"An absolute must-have for DS owners."

Another Code, I saw some advertisements for it and it looked kinda interesting, when I find it cheap at a store I thought I should buy it. It's more than I'd expected.

Gameplay: 8.8/10

The gameplay is great, I was relieved to find this isn't a point-and-click adventure, instead you wander around, you can examine a lot of things, it's easy to understand and the DS use is great. Because you see everything from above it's easy to explore. when there's an area to examine you'll see it on your top screen and you tap on the touchscreen to examine things.

The puzzles were not very hard but sometimes I had to check the FAQ, the way the puzzles were solved were fun and innovative, and sometimes so creative I'd never thought of it without the FAQ. The way you use the touchscreen in this game is amazing. It's also the reason I got stuck several times at puzzles.
Sometimes you have to rub the screen or blow in the microphone, and there are even times when you have to...nah, you just gotta figure it out for yourself, all I can say is that it's very creative and you should probably look in the FAQs multiple times before you think: 'Ehh...woah...I should've thought of that, ofcourse.'

The thing that made it easier was that you mostly were told where to use an item you just obtained, unlike many other games where you have to figure it out for yourself. The downside of this is that you mostly have to discover the purpose of an item before you can pick it up in the first place. That was kinda annoying sometimes because you had to backtrack and remember where the item was.

Story: 7/10:

The story takes some time to unfold and it might seem very confusing at times, but if you look around and find all information, you get quite a nice story and history.
There are several pieces of information hidden in the house which contain history about the mansion and the family ho lived there, and sometimes you find notes from your father who tells you about his scientific project. The main object in the game is to find your father, and to help someone regain his memories, but that's someone you'll come across soon when you play the game.

Graphics: 7.5/10

On the top screen the graphics are good, they're kinda anime-style which isn't always my cup of tea but they look very good in this game. Unfortunately, there are no fully animated scenes but there are some step-by-step animations, and they do look good. The bottom screen graphics are not great, you see the room from above which makes it very convenient for exploring.

Sound: 6/10

The music was kinda mediocre, there was no real atmospheric music but when you walked outside the sound effects were nice, you could hear the birds singing or the crashing of waves at the sea. But sadly, most of the game takes place inside, with the soundtracks, so no real big points here.

+'s and -'s:

+Very creative
+Easy to understand
+The story develops quite good
+Short

-Short
-Items can't be picked up immediately
-music isn't great

After all, this game gains a 7.5/10(which becomes an 8/10 after rounding off), I recommend it to anyone who owns a DS. You can finish it in 2 days or even one day if you do nothing else. I guess it has around 6 hours of gameplay, but that was the first playthrough, I guess it's no more than 4 hours in later playthroughs. But most of the time it's much fun.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/06, Updated 03/09/06