Good afternoon. Frankly, I no longer planned to release more articles this year. I wanted to wait until he came to an end, to take the results of the 2024th, collecting all the games that, one way or another, I liked. However, literally the other day, a game was released, which I liked even when demo. And even if I didn’t follow Miside all this time, but I still waited for the release, and after passing I decided to roll out my opinion about the game.
To begin with, why I generally became interested in this project? Everything is simple – this is a product of domestic production. I won’t bustle, and I will openly say that often games of Russian origin do not cling to me, and therefore, when some potentially curious project is presented, I decide to give him a chance. And I must note that during this year, Miside was already the third creation of the domestic Gamdev, which managed to please me. The other two were Indika and Outside The Door, which I will leave the review for the next year.
What is this game about? In it we play for the guy (the name of the game allows you to come up with the players ourselves), who once downloaded a toy on his smartphone in which you need to communicate with an anime girl named Mita and in every possible way show attention to it with constant gifts and various help. And at some point, the virtual girl showed the desire to see the player live, and for that she transferred him to his world. Of course, this alone seemed extremely strange, but later it turned out that Mita had her skeletons in the closet (almost literally), and that a real maniac is hiding behind the mask of a caring and cute girl. And now the main character needs to return to his world, simultaneously avoiding reprisals. The benefit of him will help other, more adequate versions of Mita.
If you express some kind Onceuponabingocasino.uk of opinion about the plot, then we can say that … it just is here. There is a tie, main part, denouement and finale. The story itself is quite scarce. Do not expect special revelations or extraordinary scenario solutions from her. Everything is very simple. There is, however, in the whole narrative there is one curious topic, but we will talk about it a little later. By the way, I also want to note that Miside is linear. Yes, after passing the main plot, you can launch a new game and, subject to some conditions, go along another branch. But in fact, this branch only opens access to the so -called “peaceful regime”, which is not yet in the game, since the development of it has not yet been completed. Therefore, in the dry residue at the moment, we have only one storyline.
Speaking about the visual, I want to describe the entire graphic part in one word – nice. And this applies to both characters and the environment. Although this statement is true only when we do not talk about terrible segments, how do the game not just have a “horror”. True, if you, like me, are a person who at one time spent a lot of time playing the Horror, then Miside is unlikely to make you tremble with fear. On the other hand, I must admit that some methods of developers to remove the player from the comfort zone I find quite solid.
Returning to the characters, I want to note that the approach of the developers to his main character partially reminded me of another game, which I also once wrote a review. I’m talking about the visual novel Slay the Princess, because in it we could also see many different versions of one character. And exactly the same as in the Princess, each player will find his favorite from the proposed diversity. Each mita differs both visually and behavior. The main mita acting as an antagonist, as was said, is a maniac. It is more like a mixture of a stereotypical image of Yandere and Monica from Doki Doki Literature Club, due to the similarity of the concept. In addition to her, in the game we will meet almost a dozen other MITs. A version of a daring character and a stylish cap; a version that does not want to be like others, and therefore even taking another name for itself; Chibi version, after all. True, not all Mits are so cute and pleasant – there are versions and, in addition to the main villain, able to catch up with horror.
Gameplaino, on the basis of its Miside, is a first-person horror quest, like another recent game Mouthwashing, though this is the only similarity between them. And if I often mention other projects in this article, let’s finally talk about the strongest and at the same time quite weak component of Miside. The fact is that, despite the presence of a bone in the form of a first -person gunfire, throughout the passage the authors will now and then throw us mechanics that we could meet in other games. Mobile tamagochi simulator; stealth; classic gameplay of visual novels; reference to the shooters of the time of the first doom and quake; reference to p.T.; reference to Papers, Please; mini-games and puzzles to reaction, logic, attentiveness. In general, for such a small and short game, the diversity of the gameplay is more than enough. But this is the problem. All these mechanics are disposable. The game has too small timing (it passes in four to five hours), and therefore a considerable part of the gameplay elements is not something that does not have time to get bored with the player, but does not even fully reveal to the fullest. The story here literally flashes, taking along the curious segments in which I wanted to linger longer. But even so, I want to give the developers due, because thanks to this approach, I never got bored during the passage, and I really wondered what would happen next, but in terms of gameplay, and not the plot.
Another aspect that needs to be affected, I consider the audio part. In general, sounds and music in the game … just norms. That is, they sound as it should, but without any embellishment. Throughout the game they were somewhere against the background, but not one of the soundtracks was deposited in my memory. However, there is another element that deserves attention. Voice. The game has 3 options for voicing characters’ replicas, at least at the moment. The first voice acting language, of course, is Russian. But honestly, I didn’t like it too much. The Dream Cast team was responsible for it – a studio engaged in the voice acting of anime. And, as for me, the manner of voicing Japanese cartoons is not very suitable for video games of this format. The second option is suddenly, not English, but Japanese. And usually I always say that for anime stylistic, the Japanese voice acting a priori is winning, but in this case it also sounded alien to me somehow. Fortunately, there is a third type of sound of characters’ replicas – voice acting without voice acting. To make it clear, you could hear this, for example, in Undertale. And it is this option that I give my preference.
Now let’s return to the narrative and the curious idea that I mentioned earlier. The fact is that in the course of history the player will meet different versions of Mita not randomly, but due to the fact that to achieve the goal he needs to go around all the versions of the game itself and get to the core. I find it very original this metallo on the topic of the process of project development. With each new version, the game changed, and Mita herself changed exactly the same way. The new girl was replaced, and they simply forgot about the old. That is why the very first Mita looks more ugly and aggressive than the rest. And for this reason, all versions differ from each other. If you wish, you can even try to make out a certain sequence of updates in the design of the girl and the scenery of her house.
As a result, I am still more pleased with game experience in Miside than the other way around. Yes, it contains all the flaws that I talked about, but the project copes with the task of entertaining the player. Plus, I did not talk about everything. For example, there was not a word about the objects hidden on locations, which are a dossier for every mita or other players besides the main character. But I would still like to leave it on everything for your independent familiarization. The game deserves, especially since you can calmly go in one evening. She clearly can hook something, the only question is in preferences and, possibly, your expectations. Let this be obvious, but do not expect from the game a brilliant plot, well -registered characters, the highest musical and visual design or innovative gameplay. This is a literally simple, but laudable indie toy, in which the efforts of the developers are traced. I am sure that a considerable number of updates are waiting for us, but now the content is enough for you to enjoy the Miside game.