fighting against the cruelty of fate. As the “Lord” that possess a staff that can help these witches,
As you play the game, you will learn (and appreciate) the depth of the story behind these “witches”. The mood is built not just through the gorgeous visual, but each character also have Lamet (original unique song), composed and sung by famous singers like Daoko, MARiA, etc. I absolutely love the details they make to bring the mood of the story to the game.
Check out their websites, it’s cool. https://mememori-game.com/en/
Gameplay
Memento Mori takes a standard 5 vs 5 RPG battle that looks similar to AFK Arena. Each character takes turn to do an action : attack or use a skill, the goal is to defeat the enemy.
Core Battle Gameplay video:
Do you understand whats happening? ME NEITHER
That was my first impression when I played the game too. I do love the presentation, but during the battle, I get my character is doing an action with cool animation and it deals damage, but overall I don’t understand a thing. It even cause me motion headache because the background keep moving and distracting.
In terms of mechanics, it’s a Full Auto Battle with NO PLAYER INPUT at all. Yes, no player input required, no manual skill usage, nothing. You can even skip it and proceed to the result. I feel it’s impossible to understand what’s going on : how the battle progressed, did your strategy work, or what do you need to do to win.
Unlike AFK Arena where the battle progress is visualized much better, you can still sense if a character is doing its job as a tanker, or if an enemy jumps to your backline, so you can strategize etc. In Memento Mori, I absolutely have no idea how to get better. I would just throw in characters that have “power rating” and hope for the best.
The game does have some depth though : skills, equipment, elements, and “synergy”. As you level up and “limit break” the character, it will become much more stronger. I won’t dive deeper as these are pretty standard from normal Idle-PRG stuff.
Progression
Similar to other Idle-RPG, you don’t need to grind, you just need to be “Idle”. Your character will automatically grind for you, and you just need to come back to the game regularly to collect the loot.
The progression is also similar to Idle-RPG, you need a ton of similar copy to limit break each character that can go waaay up, followed by higher level of skills and equipment.
From a product perspective, the good thing is this progression system can scale easily. For a character to limit break, you need a copy or other character with similar rarity. You start as “SR” rarity (though “R” also exists) and currently can be upgraded up to “LR+5”. Each limit Break requires 1–2 copies of the character itself or another with similar rarity. You will need a LOT to fully max limit break them.
It does have other features, but what it has is exactly the same of what AFK Arena has.
- Space-Time (Memento Mori) vs Labyrinth (AFK Arena)
- Tower of Infinity (Memento Mori) vs King’s Tower (AFK Arena)
The two above is just few of the features that looks exactly the same as AFK Arena. To be fair, the content is engaging, it provides goal to the player (Space Time is reset every 3D and Tower of Infinity provides long term goal to beat the next floor), but as a player that have played through AFK Arena, I feel disappointed as I feel I already know how the mechanic works. I wanted something new.
But despite all these lack of gameplay and similarity to a game that I’ve played, I find myself coming back to the game. What makes it?
The Presentation
The Art and the whole presentation is just superb, I mentioned this before, but I really love the art and the vibe it gives. It suites with the lore of the game of the character trying to survive in the god-forsaken world. Each of the character have Live 2D and animated when using skill in the battle (even the “R” rarity character).
When I was browsing through and trying to get deeper into the game, I started searching about Memento Mori. Then I found out what it means.
And. OH. MY. GOD. Now it clicks (I genuinely didn’t know what “Memento Mori” means when I start playing this game). The whole presentation is to support the premise of the “Witch” trying to survive against their tragic fate.
And not just the Art, each of the character have their own song, sung by famous singers. There’s even the lyric inside the game. I really love each of the song that also match the story that I keep playing them on spotify (The Spotify playlist I think is unofficial though).
With all the presentation and the details it has, it was enough for me to keep playing the game. But I realized I played the game for the mood, not for the gameplay. This might be intentional to make player enjoy it while being “Idle” to progress, but I feel this is a missed opportunity.
What Could be Improved
Other than the bare-minium core gameplay, which might be a decision to make this a true “Idle” RPG game, I feel there are some points that can be improved.
1. Connection between gameplay and story
I feel this is the biggest missing part, the story and lore are disconnected from the gameplay. I don’t feel like i’m having an impact on each of the character’s stories. There was no dialogue between characters, no content that unveil new story. All of it is locked behind the player’s progression that can be unlocked by…. Being Idle.
An example is from Epic Seven when the story is told through gameplay where you use the character, reminisce through the battle, and see the connection between characters. I wish I had some gameplay that use the character and runs through their back story so I feel more connected, more invested, and feel I’ve done something to help them.
2. Lack of content
With such beautiful art and a strong mood, I was craving for MORE. I wanted more content, things to actively play through. I dig through the character’s story, check through the BGM, and explore the depth. Unfortunately, the nature of the Idle AFK RPG left me little things to actively do. There weren’t any events or new content other than new characters.
I feel there’s no need for fancy events yet, only a simple “task” to finish in a limited time to boost the player’s progress. Otherwise, there’s nothing I’m looking forward to on a daily or weekly basis. A totally different genre, but similar “Idle” games, “Gold & Goblin” have periodically limited events every 3D that makes me retain better.
There is actually already a feature that reset every 3D : Space-Time. However I think the presentation and the rewards can be better. At the moment, I don’t feel rushed, nor reminded when the feature will be over, and the reward feels lackluster.
Overall, I feel disconnected between the presentation and the gameplay. I keep saying this, but I absolutely love the art presentation, but the gameplay feels lacking.
This is just my hypothesis, but given the art of this game that appeal to the Asian players, we are used to grinding, and we wanted more active role in the game. I would love deeper core mechanic that makes me strategize more, but currently, I find myself playing less and less engaged. Right now, I’m still playing it… on Spotify
But I could be wrong, from the huge initial revenue, could it be that the simple gameplay actually fits the market? Perhaps they already have strong roadmap in the backlog? It will be interesting to see the long term performance.