Our theme for today's story is "memory".A boy watches his father get killed. A small child watches her mother's murder. A silhouette of two adults. And then you are presented with the title screen.
Another Code: Two Memories (or "Trace Memory", as it will be called in the States) begins in this mysterious way. You assume the role of a thirteen year old girl named Ashley Robins, who receives a mysterious package containing a DS-like system called a "DAS". The package also comes with a note from her father, previously presumed deceased, asking her to come to Blood Edward Island for her fourteenth birthday.
Upon reaching the island, Ashley begins to search for her father. She encounters a ghost, known only as 'D', who explains to Ashley that he cannot remember anything about his past, including his death, and thus cannot pass from this life to the next. Together, the pair of them explore the monstrous mansion on the island to find clues about Ashley's father and D's past.
Another Code is all about slow-paced exploration, discovery, and revelation. Solving puzzles and finding character back-story are what will help you in this type of game, rather than having a quick trigger finger. Because of this, the story is crucial to the game, and if it was poor, it would cause the whole thing to collapse in a heap. Luckily, the story is engaging, and while it may not have a whole lot of plot twists, it is full of suspense and intrigue as you uncover more details about Ashley's family, as well as the history of the Edward Mansion and the island itself.
The graphics are a blend of three different styles - a pre-rendered look for close-ups of the various locations you visit, a polygonal world for you to navigate through in real-time, and a cel-shaded style for the images of various characters. These three different styles blend together to give a refreshingly different look which contrasts the realism of the pre-rendered scenes with the cartoon-style of the characters quite well. The only problem with the pre-rendered scenes is that because they are pre-rendered, when you solve certain puzzles, the image is not updated on-screen. For example, while reconstructing a sign allows you to see it assembled close-up, if you are looking at the gate where the sign is, the sign still appears to be broken.
Music and sound are fairly subdued, with the music being a subtle set of songs that can be forgettable, but not annoying. The game uses mostly natural sounds like waves splashing, dripping caves, howling wind, footsteps on creaking floorboards, and other things that you'd hear in real life. The various sound effects for the DAS system sound suspiciously like the Nintendo DS itself.
Because Another Code has been designed from the ground up for the Nintendo DS, it uses the system in incredibly clever ways. Except for the wireless multiplayer feature of the DS, every aspect of the system is used in a puzzle of some kind, with two puzzles in particular being so ingenious that I don't want to tell you about them, so that you can figure them out for yourself. The game does give you hints for nearly all of the puzzles, but some of them are a little too vague, meaning that they don't actually make sense until after you've solved the puzzle.
One little quirk of the game is that, unlike every other adventure game in existence, you can't pick up everything that isn't nailed down immediately. Ashley needs a reason to use an item before she can pick it up. To be fair, this makes logical sense -- I know that I don't pick up everything I see on my way to work every day -- and it's not really too difficult to figure out what you need, because you'll usually have seen it before, or it will have been implied by Ashley or D that you need it. Another problem with the game is that it's often difficult to know if you've checked everything in an area. It would have been helpful if there were a button that showed all the things you can interact with in the current screen. Oh. And there's a sliding tile puzzle in the game. I hate those.
The game's control is quite clever, and easy to use. You can navigate Ashley either with the Control Pad, or the easier method of holding the stylus down, and she will automatically walk to the stylus point. She'll keep walking until you let go, so you can navigate easily by moving the stylus around the screen. (I will be very surprised if this control method doesn't get ripped off for at least one other DS game.) When Ashley reaches something she can examine, a magnifying glass icon appears. Simply tap on it and you'll see a close-up view of the area on the touch screen. You can then examine pretty much everything on-screen, either by double tapping, or by placing the pointer on the object you want to examine, then tapping the magnifying glass icon. Throughout the Mansion, there are also special data cards that contain little memos from Richard, Ashley's father. During the second play-through, the information in these cards changes to history about the Edward family, giving you a reason to explore the game again.
Cing has done a great job on creating an easy-to-play, unique, and most importantly, entertaining DS game. Anyone who's played a PC game with "Quest" in the title will enjoy this, as will those who don't particularly like to see a Game Over screen when they play games. There's nothing like Another Code on the DS at the moment, but hopefully, other developers will be inspired by this game, and we'll get to see more adventure games on the system.
Pros:
Great artwork Interesting story Excellent use of various DS features Replayability in an Adventure Game!
Cons:
Inability to get items until you need them may be confusing Some puzzle hints are a bit too vague Some scenes don't update when items are changed or removed A damned slide-the-tiles-around puzzle
Graphics: 9.0
A visually refreshing mixture of cel-shading, pre-rendered, and polygonal styles creates a style that you've never seen before. Certain cut-scenes use both screens to tell their story with a graphical flair.
Sound: 7.0
Not the most interesting part of the game, but okay, nonetheless. The use of sound to show anger and thought in the conversations is a neat idea.
Control: 9.0
Excellent use of the touch screen for guiding Ashley around Blood Edward Island and through the mansion. Everything is straightforward to use, and there's also a nice double-tap shortcut to examine for the impatient like me, although it doesn't always work. Something to show hotspots would have been nice.
Lastability: 6.0
My first play-through ended at just under six hours, which was actually a lot more than I was expecting. By my second play-through, the total play time had clocked up to nine hours, fifty minutes, which is really impressive. Although, if you find the story doesn't interest you, this will probably lower significantly.
Gameplay: 10.0
Without a doubt, gameplay is Another Code’s highlight. There are some brilliant uses of the system's functions, including the stylus, the microphone, and many different uses for the dual screens.
Final: 9.0
Although I finished Another Code in less than six hours the first time through, I can honestly say that I enjoyed every second of it. There are only two puzzles that will really stump you and bring your game to a grinding halt -- but when you solve them, you'll be stunned at how clever they are. I look forward to seeing what Cing comes up with next.
Topic: REVIEWS: Trace Memory (Read 1906 times)
