"Hey, I think you dropped your shoe or something."

A casual stroll by the Nintendo of Japan website one day left me hopping in excitement over a cool new game for the DS. Later, I found out that there was going to be a US release for this game under the title "Trace Memory." After all of this long anticipation, the game finally hit shelves and I was one of the first to pluck it from it's Wal-Mart home and click it into my Nintendo DS.

After months and months of excitement, I was present with a few short hours of gameplay. Maybe it was because of how hyped was, but for some reason, this game was very disappointing.

Trace Memory puts you in place of a young girl, Ashely Robbins, who lost her mother to murder at a very young age. Though she witnessed this murder, her memory is still hazy about it. Since then, she never heard from her father or mother again, until one day she received a letter from her dad asking for a rendezvous on a mysterious island called "Blood Edward Island."

Supposedly, Ashely's father had disappeared to this island to work on a secret scientific invention that he had started before the murder of his wife. Upon her arrival, Ashley and her sister Jessica weren't able to meet their father, but they knew that he was somewhere on the island. This is where the real adventure begins.

Your job is to become Ashley and find your father and uncover the secrets behind his experiments, your new contraption he gave you, and your mother's murder. That's not all, though, Ashley meets a new friend, D, who is the ghost of a child who died on Blood Edward Island long ago. D follows Ashley to regain his memory, and you uncover clues about D's past and the history behind the island. You do this by navigating Ashley around the island and solving puzzles and finding clues as you explore the island and mansion. The game revolves around the interesting puzzles that you must solve during your quest.

Sadly, though, the game is way too short and easy. But I'll get into that later... here is the breakdown:

Gameplay

This is the most important part of the game, and Trace Memory has awesome gameplay. Controlling Ashley is just pushing the buttons or tapping where to go, but the real fun comes in the variety of puzzles you are challenged with. The easiest of the puzzles are simple and more about learning what must be done when you enter a puzzle situation. A stone slab is in your way? Nudge it away by sliding your DS stylus across the touch screen. Turn cranks by carefully rotating your stylus with the crank. Later on, the puzzles actually get puzzling. You'll use your DS in all sorts of interesting ways, even ones you may never have thought of, and it fully takes advantage of all the DS's features.

Later on, puzzles are more than just one screen, and doing something in one area of the mansion may activate something else in the mansion to do, or you may realize you need an object that you saw earlier and you'll have to go pick it up. Sometimes you must take pictures of things and use the pictures to help you later. The things you must do to solve the puzzles will really amaze you, and you'll feel a ton of satisfaction after each one. Sometimes you'll marvel in how genius the DS's features were used.

Sound/Graphics

The sound in this game isn't much. The same little songs repeat a lot, but it's fitting and doesn't take away from the game or get annoying. The sound effects can get pretty strange, but again, nothing too severe. Nothing great but nothing bad.

The graphics are nice during cutscenes and such, but often when you are running around as Ashley, things look really blocky and ugly. It's never too bad, but it's not eyecandy. Also, there is never any animations during the story cutscene. It's all pictures that scroll by and text; however, this is fitting to the game's style and storyline. If you think that staring at the game and not playing it is important, you might want to stay away from Trace Memory.

Story

This is where Trace Memory excels. The story is amazing, and constantly has you wondering and guessing. With tons of suspense, plot twists, and deep story, including the parallelism between D and Ashley's lives, the history of Blood Edward Island and Ashley's family, and the ongoing events with Ashley's father, you will never be bored with the story of this game. Trace Memory has one of the best stories I've ever seen in a game, and the deepest and greatest story you'll see on the DS today.

The story really draws you in and puts you in the place of Ashely. You'll really feel like you are exploring Blood Edward Island on your own and discovering the mysteries behind your family and the secret of your friend's past. The story is so amazingly written and hooks you right away; I can't stress how great it really is.

I can't say too much more about it than what I said in the introduction, because it would spoil this wonderful story. If you like deep, mysterious stories, you'll want to pick up Trace Memory right away.

Replay

In the replay value of this game, there is much much failure. This game is extremely short and fairly easy, and even a novice player could finish it in under six hours. While some of the puzzles are difficult and will cause you to think a lot, there's just not enough game content to keep the game running. You can play through the game again to get the second ending (the two endings are barely different though), but once you know all the puzzle solutions, playing the game a second time is more of a chore. Experiencing the story again is great, but you might not want to play your second round until it's been a while since you've played the first one, so the story isn't fresh in your mind and you can rediscover it. For people who don't play a lot of games and don't spend hours a day on a game, maybe only 30 minutes or so on days they actually play, this would be a great game to pick up. If you plan on playing for many hours at a time, you'll probably be let down by the lack of gameplay time to Trace Memory.

Overall

Overall, Trace Memory is a wonderful game, and one of the greatest gaming experiences I've ever had. Sadly, it only lasts a short time and leaves you desiring much more. If you can deal with the few hours of gameplay, I'd definitely say pick it up, but if you're wanting a game you can keep and play with for a while, you might want to look elsewhere.

It's hard to give this game a low score, though, because of how amazing the story and gameplay were. So I highly suggest playing this game, but with a fair warning that you won't get much gameplay time out of it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/20/06