[quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop][b]Warning: AI Slop[/b][/url]
This game is partially or completely made with talentless, soulless AI generated content.[/quote]
RPG Maker strikes again!
"Mnemocyne complex" is part of the flood of low effort RPG Maker construction kit/asset flips on the Steam catalog. RPG Maker asset flips are a consistently amateur cludge of flipped RPG Maker stock assets and high school anime club dropout fan-fiction writing (extremely cringey). In this case, the "developer" couldn't even manage to build a JRPG with RPG Maker. Instead, we are left with a VN heavy, badly written fan-fiction about reality perception and "hidden truths". One non-hidden truth is that gamers hate AI slop and RPG Maker asset flip garbage like this.
It's worth noting the developer hasn't touched his RPG Maker asset flip in 2 months and has just a couple of months left to meet his commitment to deliver the full product to anyone unlucky enough to buy this... and also, the developer is unethically pushing keys for this Early Access game into game bundles where he knows it's being advertised as a complete product. This seems like a deliberate attempt to mislead and scam gamers. Early Access games should never be sold as full products in game bundles.
Like other RPG Maker "games", the game engine is extremely low quality. It displays badly in fullscreen, and has no real graphics settings or HD support. It's not up to the same standard we expect from a modern PC game.
We can make the argument that construction kit toys like RPG Maker are intended for making small games and demos and things to pass around with friends. They shouldn't be used as a substitute or "Ez-mode" to allow unqualified amateurs to LARP that they're real, actual game developers.
This is just more RPG Maker pixelcrap. The crap graphics are met with even worse gameplay, in no small part to RPG Maker itself being crap, and when combining that with talentless, unqualified developers using a childrens toy to pretend to be real game developers with these fan-fictions, gamers suffer.
A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
As mentioned, alongside the plagiarised stock RPG Maker game assets (that the developer wants you to think were somehow his creation), this features really godawful, "wrong" looking AI slop instead of genuinely and sincerely created game assets. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating real game assets or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision. AI slop sticks out like a sore thumb... and it comes across as insulting.
There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too, and that's glaringly obvious here.
The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.
Mnemocyne complex didn't capture much interest from the people who own a copy. The achievement data makes this clear: the easiest achievement, "Day 1", lkjflkdsj, was only unlocked by 40 percent of players. Even the simplest milestone went unreached by the vast majority of owners. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH.
The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality game this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur than anything else. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam?
Mnemocyne complex is relatively cheap at under $4 USD, but it's not worth it. Gamers who want a good retro JRPG experience would be better off playing the originals, like Final Fantasy, Star Ocean or Chrono Trigger.
Ethics aside, there's enough defects and quality problems with this game that it's not worth recommending to gamers, but the unethical nature of the developer/their associates makes it completely impossible.
The use of AI slop is a direct insult to gamers and real, ethical content creators and artists everywhere. AI models are trained on copyrighted intellectual property without permission from the owners. Using AI slop in a published product should be seen as supporting these copyright violations.
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]
