Never Forget Me Reviews

For those who don't belive in "Happy ever after. The end". Game about that "Your happily ever after" needs a lot of hard work. In this dating sim you play the married couple life. Will you stay married or divorce? +Adult relationship/ +You can choose between visual novel version and raising stats. +Not too long for those who don't have much time for visual novel. +Visual novel about more adult stuff. -Great graphic difference between characters from First Game and Second one. -Too short for those who likes complicate stories.

The soundtrack is lovely. And it's a lot better than Always Rememer Me. It's one of the few VN which ACTUALLY talks about the struggles after a happily-ever-after and how hard it is to make relationships work. Probably my favourite Winter Wolves VN. Did I mention it has an amazing soundtrack?

I really enjoyed this game. The main character comes across as very human. Her job varies depends on who she's married to and the various issues vary. All of the stories are interesting. I didn't play the stat building part of the game, just the straight up visual novel so I can't comment on that.

If you played the first game and enjoyed it, I would generally recommend skipping playing this one. Instead turning to your own imagination or the fan fictions out there if you want to see more these characters and their stories. You will probably be happier that way. The first game left a lot of things left up in the air with the writing, but the sequel does so more. You are forced to make many decisions on things you MIGHT have saw or read about in game but most likely haven't. Like many other games where players get to make decisions with a voiceless MC, it can be difficult to make the decision you meant to. Since we regularly don't know the tone the FMC will take until we commit. Gameplay isn't about blind faith, trust, and putting other characters first all the time, this isn't a criticism just a statement. Probably a good sprinkle of reality for the players of this game who are newer to such relationships. Much of it is about the FMC speaking about her own needs, which seems to be a valuable lesson for a lot people. People who tend to switch into people pleaser mode with the people they care about. Relationships are a two way street. Overall, I found this sequel pretty cynical and depressing for a sequel to an otome game...Despite what it may or may not teach the players about. When playing this game, you should assume that if you, as the player, don't have the FMC talk about certain issues in the moment that they are not discussed in unseen moments when it may be more appropriate and productive to have those conversations. Which is something I don't particularly love about many VNs, the whole not having a proper discussion at a better time thing (as it is rather unrealistic storytelling wise), not important things happening behind the scenes thing. }} The new game mechanic takes some getting used to. But it is fine. I preferred the game mechanic from the first game. While it does feel like there is more writing in this game than there was in the first, other areas were a bit of a let down. Unless you play in VN mode, you spend about half of the game looking at a boring screen rather than art.

This game starts where the previous one, "Always Remember Me" ends... or close thereof. It is after the wedding, and Amarantha and her chosen beau are settling in to the travails of married life. Since at the beginning of a playthrough you can choose which path you are continuing, that is easy enough. There are three settings: Visual Novel mode, which simply gets you the choices without the management portion of the game, Normal Mode, the easier of the two with the management activities, and Hard Mode, which... messes with you as you play. Each path has two good endings, two sad (or even bad) endings, and an epilogue for each of the types of endings. Do note you cannot get the epilogue without playing the management portion of the game. A fun game.

This game is about couples that shouldn't have married. Everyone is trash people in Hugh's route (including MC and Hugh) and his plotline makes me wanna puke. Everyone is painfully insecure and incapable of communicating in Aaron route. Eddy's plotline just makes me angry. Lawrence deserved better. Better plotline, better parents and better wife. Also, Eddy is such a prick in this route. And why literally every woman except MC is an enemy? Even MC's friends portrayed as villains - they want you to get divorce after all. And Bechdel test? Don't know her. It's kind of...misogynistic? Honestly, I just feel dirty and exhausted after reading this vn.

While I enjoyed the first game, by and large this was a disappointment. It's not a bad exchange on sale, but the routes felt short and the ending abrupt. There were also multiple spelling errors and typos that, particularly in a VN, I found broke my immersion in the game. Music was repetitive and muted almost immediately. The state raiser wasn't particularly difficult, but didn't enhance my experience of the game. Something like random events doing different activities may have made it more engaging, but as it stands I complete it for the epilogues and then tried to avoid it.

