This review was written by our Nonno Boomer and translated by the friendly Domenico De Luca.
11–11 Memories Retold is a title that aroused my curiosity since the very first time I heard about it in an article on “La Repubblica” for three specific reasons.
First of all for the curious choice to adapt the graphics engine in order to replicate the brush strokes of an impressionistic painting, the second reason was that Valiant Hearts Yoan Fanise was the one working on it with the new company DigixArt Studio, founded by him after leaving Ubisoft.
And last, but not least, the game would have had the collaboration of the British studio Aardman Animations, cartoons creator and and also creator of feature films like Wallace and Gromit (among others, Wallace and Gromit — La maledizione del coniglio mannaro won the Oscar for Best Animation Movie in 2016) and many others products like Shaun — Vita da pecora, produced through the claymotion technic.
All of these elements were enough to convince me to buy the title and dive, for the second time, into the trenches of World War I and relive the events of all those men that, a hundred years ago, they ended their story in the mud and in the dirt of the trenches and in the No man’s lands.
Two stories two fates
We’re back to 1918 and, as we will be reminded of it several times, with a caption at the beginning of every chapter, there are only a few months left until the end of the war.
Unlike Valiant Hearts, where we interpreted three characters, here we have the unfolding of some events through the point of view of only two protagonists (you will be able to choose which one to be at the beginning of each chapter but, at a certain point, you will interpret also the other one), the Canadian photographer Harry Lambert (dubbed by Elijah Wood) and the German engineer Kurt Waldne (dubbed by the German actor Sebastian Koch).
The reason pushing the two characters to reach the front won’t be due to a deep patriotic love (it induced many people to wear the uniform especially thanks to a pounding government propaganda) or for a search of personal glory.
Even without any kind of interest, Harry will decide to join the army as a photographer to conquer the heart of his employer’s daughter after noticing her be attracted by military men. Kurt, completely uninterested in conflicts too, will join the army to find his elder son, lost in action and he has no notice of.
As for Valiant Hearts, where it was a dog to unite the various events, also in this case to intercept the destinies of the two characters will be two animals that will accompany the protagonists throughout the story: a pigeon and a cat.
Opening a parenthesis and talking about these two creatures, not a few times you will find yourself controlling both of them, and with their indifferent gaze, as these creatures do not know what war is, many times we will find ourselves reflecting on how certain of our actions may seem small and meaningless despite the tragic context.
11–11 Memories Retold will always follow the personal story of the two protagonists, but the theme on which focuses a good part of the story is the relationship established between Harry and Kurt little by little, during the chapters.
Their cultural and linguistic differences are well managed through a good writing that has been able to involve me in their friendship. In some moments you can also decide how the relationship between the two could evolve. Unfortunately the painful note is that this will not have a huge weight on the unfolding of the story but it will go on the tracks established by the script, you will only have the main choices in the final bars of the story.
In the course of the adventure there will be other small decisions but throughout the course of my game I never had the feeling that these had such a significance or that they drastically change the story, and from this point of view I can say that it does not help much on the playability.
Despite the poor malleability of the story due to the binaries already established by the developers (and I felt it especially on the “false choices”), 11–11 Memories Retold did not make me regret the little freedom granted me by DigixArt. And, here I want to say it with this title, I don’t feel I need a Valiant Hearts 2. Being the game a creation of the same person with the same identical setting (and being set in the following period, where Valiant Hearts stopped in 1916) I tend to Consider the first title of the studio as the direct successor of the Ubisoft game, even this new war story will touch emotional high peaks with very evocative and poetic scenes.
Playing cards among bombs in the trenches
Moving on to the playful side of 11–11 Memories Retold, the gameplay that the player will find not so different from a game of the Telltale era or by David Cage, you will move your character in a small explorable setting in which you will have to perform certain actions to keep the story going, unlike the games mentioned above, and there will be no multiple choice dialogues (except at a certain point), since the protagonists, in most cases, are silent.
Inside the title you will find mini games that will make the game system a bit more varied, and on a hand some of them are directly related to the two protagonists, and on the other hand it is a simple card game that you will find, not always, between a chapter and the other .
The latter will consist of a small timing challenge, when you see two equal cards you will have to be quick, in comparison to your fellow soldiers, in hitting the hand on the table, and whoever manages to take two equal cards will make a point.
Since Harry, as mentioned at the beginning of the review, is a war photographer, he will always have his camera with him and there will be moments when the story will make you photograph the characters and the game environment and some of these photos can be sent them to the love interest of the young Canadian but the use of Harry’s ability will not only be linked to the plot.
Going around the various maps you will find optional points of interest, marked with an exclamation point, which you can immortalize on film, but you will also be free to freely photograph, with limited numbers, the glimpses of the maps that please you.
As for Kurt, being an engineer, it will happen that you will have to deal with repairing communications failures, a small puzzle will start and you will have to find the right frequency to put the radios back into operation.
The second mini-game, always played in the role of Kurt, is the use of a device similar to a stethoscope that besides being useful for spying on the conversation of the enemies in certain sections of the game, it will be necessary to intercept the keywords that you will need to write the various letters that you will send to your family. In fact, when you write these letters, you will be given the opportunity to choose what Kurt’s wife will report to their little daughter about the events she is going through.
These mini games, due to the fact that they are not so much studied in deep, can be seen as a small useful addition to empathize players and break the gameplay from time to time.
When video games and art go hand in hand
When I first saw the playing graphics, my first thought was that the engine had been created specifically for the title. I am not surprised to discover that the graphics engine used was Unity, adapted for this purpose.
Some of the images that I put inside this article are taken from what you will see in 11–11 Memories Retold. You will have the continuous feeling of being inside an impressionist painting that comes to life.
The delicacy with which the DigixArt and Aardman Animations studios wanted to tell the horrors of the war goes well with this not very much detailed graphic. It decides to recreate everything as if an artist had just used the brush on each individual character and place that his goals suggested him to immortal on a canvas to not forget the pain of all those people involved, willingly or unwillingly, in the conflict.
For those who want to deepen the technical side, and who understand English, I put the video below in which the developers explain how they modeled Unity for their game.
DigxArt, with its first game, has been able to demonstrate that the desire to experiment is not missing, but above all it has cleared that art can become one with the video game, without suffocating the other. If you are looking for a sequel to Valiant Heart you will find its worthy spiritual successor in this 11–11 Memories Retold, also because behind it there is the same mind that created the acclaimed Ubisoft title.
In conclusion I can say that the game has been able to involve me, from the beginning to the end, and even if it is not perfect, I would hardly be able to advise you not to give it a chance and to follow the story of Henry and Kurt. But above all to have the opportunity to see what happens when the developers try to experiment with new ways to make the products closer to their artistic maturity.
