Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
~T.S. Eliot

This is the first visual novel that I've played from Winter Wolves, and I must say that I'm not impressed. Always Remember Me is an otome game with a somewhat ordinary concept, annoyingly stereotypical characters, suicidally repetitive choice actions and a scarcity of events about the main story to keep you interested. At this point, I must confess that I've completed my first playthrough quite easily and gave in a reaction of "seriously?" at the first ending that I've discovered. During my second playthrough... I got bored and wandered off to do something else, forgetting the game running. When I remembered that I was playing the game, I came back and gave in 2 more hours of the gameplay to collect the missing achievements - a.k.a. fast-forwarded through some repetitive actions and only read event dialogues. Thus, my gaming time.

Let me introduce you to Amarantha - called as Amy by friends - literature student, part time worker in an ice-cream parlor and a boringly plain young woman that you could define in 3 adjectives completely: fickle, stereotypical and automated. At the start of our gameplay, Amy has a motorcycle accident alongside her boyfriend Aaron - which fills in the young, rich and handsome stereotype. Amy survives with some moderate wounds but alongside a slight concussion, Aaron now has amnesia. He doesn't remember a thing about Amy. At this point, it is up to us to either patiently wait by our amnesiac boyfriend to help him regain his memories or run after a limited selection of other handsome young man who might become equally interested with us - namely Lawrence, Eddie and Hugh; appropriately filling in the shy cutie, the workaholic overachiever and the charming artist stereotypes in that order.

So... As you may observe, our heroine hypothetically overcomes the trauma of losing "the love of her life" quite easily. She - and any other cute boy that she may end up with - are written really badly. They all consist of stereotypes with shallow reactions, superficial dialogue options and boringly unimaginative personalities. One could claim that I shouldn't expect much literary narrative or originality from an otome game to begin with, but without the visual novel quality of an interesting story or interesting enough characters - or at least decent narrative - I most certainly see no reason to spare my time specifically to experience a couple cute pictures of pretty anime characters kissing and some really lame dialogue note at the side. Sorry, but this is what the game eventually ends up being so.

For the gameplay: you have 4 romance options, 4 stats that you can raise through completing more or less the same actions for a period of 3 months. Each stat concerns one of the romance option as a target. You wake up, work in the parlor, visit the romance option, raise stats with a limited selection of actions, sleep and repeat. Oh, and once in a while you stumble upon an event where you'll get a relationship raise if you are to choose the right one in the dialogue options. Eventually, you hit an ending for the boy that you picked, witness a cheesy "happily ever after" scene and carry on. Nothing else. No surprise factor, no real challenge, no in-depth story. Nothing. You repeat the same action for the millionth time while getting harassed by the endless repetition of the same 8 note soundtrack to be rewarded by a cute picture and 3-4 sentences telling how happy you ended up. Brilliant.

Many would blame me to already know what I would get myself involved with when I picked an otome game to play, but with games from Cheritz or Hanako Games of the same genre in the market, you really should skip this if you are not getting it in a bundle, like super cheap. Else, consistently avoid this one to enjoy another VN or otome with more imaginative gameplay or at least better character concepts and/or story.

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As a huge fan of dating sims, I've already experienced many different types of Otome Games / Visual Novels and yet, I have to say that I was quite disappointed by Always Remember Me. I had some expectations before playing this game since the visuals seemed fairly appealing and I actually wasn't disappointed by the (few) CGs - they were drawn well and the character designs weren't bad either. But that's it, everything else made me - bluntly said - dislike the game.

The characters' sprites during the cutscenes looked weird (e.g. when Amy cried her posture/gesture didn't change at all, her posture stayed the same throughout the game and the same with the other characters). Additionally, the game seemed to focus more on the stat raising mechanic than the romance plot itself, leading to some annoying and boring "save & load" back and forth since you want to raise your stats as soon as possible in order to get both endings easily. Lastly, the endings to every route in this game. Briefly said, they were also very disappointing. A short cutscene with CG as a reward and during those cutscenes, you couldn't really feel the love between the protagonist and her final love interest - you just couldn't feel this achievement which you want to have as the player in every dating sim.

All in all, I'm glad they took another step forward to localising dating sims in the west and I don't regret buying ARM since it helped supporting the localisation. Still, I probably wouldn't have bought it for another reason.

I'll never forget you :D

All my other reviews are jokes, but I really can’t joke about this game. It’s a dating sim that seems like a cute way to pass the time but in the end just feels like a whole repetitive exercise about how much you can read into non-existent conversations and relationships with little foundation.

Always Remember Me is quick to use all the big heart-tugging elements, with a somewhat forbidden relationship, a protagonist with dead parents, an amnesiac boyfriend, a manipulative ex-girlfriend, and even a struggling humanities student who is just trying to pay her tuition. The story is all very heavy-handed, never really bothering to get into the "why" or "how" of anything or anyone. But that doesn't really matter anyway, since scenes are so few and far between – and so incredibly brief when they even happen – that the story barely exists. It's not uncommon for Always Remember Me to just skip scenes altogether, passing over entire conversations and evenings out, and swiftly arriving at the ending, leaving you to fill in any romance or, well, anything at all that happened.

The sim elements feel pretty unnecessary. On easy difficulty you can spam the activity that gives you the most stats, while on harder difficulties you scramble around to figure out a strategy. The emphasis seems to be more on the “sim” element than the “dating”, and for that it’s not too fun. The relationship building part of the game doesn’t feel substantial, and if the overall aim is to grind numbers for those parts then I have to ask what purpose it serves, or if the result even makes up for the grind.

