Song Of Memories - PS4

Song of Memories is, anyway you slice it, a weird one. The latest visual novel to come out of Japan's DICO Co.Ltd, it's definitely a game of two halves, you spend the first chunk of the game in a happy blur of romance and music, then in the second half things take a rather darker turn.

To start with you'll hunt for your soulmate, blissfully spending your game time dating around, getting to know your six different beautiful classmates and navigating over 100 different events, including dates and a swimming pool event.

Then, at around the halfway mark the apocalypse hits and you'll see your earlier decisions play out against a much more high stakes backdrop than you might otherwise have expected!

The game defies standard visual novel conventions in a number of ways. For starters, rather than the usual static presentation with dialogue playing out through text, you'll find animated characters that react to each other and 40 hours of voice acting.

More importantly, however, the game has light role-playing elements and a strong musical element, with an original soundtrack that could fill four CDs and impacts the game thanks to a rhythm-action battle system.

With a range of endings on offer, your decisions have a very real impact on how the game plays out with plenty of opportunities for repeat play throughs.

Any way you look at it, Song of Memories promises to be a strange and interesting experience! more