I enjoyed this game, and since 'Always Remember Me' was one of the first Winter Wolves' games I ever played, it was great to catch up with the characters. I am delighted by the general premise, that the story doesn't stop at the 'happy ending', that married life can be tough and as much of an adventure as dating. The art style is very familiar for fans of Winter Wolves' games, though they have re-used quite a bit of artwork (mostly background) from other games, which means Amy may be living in the house the characters 'Roommates' inhabited, and the same town as 'Nicole' went to university. However this is a minor detail and can largely be ignored in favour of story and characters. The game follows on from the special endings of 'Always Remember Me' with the protagonist, Amy, married to whichever boy you picked. (You can set which route you want to play, so no need for save games). Each marriage has it's own set of problems, from jealousy, to recovering from abuse. Amy is just as much a wet blanket as she was in the first game, but this does at least make the few moments when she asserts herself all the more satisfying, even if this does occasionally lead to the sad ending. I'm not sure if the message here is 'Never stand up for yourself or you'll end up alone' or 'Tact and diplomacy are important life skills'. There are a few minor issues, such as a therapist telling her client that (potentially violent) jealousy just means her husband loves her very much, and taking his side about an assault against the protagonist. But mostly the game is enjoyable and reasonably compelling. At any rate this game is effectively 4 games in one, each route features 5 different endings (two sad, two happy, one neutral) as well as special epilogues (one for happy endings, one for sad endings). The game can be played as a visual novel (which is useful if you wish to replay a favourite story), or as a visual novel tied to a stat raising system reminiscent of 'Heirs and Graces'. All in all this game is delightful, though simple. No competition for Winter Wolves' best games, but still pretty solid provided you like the protagonist.

BIG CW for sexual assault and romanticized sexual violence. There's a lot of exciting ideas in this game's blurb: the very notion of vn/dating sim sequel that focuses on an established relationship makes me tingly all over. But I'm not sure what I really expected beyond that. There's the obvious sexism and the barebones gameplay. There's the sense that I've been tricked into playing a game based on a presumed attachment I had to Always Remember Me. There's the inconsistent art style and the bizarre characterization of--everyone. It's really hard to find something positive to say about this game right now and I think a lot of my troubles can be summarized by the Hugh route, where Amy is literally assaulted by Luis but the route takes pains to make it seem like...................that's a good thing? She enjoys being sexually harassed because she feels neglected? What am I supposed to make of this? If I'm feeling totally crazy I can maybe throw some darts at a board and come up with an argument that says something like "Uhhhhhhh...........Amy's dealing with her severe self-esteem issues while working in an industry that puts bodies on display like so much cattle so here's a thinly veiled takedown of a fantastical representation of said industry and uhhhhh there's some internalized misogyny that makes her feel like potentially getting roofied could be a romantic come on........and uh..............................the floss-thin connections between scenes are really just phenomenological representations of her sense of her alienation from her marriage????" I don't know. Sounds like hooey. Sounds like excuse-making for a game that really wants me to be like "wow good on Hugh for NOT blaming the victim" just as the internal narration is explicitly like "uwu wow assault makes me feel so good this must be a secret wish of mine how exciting to be ~desired~". This is a great example of why the current vn renaissance is so important: this kind of BS shouldn't be the norm anymore. Honestly, what the hell is this. This game doesn't seem to know what it wants to be . Or, maybe, this game knows exactly what it is: a good idea dressed up with flimsy streamers to convince someone to waste their money on it. Do yourself a favour: if you feel even just NEUTRAL toward Always Remember ME and are like "damn I'd love to see where these bizarre-o relationships go", write yourself some fanfiction. You as a player are infinitely more capable of showing more respect to these characters than Winter Wolves did.

Never Forget Me is the sequel to Always Remember Me, following the everyday life of Amy, her husband and the struggles they face. [b]Pros:[/b] + The stories vary and are really interesting. They feel relateable and are well written overall. + The background and the CGs are really beautiful. + Even though I wasn't fond of the music at first, it got stuck in my head as I played the game :) [b]Cons:[/b] - As English is not my mother tongue, I'm the last one to criticise grammar or spelling mistakes. But the more I played, the more they started to bother me - The new activities mini-game was pretty interesting at first but when replaying a route to get a different ending and skipping through the read texts, I thought it was slightly bothersome. - Only new characters were newly drawn. The other character images were simply used again, maybe with new clothes. [spoiler]Even the daughter of Amy and Aaron is recycled. She is the customer that was interested in Lawrence in the first game. And no, she does not resemble Aaron and does not have his eyes.[/spoiler] - I don't know how to say it. To me it was like there was no effort in this game. The character images were used again, details in the stories didn't make sense ([spoiler]for example: In the first game it was pointed out that Amy is an orphan living with the aunt right at the start. Yet her father gave her a present at Aaron's wedding. Or suddenly Amy and Aaron were childhood friends, still he couldn't remember her, even though his memory loss from the first game only included the last few years: the time where he met Amy[/spoiler]) I was really happy when Always Remember Me, one of my first otome games, got a sequel. It hurts me that I like the stories of the life together, yet at the same time I just can't recommend it :(