Memoirium

A crumbling dream, and the rules that govern it

Memoirium casts players as a Dreamer navigating a chaotic, crumbling realm built from liminal spaces, one that "can and will murder you for standing too close" to its stranger corners, as one reviewer puts it. To escape, players must adapt to the dream's own shifting internal logic while defying rival Dreamers who share the same hostile subconscious landscape. Released on 13 August 2026 by GoldenGratus at NZ$21.99, it's a Souls-like that leans hard into its surreal premise, and its Very Positive reception across a substantial early review base reflects just how much that premise pays off.

A setting reviewers call genuinely their own

The clearest thread of praise concerns just how distinctive the game's world feels within an increasingly crowded genre. One detailed reviewer sums it up as "basically Yume Nikki-Souls," a world of "huge, sprawling dreamscapes full of bizarre landmarks and offputting creature designs which are all 'out there' enough to come across as cohesive," specifically praising how "every single dungeon is super visually distinct" with its own memorable enemy roster and mechanical gimmicks. A separate reviewer, playing what they describe as their first-ever Souls-like, describes starting naked in a graveyard before the "underground dreamland vibes" branch outward into "many other dream lands with diff types of enemies and vibes," calling the resulting world "very fun to explore."

Stats, gear and mechanics built around the dream itself

Beyond pure atmosphere, reviewers specifically credit how thoroughly the dream setting shapes the game's underlying systems. One detailed review writes that "Memoirium goes hard on incorporating its setting/theme into the mechanics," noting unusual stats and gear slots that interact in genuinely novel ways, concluding "there's a lot of novelty here, even in mundane places." That same reviewer highlights the combat's "just-guards, just-dodges, and the good ol 'hit guys to get MP' setup," with a twist that rewards specialising hard into one particular approach.

A deflect system reviewers found genuinely satisfying

Combat's central hook draws specific, repeated praise. One reviewer who had eagerly anticipated the game after playing its demo twice writes plainly that "parrying is supremely satisfying" and that "boss fights reward aggressive play," describing a "stress" system that requires staying in a boss's face, parrying and landing hits to keep stress from draining until a critical strike becomes available. A separate reviewer independently praises the same system, comparing its deflect and blocking mechanics favourably to Lies of P's Perfect Guard system "while still managing to have an identity of its own."

Movement and pacing reviewers found clunky

Set against that praise, the sample's most detailed critical account pushes back hard on moment-to-moment feel. That reviewer describes the player character as "slow, floaty and clunky, with big stamina costs," a pace they say would be tolerable on its own but becomes a real problem against enemies that "attack quickly and often" with "no hit stagger," combined with what they call haphazard, frequently multi-enemy placement that leaves players without meaningful crowd control options. That same reviewer separately flags the game's weapons, armour and masks as "neat, but kind of plain," a specific complaint about itemisation feeling thinner than the game's worldbuilding promises.

Boss health pools reviewers call excessive

A second detailed negative account focuses squarely on boss balance, asking directly why certain bosses "have massively inflated health pools and take ages to stagger" when the reviewer's own attacks deal only "20-40 damage per hit," a combination they say turns otherwise interesting fights "incredibly irritating" regardless of how well a player performs. Notably, that same reviewer frames the complaint narrowly, specifically praising "the gameplay" and "the weapons" as fun while naming only two weaker areas, the game's library and a rain-soaked city level, rather than condemning the whole experience.

A demanding game that rewards careful reading

Beyond combat mechanics, one detailed reviewer frames the game's difficulty as tied directly to how carefully players engage with its systems, writing that Memoirium "is also a difficult game... and it becomes considerably harder if you don't take the time to properly read your equipment," suggesting that some of the friction reported elsewhere in the sample may ease considerably for players willing to engage more deliberately with the game's stat and gear systems rather than treating it as a purely reflex-driven experience.

What the achievement data says about progression

Global achievement data offers a useful cross-check on how far the wider playerbase has pushed into the game's content. An early milestone for opening the game's first door sits at a strong 91.0%, and defeating an early boss called the Grave Warden follows at 71.0%, but progress falls away quickly after that: beating the Mage and the Deacon each sit around 40%, while later named bosses like the Duke, Johanna and the Paladin cluster in the low-to-mid twenties, a distribution consistent with a demanding Souls-like where a solid share of the playerbase engages seriously with early content before the difficulty curve thins the field considerably.

A well-received, if unevenly polished, debut

Taken together, the review sample paints a coherent picture of a genuinely inventive Souls-like held back in places by rough mechanical edges rather than a lack of ambition. The strongest praise and the sharpest criticism both circle the same core systems, movement, stamina, boss balance, suggesting a foundation that a determined developer could meaningfully sharpen through post-launch patching, and the game's active update cadence in the weeks following release suggests GoldenGratus is doing exactly that.

Final verdict

Memoirium backs up a genuinely distinctive dream-logic Souls-like with real, specific praise for its setting, its deflect-and-stress combat system, and unusually memorable dungeon variety, earning a Very Positive reception across a substantial early review base. Its most consistent criticism is equally specific: clunky movement, haphazard enemy placement, and boss health pools several reviewers found excessive relative to player damage output. At NZ$21.99, this is a solid recommendation for Souls-like fans looking for real thematic and mechanical novelty, tempered by the expectation of some rough edges typical of an ambitious independent debut.