At the end of the day, Always Remember Me isn't a bad game, it just falls flat on effort in the wrong places. The plot relies on shallow dramatic backstory to give characters a false sense of depth while the gameplay is a pure grind and almost without purpose. For me, there’s not enough payoff to justify grinding through numbers to reach an ending, and that makes this game a really dull experience.

What if the person you planned to spend the rest of your life with suddenly, abruptly, really soon like, forgot who you are because of a car accident? Same here, I don’t have no money for doctor bills. It’s time to dump em’ and find a new squeeze.

You play as this red head chick who is hella randy and it is your job to make her experience “true love.” That’s right guys, no knockers, no hooters, no lady berries, and no love buttons. This chick keeps her shirt on the whole time and the guys don’t pressure her to put out. Not only does this take away from the realism (‘cause the libido of anime dudes IS real) but one potential love interest is a shy guy with glasses. THE SHY GUY WITH GLASSES DOES NOT GET FRIEND ZONED BY DEFAULT. I couldn’t believe it either. I did everything in my power to put this fool in his place, but then I… fell in love with him.

His long hair glistened in the sun and this was accentuated by his inability to shower because his hair retained its natural oils. When his baggy bloodshot eyes met mine I looked away of course. When I looked back to see if he was still staring at me, he was. It was like his eyes never left me. That he would never leave me.

This game completes me. 10/10

Always Remember Me is a nice dating sim, starring a female protagonist.

As those familiar with the genre would expect, after a brief set of introductory events the game gives you nearly complete freedom of what to do and whom to meet. There are only four potential romantic partners, though they are fairly well-detailed and likable. Protagonist herself, Amy also gets a lot of characterization rather than just being a stand-in for the player. And your every action, successful or not, gets a description of how it went, done in Amy’s quirky style!

Also as expected of a dating sim, your character has several stats, and doing your daily job for money as well as variety of activities to increase one or more stat is integral part of the gameplay.

Storytelling-wise, there are some lovely moments, but nothing truly touched me as some moments in other visual novels and dating sims did. Overall, I enjoyed the story well enough, although I wouldn’t call it that great either.

I can recommend Always Remember Me to all fans of dating sims. And those unfamiliar with this genre but interested in a nice casual game may consider giving it a try as well.

Eat, sleep, work, read your amnesian boyfriend books - repeat

This has to be the first Winter Wolves game which really annoys me.

For a Visual novel the story/characters are really thin, your progress through it is nearly non existant, which in the end makes a repetetive grind through the always same few stations you have in the game with always the same actions and nearly no story progress.
Mix to this a similiar annoying music background and you have a really bland gaming experience.

Short review, but there isn´t much more to this game.

This game has its flaws, but if you can look past them it's a nice playing experience. Great art, nice characters, dramatic, but realistic enough backstory and 9 different kind of endings (if you count 'alone' ending to be one). Music is also nice, but for my taste maybe a little too repetitive. After all, it's a really beautiful and kind of cute game.

How ever there is a big problem with this game. After a little while playing it really starts to repeat itself, like REALLY repeat. When you become familiar with how all of it works you're just basicly waiting for some random events to trigger and your friendship to increase with your chosen character. Also you have to know who you are going after from the day one in this game. Otherwise you'll just run out of time and end up getting alone ending. I can't say much about endings, because I haven't played all of them yet. But from what I've seen... they're not that strong and feel kind of flat.

But well, after all I still must say that it's okey game. I've played better visual novels before, but can't really say it's bad either. If you like visual novels then I'd say give it a try.

This game is just bad.
... More details, seriously? Morbidly curious, huh?

Well, alright. First stop aesthetic. It's bland, no personality, nothing that stands out compared with every other visual novel on the market. Now it's not ugly either but that's not quite good enough to be able to support the awful story.

I mean, there is nothing to salvage here. It starts stupidly, continue stupider and finish in the stupidest fashion possible.
You have to perform repetitive actions every day which doesn't bring anything to the overall experience and just artificially lengthen the playing time.
The characters are all the worst version of a anime cliché possible. The dialogues are trash.
I know it sounds harsh, but trust me, playing this game is harsher. There is not even a worthwhile decision to be made.

Look, if you played and loved every visual novel in the world and have zero expectation, maybe consider it for bundle price. Otherwise run away.

Always Remember Me is telling the story of Amy, whose boyfriend got into an accident and doesn't remember her. You follow her life through her summer work and her hobbies. It's up to you to choose if she will make Aaron (her boyfriend) fall in love with her again or if she will find love elsewhere.

You have Lawrence, her coworker, Hugh, the stylist and Eddy, the doctor that can replace Aaron in her heart, however, to unlock a romance ending (or the special romance), you'll have to have a very good relationship with the chosen one and the main characteristic that will unlock the special ending at a highest rate. For example, everything related to sport will help you for Eddy while the creativity will be useful for Hugh.

You choose your activity and how you spend your money but keep in mind that the game will be repetitive. Always Remember Me, after a while, is boring as you're only upping the stats you want and do the same activity each day and you try to improve the relationship.

While the graphics are correct, the soundtrack is very very good, like the main song.

On the other side, it has a lot of replayability as you want to see the other endings, despite the repetitive gameplay.

Always Remember Me stays a nice VN, though I would buy it in a bundle or discounted.