A year and a half following Bright Memory, which was a very fast-paced game, the Chinese studio FYQD finally allows us to play Bright Memory: Infinite, released on 07/21/2022 on the Xbox store. We will therefore discover the story of Shelia Tan, taking place in the year 2036, following a strange phenomenon that occurred in the skies of the whole world. What regarding the course of the story, is the game still as fast-paced, the graphics with Ray Tracing, which were already in the first game, will they still dazzle us? All the info now!
Shelia Tan to the rescue
We start this test by talking regarding the menus. Four options are available: New game, Start from a selected scene, Skins and Settings. An interesting thing, we have access in the Skins menu to a lot of choices when it comes to the outfits and the color of our weapons. For those who have opted for the Platinum version of the title, everything will be unlocked, for others, it will be necessary to complete certain challenges in order to acquire it. It is nice to be able to choose, in the Settings menu, whether or not to activate Ray Tracing, vertical synchronization (Vsync), as well as the frame rate in 120 frames per second. Of course, we can choose at the start of the game a game difficulty between Easy, Violent, Vengeance and Hell, the latter being unlocked following finishing the game in Vengeance difficulty. So we start on Violent, the default difficulty, in order to make the most of the story.
- A disturbing phenomenon
The story begins on January 27, 2036, the first day of the Chinese year. As fireworks light up the rainy sky, Shelia, our heroine, enjoys the view and a day of rest. But this one will not last, because a call from Director Chen, boss of the SRO (Supernatural Science Research Organization), asks us to go and investigate urgently on a disturbing meteorological phenomenon. Unfortunately, he also confirms that the unit of General Lin, commander-in-chief of the SAI and which would surpass the SRO in terms of technology, is already there. Following a short QTE sequence, we discover a huge black hole in the sky, sucking up everything around it. The director tells us that our friend Wake is already there, waiting for us at the meeting point. Then begins a combat phase followed by others, which serve throughout the first level of tutorial.
A sword, powers and guns: that’s too good!
Bright Memory: Infinite is on the whole the same as its elder, that is to say an FPS with hyper dynamic fights, where we will run and jump in all directions. But a lot of things have changed since then. First, the defense has been revised upwards, because in addition to being able to dodge, it is now possible to reflect enemy attacks and projectiles with your sword. Then Shelia’s powers are different. Indeed his Exo-arm allows to use an IEM which makes our enemies levitate, to use a tractor beam and even to accumulate energy to ignite or immobilize our adversaries.
- New: special ammunition
The Lumi-blade has also received modifications. From now on, it must be improved so that it releases its sharp waves. But that’s not all, because in addition to the Aerial Slice which throws the enemy into the air and the Giant Slash which deploys a swirling sharp wave, comes a new power: The Earth Slice. This allows us to accumulate energy in our blade, and to release an area attack inflicting damage and sending our opponents into levitation. Another change, the timer gauge for powers has disappeared, replaced by a gauge that decreases according to the use of powers, which allows combos to be chained at breakneck speed. And finally, special ammunition makes its appearance, scattered here and there in the tables, in order to spice up the gameplay a little more! Note also that certain passages of the game require us to remain hidden, while having the possibility of killing our enemies stealthily, and of driving a car while shooting in all that moves. To perfect our “little” arsenal, we must of course snoop around the levels.
- It smells of improvement!
Destructible crates dot our path, some of which contain relics, a sort of little blue halo, and we are often forced to play the yamakasis to discover certain crates hidden in the scenery. If we accumulate ten relics, we automatically get a reliquary, which allows us to either unlock or improve our weapons. For those who relentlessly search the paintings, it seems that reliquaries are scattered in all sorts of places!
Perfection does not exist…
We also need to tell you regarding the few small problems encountered during the test. Several game crashes occurred during combat phases, and too often before checkpoints. Despite flushing the console cache, the issue has occurred time and time once more. Something also very strange, during the fight once morest the second boss, following a tragic death, we were treated to a somewhat long loading, then we returned to the beginning of the chapter. Half an hour of gameplay wasted somehow… The game finishes on Violent difficulty in three hours, which is still more than the 45 minutes of its senior. Finally, the story is non-existent and we do not really understand where the creator of the game is coming from, too bad.
Regarding the soundtrack, the music is rhythmic during the fights, sticking perfectly to the situation, and the surrounding noises immerse us perfectly in the atmosphere of the game. As for the graphics, the game is absolutely sublime. Everything has become finer than during the first Bright Memory, released a year and a half ago, but also more visually violent. Indeed, our enemies may have their limbs torn off during certain combos, or even be completely reduced to a pulp, which promises liters and liters of hemoglobin on the screen! Shelia also benefited from a small visual facelift, with a more worked face, and more imposing feminine forms.
For achievement hunters, the only real difficulty will be to finish the game on the Hell difficulty. For everything else, you will have to be patient to kill a significant number of enemies with each weapon and power, by ending a game once more, or by restarting a checkpoint in a loop, because everything is counted. For information, we have unlocked 575 G, in a single game with ease.
Tested on Xbox Series X (optimized version)
