Have You Played... Amnesia Memories?

Before Doki Doki Literature Club exploded, there was: Amnesia Memories.

I know what you’re thinking and no, this horror enthusiast isn’t talking about some spinoff to the brilliant Amnesia series (The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs). I’m talking about Amnesia Memories, the Otome game from Idea Factory – Otome being a dating sim aimed at women and girls.

The reason I am mentioning this supposedly fluffy, fantastical dating drama at all is that it's actually pretty scary. Well, at least one route is. You’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a horror, and as a person blithely unaware of certain tropes within the more romantic brand of anime and manga, I had no idea what a Yandere was. For those equally (and thankfully) unaware: Yandere are characters who are violent, obsessive, and downright psychotic… but in a romantic way? (I don’t know either).

What transpires (if you play this way) is a bizarre romance, peppered with eerie realizations that all is not right; the kind of thoughts you could only hope to experience in an actual horror game. I’m not kidding. My blood turned cold when the penny finally dropped.

Sure, it wasn’t necessarily meant to be scary, and the rest of the game is standard fare I suppose, but I'll give this dating sim one thing: one of its routes is scarier than most other psychological horror games put together.

Well played Amnesia Memories. I’ll call you.

[Runs away]