First Impressions: A cutesy game with a clear horror twist that seems to show a lot of promise.

The Bloody Aftermath: A game that relies too heavily on tropes and repetition to the point of overshadowing the work put into it.

System: PC
Price: $14.99 on Steam
Developer: AIHASTO
Voice Acting: Russian and Japanese
ERSB: None listed, Reviewer suggests ERSB Teen
Overall Rating: 6/10

game trailer

My Side of Miside

MiSide has more than meets the eye within it, but what exactly that ‘more’ is may vary for each player. For me, that ‘more’ was hidden beneath overplayed plots and horror tropes.

As disappointed as I am with various aspects of the game (plot, characterization, and more), the devs handling of this game and the hard work they put within it makes me excited to see what else they create. Playing MiSide also prompted me to look at their other game, whose main character is also shown briefly in this MiSide, Umfend and enjoyed it. Looking at that game, I feel there’s a clear theme running between their games about alternate versions and personality exploration like we see in MiSide. I would encourage you to watch or play the previous title if you enjoyed this one.

While this article is rather critical of the game overall, I will preface that I did enjoy the general feel and look of MiSide – I just wish they did more with it rather than fill it with easter eggs, overused horror tropes, and repetition. As someone into odd and abstract horror ideas, who enjoys more original concepts even if they’re absurd, MiSide doesn’t tick off my boxes. Instead it makes me a bit frustrated with how they handled the plot and the trust in players.

Spooks and Sighs

Playing through this game, I feel as though the main ‘horror’ I ran into was not meant to make me yelp often. There were some scenes that did make me ‘eeeeee’ my way into the next section, but I never found myself running through each level on constant high alert. Instead, most of the game’s horror is pushed towards understanding what the various Mita’s have gone through.

In the sections obviously designed to scare the player, they felt rather lackluster. If it wasn’t predictable, it was rather minor or showcased a neat ‘scene’. When it was an active section to play through, it was tropey to the point of groaning, or bland to where my focus ended up drifting elsewhere.

An example of this would be what I’ve deemd the ‘P.T. Section*.’ The second a P.T. clone comes into a game, no matter the quality or point of the game, I find my interest sapped away – especially if they add nothing new. And unfortunately, that is how a lot of the horror sections played out in this game. ‘Cute with a twist’ is nothing new, but players still expect a unique way of handling the scares.

*P.T. stands for ‘playable teaser’. In gaming circles, the term refers to a Silent Hills teaser that never was fully developed, which consists of a looping hallway, or a continuous reincarnation corridor. Small changes occur in the hallway when a successful puzzle completion takes place.

Unholy Plot-tramony

The plot of MiSide can be broken into sections. The expected, the unexpected, and The Extras(TM).

The Expected: On the Steam page itself, a lot of MiSide is given away by how the dev’s introduce the game. Cutesy video game girl who panics at the thought of you leaving her – of course there’s an obsessive or lonely twist to that. Paired up with the bundle sale of DDLC, and it’s clear how the first Mita isn’t anything like she seems from the start.

Luckily, the game doesn’t intend to drag you through multiple hours to figure this out. The second you begin to deviate from the expectations Mita has for you, the mask slips off fast and you’re cast into… so many different Mitas. And plot. What is the plot? Well…

Each Mita is clearly a robot. This isn’t exactly hidden in the game, since they’re blunt about you being pushed into a game world. ‘Crazy Mita’ is different since she defaults from the norm that is placed around her. With the ‘yandere’ claims and how she doesn’t ‘fit in’, the plot of the game immediately becomes pretty clear on the subjects it will tackle.

The Unexpected: Due to the popularity of this game, and the praise I had seen it receive, I had expected that it was going to do something shocking or reveal their overall plot in a more interesting way. Instead, I was met with gameplay that didn’t seem to have much trust in the player’s ability to understand exactly what was happening. In trying to get the plot’s idea into the player’s head, it seemed to skip over working on proper horror elements or giving more depth overall.

The way they do this is through a process they actually discuss in the game: ‘simplification’.

I can understand that the simplified mini games, and the overused horror sections, are to show a point to the player of how much Mita tried to appeal, to be more of what she was – to strip away personal identity in order to become appealing in more and more desperation.

But as a player? I am so exhausted of forced mini games that add nothing. Of constantly faking me out towards an actual ending. I don’t need to play minigame after minigame to prove a point in a million different ways. I don’t want a promising new horror game, that had been going fine so far, slap in a big P.T. clone that a hundred other games have cloned poorly – and still not add anything new to the experience.

