The swift advancement of technology in recent years has lead many artists to explore and contemplate the very nature of humanity and its existence within a digital world. With games like Deus Ex and System Shock, the video game industry has had a long history of contributing to the artistic exploration of cyberpunk themes. 2064: Read Only Memories is another contribution to the cyberpunk category of video games. In 2064: Read Only Memories, you play as Turing, a Relationship and Organizational Manager or ROM, an AI meant to serve as digital assistants to humans. He must investigate his surroundings in order to solve the mystery of his creator’s disappearance.

Cyberpunk Visual Novel

2064: Read Only Memories is a point-and-click game and as such, its gameplay mechanics are pretty intuitive and easy to understand. In any location that Turing can explore, they can interact with elements that hold important information. There are no distinguishable visual cues that would indicate if an item is interactive, but if the player hovers their pointer over an interactive element, it appears with a white border with the actions a player can take to interact with the item. This is common in most point-and-click games, but it does provide unnecessary difficulty.

In truth, this game is closer to a visual novel than it is to a point-and-click game. Much of the gameplay involves looking for interactive elements and reading their description and important information. People who have played the Ace Attorney games will be very familiar with this kind of gameplay. It’s not bad per se, but players should be warned that this game is very text-heavy and if they aren’t ready to do a lot of reading then this might not be the game for them.

Art and Music, Characters and Story

The aesthetics of this game is very appealing. It has a bright neon color scheme coupled with retro pixel graphics. Despite the wide range of vibrant colors, 2064: Read Only Memories is not painful to the eyes and visual information is rendered clearly and cleanly. It has a very nostalgic feel to it that many older gamers will appreciate and love. 

One very strong point of the game is its music. It’s very atmospheric and matches with the game’s concept and aesthetic really well. There’s a lot of synths that really highlight the game’s cyberpunk genre, but the melodies are so catchy and memorable.

2064: Read Only Memories features a very diverse cast of characters. However, one major complaint against the game is its lackluster storytelling and uninteresting characters. That said, the game does have a lot of branches and endings that make the story a bit more interesting.

Great Art and Music, Limited Gameplay

2064: Read Only Memories’s greatest strengths are in its art and music. Both are very well-crafted and they do their best to make 2064: Read Only Memories an outstanding game. However, even by visual novel standards, 2064: Read Only Memories is very limited in its gameplay mechanics. Players are afforded very little agency and the story is presented in long chunks of text that might bore and exhaust the players. One thing is for sure: it’s a game everyone should try and judge for themselves.