It has the best narrative experience among the "Cyberpunk type" works I have encountered recently. It is not limited to games. The narrative rhythm is well controlled, and the relatively heavy story background is interspersed with the daily life of colleagues and friends, which makes it feel very immersive. Strong, it also makes the supporting characters come alive. Everyone is trying to live a good life.

The ending for everyone can be good or even a bit like a fairy tale until the final choice is made. No criticism here, I really liked the ending. There must be such a group of people in the world. They don't have the ability to overwhelm the sky or have genius abilities, but they try their best to help others within the scope of their responsibilities. Thinking like this can give you some strength and comfort.

10/10

Minds Beneath Us is the most mind-blowing game ive played this year. I honestly expected this to be a solid yet familiar cyberpunk narrative game, yet what i got was one of the best narratives ive ever experianced. Its a game that has definitely landed in my top games of all time and without a doubt is in my top 3 this year.


Minds Beneath Us is a visual novel walking sim game. Yet it does a fantastic job at making the gameplay always feel immersive because of the amazing sound, visuals, and music. The sound here is spot on, so many parts of this game work well because the sound design is perfectly synchronized with the experience. The visuals are insanely cyberpunk. Meaning that you get your fare share of mind-blowingly pretty views mixed with the disturbing backdrop of a dystopian capitalistic hellhole. I loved every second of it and without a doubt helps the narrative a lot. The music is very good, it gets somewhat repetitive but i never once had a issue with the songs. Every track has its enjoyability to it and i loved hearing some tracks quite a bit.

The city of Wanpei is the setting and its beautiful yet haunting. I adored the visual design of the city, how its basically just rooftops, neon lights, deep dank massive labs, and brutal imposing architecture. Its such a great mix. It helps that the visual design of every NPC in the game also contributes to this aura. It reminded me alot of CP2077 where i would just see a NPC walking on the street wearing something really cool and just stare at them for a while amazed at the things that they were wearing. Everything in the game contributes to this cyberpunk setting and they did it so damn well.

The gameplay is mostly centered around the choices you make. Sometimes games like this have very little choices that matter, and most of the text you pick is flavour. But thankfully Minds Beneath Us is incredibly rewarding in choice. Choices are rewarded with massive consequences that consistently made me surprised at how far they went with it. Obviously the "big" choices are here and they are all fantastically hard to pick. I think about 10-12 choices i made in this game were incredibly difficult to make, and thats because of how much the game always shows you that they matter. There's so much weight and it gets harder and harder the longer you go on. But it even matters for the smaller choices, for side characters with things like jokes, food, and love. Those smaller choices having mattered really is what gives the gameplay in this game so much character.

What i really loved about the gameplay was the fact that remembering important key character details mattered. For example, there are many many important moments in the game that are not mentioned to the player AT ALL, the game lets you find these moments for yourself if you go off the path of the objective. These moments are so damn impactful because of the free reign you have, it made me feel so rewarded and i loved this gameplay decision.

Another choice i adored was that your character never speaks without you making a choice. Every single word of dialogue you utter is made because of you. Not only is this amazing for immersion but it gives pressure to every single piece of dialogue you utter, because you know if you ♥♥♥♥ up you will have to fix it through other choices. It makes dialogue super engaging.


It will be hard to put how much this narrative floored me into words but il try. Minds Beneath Us at its core is a game about what it means to be human in a world that tries so hard to take it away from you. Everyone you meet has some kinda issue with their self, and how they can live with themselves in this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up world. Its something that we as people struggle with consistently as our world gets bigger and bigger. This theme works really well and thats because the characters in this game are fantastically written. Every single character is given really fantastic development and you as a player are meant to navigate this as a outsider. This navigation helps alot with deconstructing this characters and their issues. Sometimes its things like self identity and the pursuit of happiness. Other times its things like love and the anxiety of being in love with someone in this hellhole of a world. Sure, these things are minor compared to the big parts of the narrative, but they give so much character to the world and the people in it, that its as important.

The writers could have easily made this narrative just about corporate espionage and sci fi mumbo jumbo. But thankfully they understood that having these smaller stories in here makes the world feel super alive. This is byfar my favorite part of the games writing and it made the cast of the game so damn good. Its also what made this game very emotional for me and personal for me. My highlights for the cast would be Fran, 23, Situ, Lawrence, and Wayne but honestly everyone is so damn good that i dont have single favorite. I also love the gay rep in this game <3

The other big theme of the games narrative is the usual ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up Sci-Fi cyberpunk ♥♥♥♥. They really do nail the theme here both in setting, and concept. The AI stuff with the juicers is so bizarre yet so realistic that it would 100% make sense in our world. The tech advancements are not so far into the future that it looks completely stupid, but its grounded enough that it seems reachable in our current world. The writers do such an amazing job at always making sure every single thing is grey. Moral dilemmas consistently pop up through dialogue and discussion, it forces the player to think politically and philosophically which is something that i haven't felt pressured to do since Disco Elysium. In fact there's so much political and philosophical concepts in here that i felt i was playing the sequel to that game in some way. It helps that the writers never ever take a side and never pressure the player in going one way or another. As a politics and philosophy nerd i adored every section that was heavy on it, but it might just be too much for some people. Its not always heavy handed with everything though, there's a great amount of action and thriller which always keeps the player interested in everything going on.

There are some slight issues i have with the game but these dont really take away from my score. I found one of the storylines to be very interesting, but it kinda takes a sideline away from the other stories and in the ending it feels kinda rushed. I just wanted some more of this, but im fine with what i got. This game is translated from Chinese so some of it is off, just some small grammar mistakes like words missing. This happened like 10 times in my 20 hours of playtime so i dont think its that big of a deal.



I 1000000% recommend this to anyone who loves cyberpunk, fantastic narratives, character writing, and games with great choice & consequence. Personally, its a game that really emotionally touched me directly in my soul, and i think il find it hard to stop thinking about this game for weeks. 5/5 masterpiece

Have yet to finish this game but already I can tell it's incredible and I don't want it to end. sometime added it to my wishlist and on the latest sale saw it was on there and with a good price so figured 'why not can always refund it'.

It's been so cool and interesting and well-written I don't want it to end. partway through Chapter 3 atm and it sucked me in hard. from the atmosphere to the dialogue choices to world-building this game is wonderful. I played some other games that shared similar mechanics but none have them had this Vibe to them as this one has. looking forward to finishing it, recommending to other players and replaying it.

tl;dr
gud purchase dis