I’m having a hard time getting into Read Only Memories not because the game itself is particularly bad or doing anything wrong but because the disordered state of my mind and my responses to stress meaning that I have a hard time doing anything that I need mental continuity for in that style when there are other people around but I’ve been struck as I play the game, bit by bit, how it manages to carry off its wildly diverse setting and pool of reference without coming across to me as preachy or shtity. If you like the work of Tezuka or that particularly bright pixelly aesthetic of early 90s-late 80s videogame first-person perspective post-eroge style adventure game, or furries, or conversations about chemical maintenance of humanity, or cute little robots, or the narrative of dismally ekeing out existences in a post-humanity society, the game slides along elegantly, showing you all these things with a sense of style and charm and cinematography that resonates from within those spaces.
I think the thing is: Read Only Memories announces very loud what it is and what it’s about without feeling confrontational or condescending about it.
Read Only Memories in my play experience so far – and I’m not far in, mind you – is very sweet and charming but not in a saccharine or overwhelming way. Its aesthetic is a mash-up of influences, and it wears those influences broadly enough that I can point to them and recognise them without feeling like a failure to love those things drives me away. It feels a bit like an advertising form more than a game design form – the way that the people presenting this game have made its first impressions and its images from the game itself as showing very clearly where they came from.
If you liked Metropolis or Snatcher or Astro Boy or Pluto or those first wave of JAST USA imported Eroge that featured more gameplay and plot than boobies, or the less-grim post-Cyberpunk stories, if you care about the ideas of self-determination, or about humans interacting with things like long-term medical treatment, Read Only Memories has those things in it, and it’s wrapped up in a very positive wrapper full of diverse representation that treats things like alternative pronouns as no big deal.
I know there are some folk to whom that stuff will feel alienating – I mean, I’m more parallel to those experiences than I am within them – and I’m not saying this game has universal appeal. But Read Only Memories does a great job of making sure you can tell its feel before you ever boot it up.