Trace Memory

"This game could've been so much better, but it's just too short and not that fun."

One day, my mom comes home from work saying "HEY I FOUND A REALLY CUTE GAME THAT I BORROWED FROM A FRIEND GO PLAY IT :)", and that's how I got Trace Memory. Bad opening aside, I didn't actually buy this game, but if I had, I'd feel as though I wasted more than time on this game. (the funny part is, I feel bad for not liking this game so much. It was given to me as a a pick-me-up) It can't be helped either way, but this game was just so.... uninteresting and yet frustrating. I played through this game because I'd feel somehow less masculine if I couldn't beat such a simple game in a period of a week. I played through it, and after beating the game in roughly four and a half hours, I don't really feel like it was worth my time in any sense.

The game is about a 13 year old girl named Jessica, who is going to meet her father for the first time with her aunt. Immediately, you'll notice that every character is extremely flat in terms of personality and rarely shows emotion, both in text and according to facial expressions, in game. At first, I thought it was just me misinterpreting how some dialogue was meant to be read, but this happens consistently throughout the game. Jessica will pretend to cry, but her face will just be either a >:| face or a :/ face. It's pathetic, because a lot of the story appeals to her emotions, what she's thinking, etc., and could probably be achieved if her damn face actually showed some emotion. But, that rant aside, she's meeting her father for the first time on Blood Edward Island, and is eager to find out information about her childhood and her mother. I found this story to be so droll and uninteresting, mainly because there's no sense of excitement or connection to the characters. Every character is so distant emotionally that you can't imagine people acting this very way in a situation similar to the ones in this game. ANYWAY, when her aunt doesn't come back from searching for daddy of the year, Jessica decides to go searching the mysterious BEI on her own to find both her dad and her aunt. Of course, along the way she meets a little ghost pal which she nicknames D. D can't remember anything about his past, and apparently Jessica is the one who is meant to reawaken his memories... Also, if you couldn't already tell, memory is a recurring motif within this game.

After the first chapter, which is pretty much just a preview of what the game is like, Jessica makes it to a mansion, where a majority of the story takes place. D will follow you around as you find things, learn about the history of the Edwards, the family that owned the island back in the day, and get messages from her father. The majority of the game's actual gameplay is just solving puzzles and things of that nature, but often times it's not enjoyable. The game will just throw a situation at you, give you very vague hints about how to progress, and then expect you to magically solve the problem without any sort of direct idea of what the answer is. I was able to make to about the end of the second chapter until I had to start googling the answers and searching for them in FAQs, because they are just frustrating and stupid. I tried to think about the answers, but due to how VAGUE and UNINTERESTING the game is, it's hard to even think of what the answer would be. For example, you're expected at one point to be able to know how to get an item all the way back in the second chapter's area when you're already in the fourth chapter, and then go back to the third chapter's area immediately after that for ANOTHER puzzle. If these were just parts of the gameplay, it wouldn't matter so much, but this is all there really is. You're just following this uninteresting story, solving confusing and vague puzzles, and then the game is done.

As I've said, the story is just so uninteresting that it doesn't even really matter. You'll find out things about D's past, Jessica's dad, but none of it even matters because there's no connection to the characters. I didn't feel on the edge of my seat to find out about what happened in D's past, and I don't feel bad for not doing so. This game forgets that you can't just throw a story at the gamer and expect immediate intrigue, there has to be some build up and a hook. By the time the story ends, I felt as dissatisfied with the story as I had been with the gameplay. When playing the game through, you'll expect the conclusion to this game to be good and have some sort of plot twist. But the plot is mostly paper thin and transparent, so I find it hard to believe anyone who wasn't blinded by the idea of a game with such "unique" gameplay to have honestly enjoyed it. The only thing I can't complain about is the music, and that's only because there's so little of it. Either there's complete silence or the mansion theme (which I admittedly like), and maybe a few sound effect themes for a revelation or an epiphany, etc. And the graphics are just so "meh w/e" that I don't even feel like commenting on them. And I can't even begin to say how infuriating it is that the story expects you to have empathy for the characters in this game when the only thing you know about them is their name and that they show no emotion. If maybe I had seen something more than a blank expression to make the female lead from Twilight blush, I'd feel some emotional impulse to say "Oh, how sad. Jessica keeps getting misleading information about her family", or "Aw, I didn't get all the info about D so I get the bad ending", but I could care less. None of the characters are likable except for maybe the sea captain, who gets a shocking five minutes of relative content. This game almost intended to make the gamer angry from how stupid the gameplay is, and the story is better off into a 200 page novel with more elaboration so that I could feel some empathy for the characters or at least read up on my fictional island and family history.


All in all, I can't honestly say that this game is enjoyable if you can see through the problems it has. It's just so unplayable unless you know all the answers or if you're googling them, and the forced story was just a reason to mash the A button. I don't recommend this game to anyone except for people who are looking for something to do while stuck on a plane or something. This game is easily beaten in a stunning four hours or so. Don't buy this game, above all else. It's not worth whatever price it's put at.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/15/09

Game Release: Trace Memory (US, 09/27/05)