"Yay, a good DS adventure game!"

Trace Memory/Another Code as its known in Europe, is more or less, the first DS adventure game. OK, so its not that good old SCUMM style, but its an adventure game none the less. Another Code attempts to recreate the lost and forgotten genre, and succeeds. I mean, its the DS, why not? Another Code uses almost every DS feature, well, yeah, ALL of them, and even some not used in other games! This is innovation to the max, and something different.

The story is as follows. A young girl aged 13 or so, named Ashley, one day receives a present from her father, who had vanished a long time ago. The present is a DAS (DS basically) and he has asked her to meet him on a strange island. Along with her fathers sister, Ashley makes her way to this island, to find out the mysteries surrounding her family. She reaches the island, but no one is to be seen. Sooner or later, she meets a ghost simply named D, who travels around the old mansion with her, trying to find out this past too. Thus a very interesting plot is revealed in the game, which I obviously won't spoil.

This is innovation to the max like I said. You can use the touch screen to walk around a top down, birds eye view of Ashley. You can then click on items, use items or pick up and stuff like that with certain objects, where as some will make you do something. The object will come up on screen, you can rub it, blow it, or do other things. For example, one time you have to blow dust off a painting, and the next one is quite clever actually. You can see a stamp book, and on the top screen is some ink, so guess what? You close your DS, open it again and the page is stamped! It took me AGES to figure that out, it was by luck, I closed my DS to do something and when I came back it was stamped, so it made me happy. Other puzzles like the such are in the game, some times you will get hints, sometimes you just have to use your brain.

Another Code has its problems though, a major one. Another Code is very short. First time round, with no help, it took me 6 hours to complete. That is WAAAY to short for an adventure game, as not all of it is hard. Its pretty easy once you get the hang of it, as some puzzles are used again, which is an unfortunate limitation to the DS hardware when it comes to adventure games. There is a second play through mode, but there isn't anything different apart from some little things, not worth playing through again for. You can also collect DAS cards, but they only contain story information and won't get you anything good, so there isn't much point collecting them all.

Graphically, AC is OK. Its mostly 2D, although the environments and characters are in 3D, so thats about it. The characters look pretty good, and so do the textures, detailed, but not the best on the DS. Animation is perfectly OK, looks good enough and stuff. The music is pretty decent as well, it sets the mystery setting well, its very classic style, and it suits the game pretty well. The sounds effects are of good quality too, so its all good here.

PROS:

Great innovation.
Good graphics and music.
Nice story line to keep you playing.

CONS:

Too short.
Some puzzles are used again.
Isn't worth the money.

THE RATINGS:
Graphics: 9.0/10
Audio: 8.7/10
Story: 9.0/10
Game Play: 8.5/10
Life Span: 5.0/10
Difficulty: 7.0/10
Multiplayer: N/A
Overall: 8.3/10

My Two Pence:

So its a good game overall, but it has its problems. It could of been longer, but its pretty short, so thats a down side. If you like short easy adventure games, this shouldn't be too bad for you. I think this would be great for renting because you could complete it really fast, 6 hours isn't very long at all, and you shouldn't get too stuck on the game for a long time. But as a game to rent, you should rent it now! IF you can rent DS games, I don't think we can (U.K.) though. Or buy it if its cheap.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/06