Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is the second story in a series that last saw a game come out over eight years ago. Taking place in a cyberpunk future where body augmentation, genes and psychic powers are normal conversation pieces, Neurodiver follows the protagonist as she dives into people’s memories attempting to find out who is manipulating their minds.
From bright purples and greens, to anime furries and robots, the pixel art and the visual style stands out right away. Although some people might be put off by its boldness, that would be a little unfortunate, as there is a game with a lot of heart inside of it here.
Rarely anymore do you see major studios release games with character or heart, largely becoming copy and pastes of previous work. That leaves the indie field of small developers and their passion to produce games that often punch above their weight. Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is one such title that catches people by surprise with a lot of little points of quality throughout it.
Taking the role of a psychic “esper” named ES88, she goes through her days using a psychic leech that attaches to victims – subjects that she can easily dive into the minds of and fix what is wrong. Told in a very linear visual novel style, players must move the mouse around and click on objects to advance the plot. The only puzzle aspects are simply finding the right places to click, or occasionally fixing a broken memory, which involves mixing found items together in a specific way. Any sort of dynamic puzzles, such as those found in the Zero Escape series, are nowhere to be found, but this largely is a nice change of pace to just be able to sit down and enjoy the plot.
The narrative has both strength and weakness. Characters are largely pretty good, and the protagonist especially is a rare example of a spunky girl that is actually pretty funny. Many of the talking sections even let the player choose a response that derails the conversation for a few lines. It is a welcome change from the typical visual novel where a choice often isn’t even reacted to in the slightest. The characters largely feel real and likeable, such as the dorky scientist that loves Halloween and is paranoid people are watching him. It shows how characters can still be fun without everyone having convoluted, sad backstories.
An issue that unfortunately detracts from the experience is that the larger story doesn’t really ever take off. There is a bad guy influencing other people’s memories, but even hours into the game, any grand scheme or much of anything has yet to emerge. Given the dark cyberpunk nature of the genre, it feels like a missed opportunity for intrigue, suspense and mystery. Again, while character-to-character interaction is a high point, the overall plot feels like a miss for not getting anywhere.
One of the other problems is that while Neurodiver is mostly straightforward, sometimes progress will absolutely hit a brick wall of not knowing the right set of pixels to click on. One of the absolute most egregious examples is a flashback on a train where there are five large rooms to explore, and the only way to progress is by finding a small robot arm hidden next to a larger clickable object. The difficulty still doesn’t end, as some of the puzzle/mixing sections of this part are brutal when trying to figure out what needs to go where. It absolutely derails the otherwise quick-moving plot.
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is overall surprising with many touches of detail. The voice acting is really on point, and for being such a small game, they really hit it out of the park with capturing the feel and style of each character. Almost every line is voiced, as well, so major kudos for that. If there was a hint system for some of these random brick wall sections, and if the larger plot got going or was at least hinted at earlier, it would go a really long way. As it is, this is an engaging game that can be picked up cheap.