It reads as a lack of trust in the player to understand some of the messages in the game, and at worst case, it can make some players lose faith and stop playing.

The Extras: Admittedly, I’m not the horror gaming champion. A shocker, I know. But because of this, I know there may be things I’ll miss on a playthrough I do. Which leads me to watching others play, and inadvertedly running into videos showing secrets not normally seen in video games.

And O’ Great Mita, is there 284736487 extras in MiSide. Some of the simple ones include the Cartridges. I picked up maybe two or three during my initial playthrough, and realized looking at them would give me spoilers – including the Mita character profiles – so I ditched them with the intention to look into them later without realizing it gives more shape to the game overall. A confliction I have.

I don’t mind games having ‘lore documents’ scattered about in them. But I find it a little grating when I’m stuck with ‘will this potentially spoil the game for me if I look at it now?’ or the classic ‘wow, why is this hidden when it helps the plot?’. It seems a lot of games struggle to find a good middle ground, and I believe MiSide also struggled with that issue.

And then there’s the easter eggs. Oh my god. For every video I ran into about the ‘secrets’ of MiSide, there were so. many. hidden. things. Most of which you can’t even see on a normal playthrough! And as much as I love a few goofs and gaffs hidden out of bounds, or a neat reference on the spine of a book/game case/corpse, MiSide has so many that it feels like if they had pushed that effort into making more of an original horror section of the game, it would have elevated it immensely!

Here’s a Mita, there’s a Mita…

A major point of MiSide is how Mita has many different versions of herself that vary in small degrees – attitude, slight changes to outfits, how they speak, and so on. Due to how you’re slowly going through many versions of game, it makes sense for the different Mita’s to not have too much depth in the base plot. While it’s arguably because the game is showing us how these Mita’s are designed to appeal rather than much else, the reason this score is low is because even the main two Mita’s that are supposedly integral to the plot, ‘Crazy Mita’ and ‘Ugly Mita’, still do not have much in the way of character design.

Despite ‘Crazy Mita’s background, she’s still lacks depth outside of ‘rouge robot gone obsessive and crazy’. Some would call her a yandere, but her obsessiveness isn’t towards us, it’s towards the illusive ‘perfect player’ she wants acceptance from. For such a major character, I expected a lot more than impulses to shape her being, but for the most part she is snark, knives, and fed up with her world. Because of this, I have to dig through Cartridges or character profiles to attempt to ‘feel’ more towards her as a character – but I can’t, which is a flaw in my eyes for a character like this.

This also extends towards ‘Ugly Mita’, a previous version of Mita that gets muttered about early on, and even seems important to ‘Crazy Mita’ – yet by the time she gets introduced, she is in the game for what feels like five minutes. (Personally, a shame since she was my favorite design of all the Mita’s).

She grinds her teeth, extends her neck, loves her teddy bear and ‘Crazy Mita’, but past a mildly murderous attitude, she’s used as another bland vehicle for such a minor section that it feels almost pointless to include her. It makes me wonder why she was even in the game in the first place, outside of potentially just showcasing a fun ‘bugged out’ level and attempts at new scares.

When two characters that get whispered and discussed about frequently fail to have any more substance to them, it’s just sadly disappointing and takes away from the experience.

Escaping Mita-opia

I came into this game expecting a fun experience, and was excited to see what a popular horror game had in store.

Instead I left frustrated and disappointed. I remember calling friends while cooking, complaining about how fun it had seemed until it attempted to bash my head in with cheap horror tricks and trying to convince me the plot was super deep.

In ways, I could make the plot deeper. I had written up drafts of trying to convince myself the P.T. section, or other cloned sections, were metaphors over how games ‘abuse’ these tropes due to showcasing a broken, child Mita or the rejected Mitas. And then I stepped back and realized that even if they were attempting to be that deep, they shot themselves heavily in the foot with the cheap gimmicks and repetitive gameplay otherwise offered.

While MiSide is not going to be a game I revisit, the fact that it was created by TWO people does spark a semblance of hope that AIHASTO will develop a more well-rounded game in the future. One where they don’t rely on so many easter eggs and hidden lore to connect players with the plot and characters, and where they manage their time filling out the plot better to avoid the time crunch they were ultimately crushed under.

You might enjoy this game if you: Are new to horror games. Enjoy looking through every nook and cranny in photo-modes. Like cute, evil women. Get your kicks out of interacting with the community and exploring game theories.