MEMOLITH: Forsaken by Light Review

Smart combat, a haunting world, and ambitious ideas make MEMOLITH memorable—but not every change pushes it in the right direction.

Some games grow over time. Others transform so completely that they almost become something else entirely. Long before this version existed, the game built a small but dedicated audience under a different identity during its early access period.

Over time, the developers reworked systems, redesigned areas, reshaped progression, and pushed the project toward a larger vision. By the time version 1.0 arrived, this wasn’t simply an updated game—it felt like a new interpretation of the original idea.

That makes MEMOLITH an unusual experience. New players will probably see a dark, challenging tactical RPG packed with systems and atmosphere. Players who spent time with earlier versions may find themselves adjusting to a world that looks familiar but is very different beneath the surface.

What remains unchanged is the game’s ambition. MEMOLITH wants every expedition to feel dangerous, every victory earned, and every trip into the darkness uncertain. Sometimes it absolutely succeeds.

The world of MEMOLITH starts with a collapse.

The city of Remore used to rely on the Memolith, a strange light source that kept the world from being completely dark. Everything changed when that light went out. Entire districts fell into chaos, ordinary people became monsters, and the few survivors left behind were forced to adapt or disappear.

Players enter this world with a simple objective on paper: return to the ruined city, restore the guiding pillars, and recover pieces of the shattered Memolith. But the story quickly becomes more than a mission log.

Along the way, the game introduces survivors who all feel shaped by the same disaster in different ways. Edwin, a militia arbalist, joins not because he wants adventure but because survival is easier with company. Duirmuid enters the story carrying his own sense of hopelessness. Ellen’s strange ability to see what others cannot adds an unsettling layer of mystery to exploration.

The strongest storytelling doesn’t always happen during major scenes. It appears in letters, abandoned notes, conversations, and small discoveries scattered throughout the world. Those moments quietly show that Remore was once alive.

At the same time, the narrative has shifted direction from earlier versions.

What once felt smaller and more personal now leans harder into themes of light, belief, and larger mythology. There’s more happening in the world, but some of the intimacy has been lost in the process. MEMOLITH splits its gameplay into two very different moods.

Outside combat, exploration happens almost in real time. Players move through ruined streets, search buildings, collect resources, and carefully navigate enemy territory. Inside combat, everything slows down and becomes fully turn-based.

That transition creates most of the game’s tension. Exploration isn’t relaxed. Enemies patrol areas with visible detection zones, and getting spotted can quickly turn one encounter into several. A bad approach doesn’t just create a fight—it creates a disaster.

That means preparation becomes part of the gameplay. Watching enemy movement. Choosing safer routes. Keeping the party together. Planning where combat starts. What happens after the initiative starts is just as important as the choices made. MEMOLITH improves as the fight starts.

As each person takes the stage, they can do important things. Shield users can protect and take over rooms. Archers help their friends and stop the enemy from moving. Heavy melee fighters break formations and pressure groups. The combat feels tactical without becoming slow.

Positioning matters constantly. A doorway becomes a cover.

A narrow corridor becomes a defensive line. One bad placement can destroy an entire encounter. This is where MEMOLITH feels most confident. Combat is easily MEMOLITH’s strongest feature. There’s real satisfaction in setting traps, protecting vulnerable teammates, and surviving encounters that initially seem impossible.

One of the game’s best ideas is the Guiding Pillar system. To reclaim sections of the city, players activate special pillars. The catch is that activating them alerts nearby enemies and leaves the party vulnerable while the process completes.

It creates these great moments where players suddenly stop thinking about defeating enemies and start thinking about surviving long enough to finish the objective. That pressure feels fantastic. Corruption adds even more tension. Every character slowly loses willpower while spending time in darkness. Once that meter empties, actions begin costing health instead. Suddenly, every move matters. Do players keep fighting?

The system creates constant pressure without feeling unfair. But this is also where the game begins to lose momentum. As strong as combat is, puzzle sections interrupt the flow in ways that don’t always feel natural. Environmental goals, particularly crystal-lighting sequences, take players away from making tactical decisions and put them into slower-paced sections.

Instead of focusing on builds and positioning, players spend time activating mechanisms and solving environmental puzzles. These moments aren’t terrible. They just feel disconnected from what the game does best. For players mainly here for combat, the shift can become frustrating surprisingly fast.

MEMOLITH’s progression system has some genuinely creative ideas.

The standout feature is memory binding. Throughout the game, players collect memories connected to people lost to the darkness. People can wear these memories to get better stats, passive perks, and new skills. Success is felt more specifically than usual. Each of their memories begins to affect their lives in different ways.

That's how you may try new things and become better. It is harder to manufacture. Weapons and armor require collected materials and recipes, but the timing feels strange. By the time crafting becomes consistently available, many players will already have found stronger gear during exploration.

That removes much of the excitement from gathering resources. Instead of feeling essential, crafting becomes something players occasionally remember exists. It’s not broken. It just never reaches the importance it seems designed to have.

MEMOLITH immediately creates an atmosphere. Its sprite-based art style works especially well with the darker setting. The destroyed city looks cold, empty, and scary, even though not many visual effects were used. Even though there are a lot of people and enemies on screen, battles are still easy to follow.

Still, not every change to the look feels as finished. Some younger places don't seem to fit in with the rest of the world's character. Certain environments lack the same attention to detail and cohesion as earlier areas. Most of the game looks strong. A few sections simply don’t reach the same standard.

Sound design quietly carries a lot of MEMOLITH’s atmosphere. The soundtrack knows when to stay in the background. Instead of always wanting your attention, the music gets louder when there is danger and quieter when there is discovery. Alerts about enemies cause stress right away. Environmental sounds make empty streets feel uneasy. Even silence becomes part of the experience.

The result is a world that feels heavy and uncomfortable, exactly as the game intends.

MEMOLITH: Forsaken by Light feels like a game caught between preserving what worked and chasing something bigger. And to its credit, a lot of those ambitions work. Combat remains excellent. Exploration creates tension. Character customization feels meaningful. The atmosphere stays strong from beginning to end. But the game also feels overloaded at times.

More systems, mechanics, interruptions, and redesign. Some players will see that as growth. Others will miss the cleaner, more focused identity the game once had. MEMOLITH is still easy to recommend to tactical RPG fans because when it works, it delivers genuinely great moments. The difficult question isn’t whether the game is good. It’s whether the version players wanted still exists inside everything it became.