Stunning Masterpiece.

A year has passed since I played MiSide, yet the enchanting experience I had still plays on my mind daily. If that alone isn’t a testament to its beauty & longevity, I don’t know what is!

The horror. MiSide creates tension through a blend of absurdity and dissonance—deliciously emblematic of its target genre—that being, of course, psychological horror.

You see something… turn around… and it’s gone. Or maybe it was never there.
You follow a pair of legs—yes, just legs—expecting a jumpscare, and nothing happens.
You complete some mundane task, and suddenly something terrifying is right there, moving in complete silence. It never makes a sound. If anything, you do... with your screams!

I truly felt fear, countless times. The way that fear is achieved is unlike anything I’m used to. The developers were insanely creative with how tension is established through the small things, the things you overlook.

That’s not to ignore the classic scares you’d expect from horror. There are still brutal deaths, and chainsaw-wielding delinquents chasing you—it’s entirely the reason those more intimate scares hit harder. They blend together, and the narrative presents stereotypical frights like mockery; as if they’re forcing you to expect the usual, while the true scares are shrouded beneath the surface.

Moving on, the aesthetic—lowkey my favourite aspect of MiSide. I am in love with how this game looks and feels: soft colour palettes, rounded cel-shading, and a dreamlike atmosphere ripped straight from your own rose-tinted memories. The game feels deeply nostalgic, emphasising a feeling you cannot quite explain, yet weighs deafeningly on your experience.

I’ll tag the atmosphere to this, too! From start to finish, MiSide feels hazy—in the best possible way. The decisive use of silence, soundtrack, sound effects, and dialogue enhance the “corrupted game” effect it aims for. You consistently feel sucked into the world, separated by a thin veil of uncanniness; a reminder that none of this is truly real, merely a game designed around your escape.

It links every moment in the game to its overarching existential theme—breaking down a world where nothing within it is real. It aligns the player with the main antagonist. As she tries to flush us out, she destroys a world she can rebuild with a snap of her fingers. Simple as that.
Within her own fictional reality, she is fake.
Within her fictional own reality, we are the only thing that’s truly “real”.

To narrate that through deliberate cues embedded into every scene is incredibly impressive; and makes MiSide’s gamified world feel uniquely lively—as it animates its own decay.

Furthermore, the gameplay here is incredibly fun.
Not only is blabbering to the other Mitas a treat, but the minigames you can play—the slice-of-life goodness broken between such a harrowing story—is intentionally crafted in a way that, surprisingly, doesn’t disrupt the pacing.

I am playing a game, set inside of a game. Bit of a tongue twister, but that’s how I feel. MiSide doesn’t shy away from adding fun quirks and games that seem absurd, thriving on that energy; that anything can be gamified, so what does that mean for you?

For her?

And, briefly, simple actions like walking, running, and opening doors—feel intentional somehow.
Movement is never just a means to an end or a way to progress, copy-pasted from the rest of the genre simply because it’s expected. Traversing the space only makes MiSide feel more alive—and it actively acts to immerse you with every step.

An incredibly odd feeling. Like most of this game, hard to explain—yet I can never fault it. They must be doing something right...

Oh, and when you open doors? You don’t open them like a normal person. They slide at this precise angle, revealing nothing until they’re swung off the hinges. It’s such a small detail, almost insignificant on the surface, but when every door behaves like that, you never know which one is hiding something truly harrowing behind it... like a pair of disembodied legs (this happens).

And how can I forget the soundtrack!? Genuinely, words cannot describe the simplistic beauty in these songs. The nostalgia factor is cranked up to the max here; it feels like the kind of music that would play as you wander through your own memories. I listen to it at least daily... which is probably why I’m always thinking about MiSide... THAT’S WHY! Oh, ignore the rest of my review, I’ve diagnosed the problem.

Finally, the Mitas. Yes, Mitas (plural).
The characters in this game are all so wonderful. Each Mita you meet has their own unique personality, quirks, and ways of comprehending the game world.

The narrative uses them to trace the progression of each version, while showing how these intelligent entities carve out their own personalities—tying directly into that lingering question of what’s real, and whether you even have the authority to dismiss a fictional world when those within it seem to breathe just as you do.

They also bring such a light into a world that’s constantly trying to dim it. Each Mita feels like a spark along your journey, keeping your motivation alive. The way they’re used to connect and contrast—with their devotion, and corruption—urges you forward even after those slice-of-life breathers.

The way the writers use these guys to 1. Balance the pacing and 2. Enhance the emotional stakes, is why I adore this game so much! I never wanted to give up, but at the same time, I wanted to go back and spend more time with them—and somehow, that only made me more determined to keep going and see it through to the end.

Ultimately, MiSide is an incredibly engaging and beautifuly-written game that doesn’t overstay its welcome in theory; but once you’ve played it, you’ll never stop thinking about it.
Gameplay is charming. Narrative is gripping. Soundtrack is banging! And the characters... are awe-inspiring.

One of my favourite games of all time, so please! Don’t sleep on it... although, to be fair, Sleepy Mita looks comfy as hell... so I don’t blame you if you do.

10/10.