Read Only Memories: Neurodiver review - a bright cyberpunk noir overdosing on easter eggs
Squid pro quo
The characters in Read Only Memories: Neurodiver are deeply into anime. They love manga and figurines and trashy movies and horror novels. The interests of the game's creators have not so much leaked into this fictional world as they have been generously pumped in with an industrial hose. Even the visual novel's loading screens take the form of those two-second intermission panels that flash up to signal an anime's commercial break, complete with random characters announcing the game's name ("Neurodiver!"). In moments like that, the passion is endearing. But in other places, it is overwhelming. Neurodiver is obsessed with media in a way that often distracted me from the bright-eyed cyberpunk story it wants to tell.
That story is one of psychic detective Luna, aka ES88. She's an "esper" capable of diving into people's memories with the help of a squid-like creature called the Neurodiver. Luna lugs this clairvoyant cuttlefish between jobs in its tank, like a kind of wet metal briefcase. She's accompanied by Gate, a burly minder (and principal love interest). I label it a visual novel because the click-by-click progression of dialogue boxes makes up the majority of the experience. Every now and then there's a puzzle that involves clearing a glitchy screen artefact by dragging some items from your inventory into boxes, or examining the scenery for key items. But anyone hoping for a deeper dip into adventure game territory will walk away having experienced very few novelties.
The stylish pixel art does a lot to get you on board. It's not afraid of splashing the world with vibrant colours, and the broad range of facial expressions for characters complements their moments of shock, embarrassment, sleepiness and anger. The environments are adorned with smoothly dithering gradients, lush with pixel ginkgo trees and cyberpunk lamp posts. I got a giggle from the low-res hand-waving of a figure in the distance, communicated with just a handful of pixels, an exercise in creative limitations that helps sell the old school adventure games feel of everything.
The presentation does everything it can, through the colour schemes and costume designs, to suggest Konami's Snatcher through the lens of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. And in the freer moments, when you're moving from location to location, it successfully elicits the classic adventure game feeling of creating an internal map of rooms from clicking on doors and stairwells, elevators and reception desks. It's unafraid to make a daily routine of navigating your workplace, letting you learn the world's lo-fi geography.
Thematically we're stomping on some similar ground to this game's predecessor, 2064: Read Only Memories. Body modification, corporate overreach, privacy, personal freedom, gender norms - all of these topics come up, sometimes subtly, often not-so-subtly. But most of that is background static to the main thrust of the tale, which is about memory and personal identity. You spend much of your time polishing the memories of suspects and victims brave enough to volunteer having a weird squid attached to their arm. Among their scrambled thoughts lie childhood nostalgia, familial treasures and incidences of neo-criminality. This deeper character-focused stuff often isn't lingered on, however, and much of the memory-manipulating is there to serve a fast-moving noir plot.
Recurring characters will give fans of the first Read Only Memories some satisfaction in seeing how the robots, detectives and bunny-eared lawyers are faring in a post-2064 world. John (RPS in peace) was pleased by the writing of the first ROM, but it's worth noting that the design and writing team has almost entirely changed since then, and with it the tone and delivery. Neurodiver's tone is kooky, whimsical, almost childlike. At times it tickles me. There's a running gag that Luna doesn't have a decent catchphrase to say when she commences a "Neurodive", and you are prompted with three new choices every time you blorp your way into someone's brain. But I more often felt exhausted by how over-the-top zany and quippy everybody is. The characters, for all their loudness, can also feel thin.
Luna is a manic pixie squid girl who sets the quirky bar for all other characters to follow, the happy-go-lucky sensitive type who will always "do my best!" Her jacked biobot-bodyguard fulfils the archetype of steady-headed stoic fond of ellipses. Your boss, Fortuna, is a context-twisting manager, an obvious harbour of secrets. There is some sense of depth from Tomcat, a classic white hat hacker type, when you see flashbacks of the whizkid's late sister encouraging a monumental hack. But even this falls into expected grooves.
Voice acting is mostly well-delivered (questionable "British" accents aside), but many characters are so EXTRA they become hard to stomach. Harold, a co-worker in the psionics labs you frequent, is particularly obnoxious and grating. That's intentional, I think. But it also makes me reluctant to endure a scene with him. Some more basic problems of voice direction crop up, like when Luna exclaims "the Golden Gate bridge!" with all the wide-eyed wonder of a childish tourist, as if seeing it for the first time. In truth, she makes this comment from her apartment balcony. She has seen this bridge every day for years.
Like I say, its presentation is stylish and meticulous, full of appreciative details. The glitchy animated text when characters are scared or angry is as neat here as in any other dialogue driven game it appears in, as is the rolling wave text that shows when characters are crooning in delight. It's fun and effective, the video game equivalent of speech bubble variation in comics. But being honest, I didn't have the mental fortitude to hang out with these people long enough to read their words to the end, slickly animated or not. Because I am basically having an allergic reaction to the game's obsession with being "meta". Let me explain.
Neurodiver is a piece of fiction into which various passions have been upended like a fizzy cola into an ice cream float - manga, anime, fashion, sci-fi, dating sims, horror movies, arcade machines. This makes it appealing to a very specific person with all the same tastes and passions, a player who is likewise hyperfocused on these loves. It is a mega-referential piece of work. At one point the founding figures of the adventure game genre sit at a table together and shout "XYZZY!" The Japanese developer SWERY shows up at your workplace lobby. Suda51 hangs out in the background of the arcade. Lady Love Dies from Paradise Killer sits in a café. Being creatively referential in fiction is a difficult path to tread, I feel, and here the crowded cramming of cameos felt to me like a distraction, taking attention away from Luna's story to serve what sometimes feels like a meta-fictional edition of Where's Waldo.
For some players this kind of easter egging can summon a spike of comfort and joy as they dutifully perform the Leo diCaprio finger-point. For me, the relentless referencing quickly broke the story's fragile container. In adventure games, a lot relies on keeping the player trapped in your world. And how can you feasibly stay in one world if the game keeps reminding you that other worlds exist? This is also why I winced when Neurodiver's characters would say things like "she sounds like a comic book character!" or "that sounds like a setup for a horror novel" or "but this isn't an anime, this is real life!". To some, these are meta raspberries to blow, fun winks to wink, all easily forgotten. For me, it feels like Neurodiver only wants to flirt with my disbelief, rather than commit to suspending it.
This review is based on a review build of the game provided by the developer.