TAPE: Unveil the Memories Review

TAPE: Unveil the Memories is an indie thriller game where you step into the shoes of Iria as she goes on a trip into her subconscious and uncovers a lot about her past and her family.

First and foremost, I'd like to begin this review with a quick trigger warning: just in case you didn't know, the game has heavy and serious themes; discretion is advised.

Throughout the entire game, you'll be lost in a maze of rooms and strange places as the story takes place within Iria's subconscious mind, and the narrative will be unravelled to you by notes, tapes, and voice recordings that are scattered across the rooms. As with most games that deal with heavy themes and trauma, there is a lot of symbolism and abstract imagery, and you'll find yourself running through long, twisted, and dark hallways and the like.

This works quite nicely with the time ability Iria unlocks early on, where you'll use an old camera from her childhood to rewind and forward items through time. This, running, and hiding are basically the only things you will do throughout your entire playthrough of the game, and although I quite liked the puzzles and time-bending ability, you won't find anything incredibly innovative. That being said, I don't really think that should count as a downside, as I think the puzzles and mechanics are fine as they are.

Whilst you explore the areas — which mainly involve a hospital and then a mansion — there will be a monster that appears sporadically throughout the game. The stealthing was basic, where you hide whenever the enemy is nearby, sneak past him, and run to the nearest exit. Aside from that, there are no jumpscares and no overly-complex stealth sequences or battles. Again, whilst this sounds boring, I think it's not bad, especially if you just want to unravel a sinister narrative whilst feeling tension. If you're looking for a game that will have your adrenaline pumping or a constant feeling of terror, TAPE: Unveil the Memories is not the game for you.

Unfortunately, due to my pretty poor sense of direction and short attention span, I constantly got lost throughout the many rooms and would even be confused about what to do next. This did make it a bit tedious in the later areas due to the number of times you encounter the monster. Thankfully, the death scene is quite swift, and you quickly respawn again; this made it so that it wasn't game-breakingly tedious to have to sneak around.

I do want to warn those looking for a challenge that the stealthing is very easy — in fact, if you outrun the monster and pass through a door, it'll lose aggro and you'll be safe. This might make it a bit annoying if you get lost like me, however, as the monster is not challenging or scary, but he is everywhere in the mansion.

Additionally, the game can be kind of buggy at times, as during one of the bigger stealth sequences before you reach the mansion, the monster bugged out against a wall, and he would also sometimes see me in areas where he shouldn't have been able to. But I thought it was all pretty minor.

And last, but not least, the game is entirely spoken in Spanish, and there is no way to change the language. Whilst I really appreciated the change in language (and that the actors were pretty great!), it might be a downside if you're not into reading subtitles.

The graphics are beautiful, the sound design is pretty good at building tension, and the gameplay is straightforward. As long as you go into TAPE: Unveil the Memories knowing you'll mostly be unravelling a sinister story and not running for your life in terror, you might enjoy the game. In fact, I truly appreciated that — despite the heavy subjects — the narrative wasn't overly vague; at the end of the game, I understood and knew what had happened, leaving only the unnecessarily gnarly bits to my imagination.