GUNNM MARTIAN MEMORY

—by Susan Ansley

Video game adaptations of popular manga are nothing new, and usually less than satisfactory. Often the story is pushed aside in favor of making the game action oriented in the hope of drawing sales. In the case of GUNNM: MARTIAN MEMORY, however, I'm glad to say that a balance of both has been achieved.
Based on the manga GUNNM by Kishiro Yukito (BATTLE ANGEL ALITA in North America), MARTIAN MEMORY is the complete version of the story containing additional materials not found in the manga. The player assumes the role of Gally and begins a journey that takes her from the streets of Scrap Iron Town and the desert outlands, to the city of Jeru and her birthplace on the planet Mars.
The game is set in 3D with the camera at ¾ perspective above and behind Gally, though at times the camera is a little too distant from her. This lets you take in a lot of the scenery but makes Gally look like a blue speck with legs. In each level there are story and boss rounds that have to be played to advance the game. At anytime however, Gally can leave the story via the world map and enter areas where she can fight opponents, for which she earns bounty chips to purchase weapons and items. Stay on a level for 40 minutes or 4 hours, the choice is yours to decide how fast you want to play through it, and how you would like to equip Gally. Combat in minor confrontations is initiated by pressing the "Select" button to switch into battle mode. This gives the option of avoiding opponents by running past them, or breaking off from a fight with no penalty if Gally is low on health. Bad camera angles, which are common in many games, rarely occur here. Gally is always at screen center and by default targets the opponent closest to her. Combat controls are intuitive and easy to master. Pressing a single button multiple times yields a combo; holding R1 adds momentum and changes the attack.
MARTIAN MEMORY also packs a variety of options for you to decide how Gally will fight: barehanded, bladed weapons, missiles, bombs, TUNED Gun and plasma attacks (if her body is capable). If this sounds a little like overkill, well, it will all come into play. Battles of 2-5 opponents are common and Gally will face a wide assortment of tough guys, each with a particular strength and requiring a different strategy to beat. Some will throw knives or lace her with plasma, while others are tough as nails fighters that will surround Gally and pummel her if you are not careful. In addition, one level involves Motorball and requires a different set of skills to defeat opponents while racing at speeds of 300 km/h. If that is not enough, the boss rounds can be endurance slugfests, such as against Jashugan; or a shooter with Gally firing a gun loaded with collapser bullets into her nemesis Zapan. There is never a lack of things to do and the fighting never seems gratuitous or repetitive, but are integrated into the story and fitting for what Gally does best.
Besides combat there is a huge amount of story to work through. For a video game, this is a very faithful adaptation of the manga, with all the major events occurring in the proper order. Average playing time is between 20-30 hours, and for a single disc there are more text dialogues than any other games I have seen. No doubt this attention to detail is a result of Kishiro's direct involvement during game design. MARTIAN MEMORY also features a variety of music that fits with the story: funk, solo piano, and a middle-eastern theme with exotic percussion and choral whistling.
The game however does come up short on a few technical aspects. Sound effects are minimal during cut scenes, and none of the dialogue is voiced. As a result, it is dead quiet for long stretches of the game. Graphics are not the best compared to other Playstation games and suffers from inconsistent quality. For example, in early scenes such as the streets of Scrap Iron Town and the sewers beneath it, the backgrounds are solid looking, colorful and sharply detailed. By comparison in later parts of the game the colors are bland and the details sketchy. There is also the occasional polygon glitching, though to be fair this is something common to many games. The overall impression I have is that the game's designers planned well but lacked either the money or time to fine-tune the graphics and sound.
Usually weaknesses like these would knock a game down to mediocre, but MARTIAN MEMORY has such a strong story and is so much fun to play that this did not bother me. The presentation is so unique it seems it was made to complete the story Kishiro never had the chance to tell in his manga, due to an untimely illness. MARTIAN MEMORY may not be the prettiest game in town, but just like the manga it is derived from, it has a big heart.

Rating: 8.0 / 10

Sony Playstation
Action Adventure
1 Player
Requires 1-3 Memory Blocks
SLPS 01408
¥6800
Available now in Japan
Where to buy