Amnesia is a Japanese visual novel series by Idea Factory. It was first released on August 18, 2011, for PlayStation Portable, and then a fan disc in Japan, Amnesia Later, was released on March 15, 2012. Another sequel titled Amnesia Crowd was released on April 18, 2013. They were later combined for a PlayStation Vita release titled "Amnesia Later x Crowd V Edition" on October 16, 2014. Since this series is well received in Japan, it produced various related merchandise such as drama CDs, character music CDs and books. A 2013 animetelevision series has been produced by Brain's Base. A PlayStation Vita game has been announced.
Gameplay
Amnesia is classified as an otome game; like most otome games, the player takes the role of a female character who can choose from a variety of male characters as her 'love interest'. In Amnesia, the male characters that the female character can interact with are based on the symbolic suit symbols from a card deck with the following storylines in the game: Heart, Spade, Clover, Diamond and Joker. Depending on which route is chosen, the player's relationship with each character is different. Each route is a parallel world where the heroine seeks to understand more about her selected male character. The premise to the game involves the Heroine getting amnesia and losing all recollection of her current status and lifestyle. The game focuses on the actions and decisions the heroine has to make in order to retrieve her memories. Since getting amnesia, a spirit called Orion attaches himself to the heroine and gives her advice and his perspective of things, he also provides her with that "inner voice". Orion also serves as the main narrator to the story especially in the later story sequels. Orion needs the heroine to recover her memories otherwise he would not be able to depart and return to his own world. Like many otome games, the events take place over a fixed time frame. However, unlike many games, each route in the game is a parallel world. Events that take place in one route may or may not have happened in another route. The pre-existing relationships the heroine had before amnesia are different in each route. The heroine has also gotten amnesia differently in each route. Playing this game is therefore different from playing other otome games because even key events in the storyline are not fixed.
The anime adaptation of Amnesia was generally poorly received. Anime News Network's Rebecca Silverman gave the first half a C grade overall, commenting "Parts of it are fascinating...while other parts are intensely annoying", and said the show "basically feels like watching someone else play the game." Matthew Lee, writing for Twitch Film, opined that Amnesia's "story offers nothing of any interest beyond the burning question of what the hell any of it means." Seb Reid of UK Anime Network rated it 4 out of 10 and called it "A show that is best forgotten." Silverman gave the second half an overall grade of D, saying that "Ultimately Amnesia ends as it began – fascinating in the same way a loose tooth is, but the payout when you finally get rid of it doesn't feel like enough."
