Not Quite a Lasting Memory

In the world of criminal justice violent cases are a maddeningly high statistic. Committing a crime with no answer or reason is especially damning to the people assigned to the case, as well as those who are affected by the shock waves of the act. With each passing year expanding technology has given officers the chance to limit these cases. But technology has not achieved its true end goal: having the opportunity to see and understand these crimes in detail through the victim’s eyes. At least, not yet.

In the near future, intel organizations have created a virtual reality program dubbed Vision. Vision allows the replaying and researching of memories from an individual via a brain scan. These memories are presented through the VR setting as multiple doors, letting the user replay moments of a person’s life through their eyes. For 49 year old Dave Perry, his memories will be crucial in finding out who attempted to take his life. For Agent John, it will be a chance to solve a case that would set his future into his best timeline.

Tackling a visual novel with a whodunit-style plot can be a daunting task, but Corridors‘ initial pull is an interesting one. Corridors uses multiple memories to provide backstory to Dave Perry: his tumultuous childhood, a failed marriage, and a disconnect with his daughter and ex-wife. But with the injuries sustained in his attack, Vision finds trouble in providing completely accurate memories. The trauma of nearly dying jumbled pieces of Dave’s recent days with his more ancient ones, and this makes it hard for John to devise what is true and false, and what belongs in what memory.

John will be given opportunities to inspect the memories further, choosing which person or object to specifically search, and gather clues to break open the mystery. To add to the stress, Vision has a plot-based limited time of use, so picking one piece of information to inspect further will make another possible vital clue unavailable for that playthrough. Correct clues can be found with some decent context clues and applied thinking, but most players will likely get the correct leads through trial and error. These clues can be harder to find with the rough translation from the developer’s native Russian to the played-through English. Your mileage may vary regarding how this affects your gameplay, but it can be a little jarring.

If you get the bad ending like I did on your first go around, don’t fret, as the initial playthrough runs around 30-45 minutes. Multiple playthroughs are expected and recommended, as past knowledge can help John in fresh retries to find the three different endings. While Corridors‘ set-up has an interesting start, the endings fall a little flat. Twists that are revealed are done so a little too late into the game’s life, and don’t have a lot of time to really soak in for the player. If the endings were given more time to breathe, and some more meat was put onto the actions and consequences regarding John’s work with Vision, Corridors‘ intent could’ve pulled a more impactful punch.

But for what is shown, it’s not a bad attempt. The first playthrough intrigues enough to warrant the time spent figuring out the who and why to Dave Perry’s fate, and filling in the rest of the blanks won’t take too much longer. It’s only real problem is that it needs more, and hopefully developer Alkinoy has some more plans to dive into this world again, because I’m interested in another go.

Reviewed on Steam.