"Traces of Genius...."

Now I don't know about you, but I've had some fairly crappy birthdays. There was my seventh, when a clearly emotional Boingo the Clown lectured us young ‘uns in great detail about how ‘that gutter-slut Mrs. Boingo wouldn't let him see his children until he quit drinking and got himself a respectable job', before conspiratorially pulling me aside and asking, with breath stinking of whisky and cigarettes, if my mother was a single parent. There was my eleventh, when that shameless exhibitionist Gideon Morrison bounced right off the bouncy castle head first into the rose bush, deliberately scarring himself for life just to try and steal my thunder. Then there was my twelfth, when my callous parents bought me Mario Is Missing. Bad times indeed, and enough to turn any previously stable young mind into that of a twisted social outcast, but these are nothing compared to the bad birthday that young Ashley Robins is about to have…

We join Ashley – a plucky young girl with an implausibly white hairstyle -on the day before her fourteenth birthday (which in a nice touch is the same as the date you put into your DS as your birthday when you first got your machine). She has received a letter from her father – a man she believed for many years to be dead after he disappeared following the murder of his wife Mizuki - inviting her to meet him at the ominously named Blood Edward Island. Arriving at the small island, her Aunt Jessica, who raised Ashley as her own following the death of her mother, disappears, and the boatman who took the two ladies to Blood Edward Island is suitably creeped out, and refuses to stay beyond nightfall. Joined by the mysterious ‘D', the amnesiac ghost of a young boy who apparently died on the island many years ago, Ashley has just one afternoon to find Jessica, find her father, and discover just why her mother was murdered. Was her father really responsible for the murder? Who is D, and what is his tie to the island? And what does all this have to do with ‘Another', the top secret project that her parents were working on before Mizuki was killed…?

The plot in Another Code: Two Memories - a point-and-click adventure from Nintendo themselves - follows two distinct and separate threads. At the same time as Ashley is trying to get to the bottom of her family's murky secrets, D is coming to grips with his own past, as he tries to remember who he is, why he has a palm print imbedded on his spectral chest, and ultimately how and why he died. It has to be said that D's story – which tells the genuinely tragic history of the Edward family who owned the island, specifically of Henry and Thomas Edward: two brothers torn apart by greed and bitterness – is by far the most engaging. While Ashley's quest is superficially the main thrust of the story, it remains wholly uninteresting until the final chapters of the game, whereas D's past is a wonderfully sad tale that genuinely does tug at the heart-strings and leave a lasting impression long after the end credits have rolled. Naturally the two plot lines come together just in time for the finale, which makes for a very satisfying conclusion, but until then Ashley and her issues seem almost like an intrusion. What can really let the storytelling down at times, though, is the stilted dialogue – for such a plot heavy game, the frequent conversations between Ashley and D can come across as being incredibly vacuous. I lost count of the number of times a clearly apathetic Ashley responded to the wannabe-Casper's tales of woe with ‘Oh, D…', only for spook-boy to follow this up with a heartfelt ‘. . .' - not exactly stirring stuff (although the translators deserve credit for creating a separate English language translation for both America and the UK – a nice touch that means that us Brits get all our ‘u's put back in). Still, the further into the game you get the less you notice this as you become more involved in the story.

It was pretty much inevitable that at some point the DS would play host to a point-and-click adventure – the main innovation of the system is the inclusion of the touch screen and stylus, making it a handheld which quite literally invites pointing. This leads to one of the most natural feeling interfaces yet on the DS. On the bottom screen there is an overhead view of the action as Ashley and D explore the island and the decrepit mansion that it houses, while the top screen presents a static picture of the area in front of our intrepid heroes in greater detail. Anything in particular that you want to glance at up close can be tapped with the stylus to bring the close-up from the top screen onto the bottom, where you can then prod and poke at it to see what you can find. Moving Ashley and D around the screen with the stylus feels incredibly intuitive, too - Another Code is the first game that makes stylus-based character movement feel completely natural (unlike, for example, the truly awkward touch-screen analogue control in Super Mario 64DS) – to the extent that you don't even realise that you're using the stylus after a short while. With so many early DS games either being the usual 2D platforming fare with token unnecessary touch screen gimmicks or mini-game collections that show off the various new features of the DS without really having any depth to speak of, it's a joy to see a genre that can fit onto the DS and use it's unique features in a natural way, without it feeling forced at all. It's a point-and-click fan's dream, and with the apparent death of classic PC point-and-click adventures such as Grim Fandango or the Monkey Island series, it's entirely possible that the DS will become the genre's new spiritual home.

