It’s been nearly a decade since 2064: Read Only Memories, the critically acclaimed visual novel, released on Steam. Truly one of the best Western visual novels to come out of the indie scene and is available almost everywhere to boot. 2064:ROM whisked us away to Neo-San Francisco, a city full of ROMs, hybrid humans, and the familiar capitalistic corporate overlords that almost all realistic science-fiction assures us we will never be able to shirk. To say I enjoyed 2064: Read Only Memories would be a vast understatement and I’ve been anticipating Read Only Memories: Neurodiver since it was announced. Neurodiver, taking place in the same universe and city as 2064: Read Only Memories read as a sequel in a similar vein. Unfortunately, I’m a little conflicted with how I feel about the game after playing it.
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver
Developer: Midboss, LLC
Price: $15
Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4|5 (reviewed)
MonsterVine was provided with a Playstation 5 code for review.
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is a point-and-click visual novel in Neo-San Francisco, starring a group of colorful characters similar to those we’ve met in the previous game. Our protagonists are twofold, ES88 is an Esper, or someone with psychic abilities, and her crustacean-looking companion, the Neurodiver. Together, ES88’s job is to delve into the memories of people the Neurodiver is in contact with and uncover or reveal fractured memories. Usually, this involves navigating a memory for some clues, finding the fractured memory, and using the clues to reveal what took place.
Working for MINERVA, a company that we learn very little about during the game, ES88 is warned by her boss that there’s another Esper on the loose fracturing people’s memories. Feeling compelled to reign them in so they don’t give Espers a bad name, ES88 is intent on figuring out who this person, that goes by the name Golden Butterfly, is and stopping them from causing any real damage. While spelunking in people’s minds, she manages to run into Golden Butterfly and the mystery progresses.
Similar to its predecessor, Neurodiver is artistically brilliant. The characters, the world, and the UI are simply gorgeous. The music, like 2064: Read Only Memories, is enchanting. And the story overall is very fitting for its lineage and makes me hopeful that we’ll get more games taking place in this universe. Unfortunately, the amount of story, world, and music doesn’t reflect the nine year wait. Divorcing the wait from the game is easy enough, but make no mistake that Neurodiver is quite short. My final comparison between the two will be that while it took me roughly eleven or twelve hours to beat 2064: Read Only Memories, Neurodiver took me a full four hours.
I’m not a stickler for game time, and quite frankly I think a shorter, more focused game is better overall. I hope that Midboss will be developing some shorter games telling smaller and bigger stories in the Neo-San Francisco universe that I, truly, love so much. The reason I’m disappointed with Neurodiver is because I desperately want more of it. Neurodiver weaves its story into the already existing cast of characters from the first game and, while ES88 is the star of the show, the characters play a big enough role that I’d recommend playing the first game before Neurodiver if you haven’t.
New features include an incredible amount of the game being voiced. A few things in Read Only Memories: Neurodiver aren’t voiced and usually aren’t plot related. However, every character involved in the story has most of their lines voiced. This is huge for me as someone who prefers narrative-based adventure games and RPGs, I really love to just sit back and digest for a while. Unfortunately, this brings a host of issues to Read Only Memories: Neurodiver, primarily, the sound mixing on the voices is a little off. It’s not even individual characters that are mixed differently, it’s lines. I spent a while messing with the sound settings on my television and PlayStation before giving up and realizing that’s just how the game was mixed. There are also several lines that just straight-up cut out entirely during delivery.
I only had a few issues with Neurodiver but the issue with the voice line mixing and cutting out really soured my experience. If these issues aren’t critical to you, Neurodiver’s story is a lot of fun. Especially if you played the first game. But while we’re looking through the lens of ES88, someone who most assuredly wasn’t in 2064: Read Only Memories, I felt like if I hadn’t played that game, Neurodiver would feel a little colorless. Although they have these little commercial bumpers between scene changes that show the character and some information about them while they say, “Neurodiver!” in the background that is so friggen cute.
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver brings up a lot of social issues that existed in 2064: Read Only Memories. For example, hybrid humans are humans that have cybernetic or genetic modifications done and are demonstrating in the local zoo because, well guess. There’s a group called the Human Revolution that’s a political organization looking to outlaw the use of these modifications, go figure. This is touched on in Neurodiver but could be merely brushed off as an aside to the larger story being told. This makes sense, this story isn’t just about modifications done on humans. However, hybrids are an incredibly important part of the world they live in and to spend so little time with it makes it feel a little rushed, especially if you’re unfamiliar with this world.
Neurodiver, except for its length, is about what I expected. The art, writing, and music are top notch. The storyline is engaging, exciting, and all the other ‘e’ adjectives. I truly love the world that’s been created here and added to, thanks to Neurodiver. As I mentioned earlier I hope this results in a series of games being released or at least more games being released instead of long waits between short games.
The Final Word
As for Read Only Memories: Neurodiver, it’s a very tight, focused experience that’s a lot of fun and has a great style and flair for its setting, and I loved it. I just wish there was more to it.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
