SPYxANYA: Operation Memories Review – An Adventure First and For The Fans

Test conditions: We spent around ten hours on the game in its PlayStation 5 version. We completely finished the story, participated in all the dialogues and tested all the mini-games offered.

Slices of life from a colorful family

SPYxANYA: Operation Memories is not a simple adaptation of the manga, it is a completely new story and made only for the game. In the same way as the film SPY x FAMILY CODE: White Released earlier this year, an assignment given to Anya will be the pretext to launch a new adventure.

Here, Anya and the other students of the Eden school must fill out a journal in which they tell a story that is close to their hearts. Anya then chooses to write down memories of her family outings.

While the universe and characters are obviously well known to fans, the title completely forgets about newcomers. Indeed, there is no context, including Anya's telepathic powers or Loid and Yor's double lives. A simple introduction would not have been too much so that everyone could then understand all the situations.

Fans will be delighted to find a good part of the cast of the work, its locations and some dialogues will make references to certain passages of the manga. The basic material is respected, whether it is humor, accentuated by the essential facial expressions of the series or simply the visual aspect of the title. Anime regulars will also be happy to find the original Seiyuu (voice actors) and this in all the dialogues, the latter being all dubbed.

A two-part gameplay with a daily rhythm

The game can be divided into two types of gameplay. The first, the heart of the adventure, could be likened to a visual novel. The day begins at school, where depending on the day, Anya will be either in class or in the gym. There, the player can chat with Becky, Damian and Mr Henderson in order to advance each of their little scenarios, leading to different skits and illustrations to collect.

In addition to these dialogues, you can also take a photo of an object to embellish Anya's diary. In a way that is quite similar to what is offered by New Pokemon Snapyou have to get the best photo by adjusting the sharpness of the lens, finding the right angle and capturing the right moment of the action that Anya is doing. It is possible to take several photos and then choose the one you want to keep in the journal.

Once the possible actions have been carried out at school, it is time to go home and find Loid, Yor and Bond (and sometimes Yuri or Fiona). There, it's all over again with objects to take pictures of and conversations to participate in. Then comes the night and an activity that we will detail below, to move on to the next day.

The next day follows exactly the same pattern, except once every three days when the school day is replaced by an outing to one of the ten locations offered by the game. However, the gameplay does not really change and here too you will have to take photos to fill Anya's diary. Too bad the locations lack life and are quite poor visually. Generally speaking, without being ugly, the game is also not very pretty and the movements are quite rigid, the fault may be due to a version planned first for Nintendo Switch.

Anya Party

Let's go back to the other activity we were talking about above and which represents the second type of gameplay offered by SPYxANYA: Operation Memories. For each photo taken, Anya gets a certain number of “Eurekas” points. These can be used in the evening at the Forger home to participate in mini-games.

In total, there are eighteen activities that can be played once unlocked. Quite varied, some remain more interesting than others. For example, we can mention dodgeball, bowling, rhythm games or even card games like President.

Once the mini-game is completed, we are rewarded with PCs depending on the score achieved. Note that the game also allows us to exchange Eurekas points for PCs without participating in a mini-game, but in this case the gain will be lower.

These famous PJ points can then be used to obtain costumes for Anya, Loid, Yor and Bond. The game is rather generous, mixing the outfits worn by the protagonists in the manga and some original ones. Note that you can customize the appearance of the characters at any time except at school where Eden's uniform is mandatory. In addition to the purely aesthetic aspect, some clothes allow you to benefit from bonuses such as an increased gain in Eurekas or PJ for example, or even faster movements.

Other clothing items can also be obtained through the lottery. In exchange for tickets obtained by completing challenges in mini-games and side missions, it is possible to win costumes or PCs.

Once all the photos have been taken in the ten outing locations as well as at school and at home, the story finally comes to an end. It took us about ten hours to complete the adventure and participate in all the dialogues. A decent length, especially considering the repetitiveness of the title.

Indeed, the game voluntarily limits our progress by only allowing us to take one photo per day at school and at home and only two during an outing. Same thing for the dialogues, they can only progress once per day and thus force us to tirelessly repeat the same daily loop.

But if that's not enough for the most dedicated fans, they can add a nice packet of extra hours to complete all the challenges related to the mini-games. Each one will have to be launched at least nine times (three times in each difficulty) to complete it entirely. The problem is that to do this, it is necessary to have Eurekas points, the obtaining of which is limited per day. The only consolation is that their gain is doubled once the adventure is over.