That said, veterans of the genre may well find Another Code to be a slightly underwhelming experience at first. During the first two of the game's five chapters, there really isn't a great deal to get excited about. The plot takes quite a while to truly get going, and the initial puzzles are really quite bland affairs that barely require any straightforward thinking, let alone the sort of lateral thinking that this sort of game should evoke. See a broken road sign? Use the stylus to piece together the fragments. The door to the mansion won't open? Why not place this giant black metal ball that is pretty much the only item to be found in the area into the outstretched hand on the doorframe? At one point Another Code even throws up one of those stupid games that nobody in their right mind actually enjoys where you have to slide the tiles about I order to make a picture – an obvious and lazy use of the DS' touch screen. Throw in the fact that if there's a key item that you've overlooked then D won't let you leave the room until you find it (which gives the impression that you are being guided a little too much through the game) and it becomes increasingly difficult to be enthusiastic about the game when you fist start playing - it's fairly tedious stuff, truth be told. But as you progress, the puzzles gradually become more and more ingenious, and quite literally manage to make use of every singly aspect of the DS' design, and the game blossoms into one of the most well-thought-out games the genre has seen for many, many years.

Ashley comes equipped with a “DAS” – a birthday gift from he father that is basically a DS with a built in camera, and this is the basis for many of the more cerebral puzzles on offer – you can take various photographs of the area and overlay them with each other to reveal hidden clues – a nice touch that really encourages you to look closely at the areas you inhabit. Other classic puzzles include one where you must almost close the DS in order to read the reflection cast by the top screen on the bottom screen, and one where you must breathe into the microphone in order to steam up a window. The puzzle high point, though, is the ingenious moment when you come across a wooden stamp. In order to uncover a vital clue you must use this to stamp a piece of paper. Not wanting to give away the solution, it's enough to say that this is both one of the most logical, and yet delightfully unexpected ways to solve a puzzle I've ever come across, and is guaranteed to raise a grin of pure delight when you stumble across the answer. Yes, once this game hits its stride it is one of the most ingeniously designed adventures on the market.

The problem is that by the time Another Code actually does hit its stride, you'll be nearly halfway through the adventure. This is an incredibly short game – depending on how taxing you find the puzzles it's only likely to last three or four hours (unless you get really stumped), and you're likely to polish it off in a single sitting. There really isn't much of an expansive area to explore either – in complete defiance of video game law, the Edward family mansion actually feels correctly proportioned – there are no Resident Evil style sprawling corridors and no illogically large number of rooms – it actually feels just like any normal big house. It adds realism, granted, but when your young heroine is constantly being followed by a floating blue ghost realism shouldn't really be an issue. Although it could be argued that this short-and-direct approach adds a ‘real time' aspect to the game (the boatman is leaving at nightfall, remember…), it still feels like a crushing disappointment. The lack of longevity is becoming a very common complaint when it comes to Nintendo's more recent titles, and is not a very welcome trend – it's hard to feel like you've had your money's worth when you see the end credits so quickly – especially when the opening sections of the game are so boring.

There is some replay value thrown in, though. As you progress through the game there are several items that provide clues to D's tragic past – from photographs and items of clothing, to well-hidden cards that Ashley can put in her DAS to learn more of the island's history. Without uncovering these, D's full story won't be told, and you'll need to go through the game again in order to pick up the clues that you missed. D's tale is involving enough that you undoubtedly will want to uncover the truth, no matter how many times you have to play through, but the fact is that when you know how to solve all the puzzles you'll breeze through the main game in no time at all, and without as much thought and attention, so it actually becomes easier to miss things the second time through.

While it lasts, the game is suitably well presented. The top down graphics on the bottom screen run incredibly smoothly, and are surprisingly detailed. Although the character models look quite small on screen, it's never difficult to tell what's going on. The environments are superbly rendered – while you explore the Edward House you are constantly reminded that this is a place that has been unoccupied for quite a while – you can practically feel the dust in your lungs, it's rendered so well, and this is helped no end by a soundtrack that is surprisingly understated – morose in a gentle and haunting way, the music in this game is just subtle enough to almost go un-noticed, while suiting the mood enough to feel perfectly natural: the sound compliments the graphics exceptionally well in order to really create a melancholy atmosphere perfectly suited to the tragic plot.

The highlight of the presentation, though, is the close-ups on the characters' faces that appear on the top screen during conversations. Everyone is presented in a cracking cartoon-y way that goes against the realistic look of the backgrounds to create quite a nice effect. The character close-ups stand out for displaying a depth of emotion that is so often lacking in the dialogue – when Ashley is upset it really does look like she's hurting, and D's looks' of anguish – at first because he can't remember his life, and later on precisely because he does remember – really help you feel for him. It is this emotional connection that really drives you to see the plot to its finish.

Another Code: Two Memories is like one of those rare flowers that takes it's time to grow, only blooms for a brief moment, and then wilts and dies away. It takes far too long to really get going, but once it kicks into gear the genuinely incredible puzzle design and the marvellous plot are beautiful to behold. And then it's gone. As magnificent as Another Code can be at times, it's just too short to warrant the full price tag. Should Nintendo decide to bring us a much longer sequel then they could be onto a true classic, but as it is Another Code burns bright, but fades away too soon.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/23/06