Shadow of Destiny

Shadow of Memories (シャドウ・オブ・メモリーズ, Shadou obu Memorīzu) (Shadow of Destiny in North America) is a Mystery adventure game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo and published by Konami. Originally released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001, it was later ported to Xbox (which is only released in Europe) and Microsoft Windows in 2002. A PlayStation Portable version was released on October 1, 2009 in Japan and on January 26, 2010 in North America.

The objective of Shadow of Memories is to guide player character Eike Kusch through the fictional German town of Lebensbaum (Life’s Tree) as he travels through time to prevent and unmask his murderer. The game takes place in three parts: a prologue, eight chapters, and an epilogue. In the prologue and each chapter, Eike dies, is resurrected by the non-player character Homunculus, and travels back in time before his death with the intent of changing events to prevent it. Shadow of Memories lacks traditional action elements, and Eike cannot attack nor does he have a bar displaying his health. The digipad, a time-traveling item given to Eike by Homunculus, requires energy units, which the player can find scattered around the town. The gameplay primarily consists of time-traveling through the different eras, finding items, and interacting through dialogue with the non-player characters.
Actions taken in one time period affect future ones; for example, if Eike removes a seal from the squire’s manor in 1580, the seal will not appear in the present era.

Additionally, the game keeps two digital clocks: one depicting the time in the present-day era and another for whichever era Eike time-travels to. The amount of time Eike spends in the different eras also passes in the present-day one. The cut-scenes and dialogue takes up varying amounts of in-game time. When the clock arrives at the time of Eike’s death, the chapter restarts, however, if Eike is not in his time period at the time of his death, the game ends.