Charming in many ways, but it feels like it commits many cardinal sins of the adventure game genre. If you pursue only the most basic ending, most of the puzzles seem fairly straightforward, but there aren't too many, so the game will end fairly quickly. This ending is somewhat unsatisfying though, and leaves critical questions unanswered. The "true ending" path (which isn't that much different in terms of story) requires you to investigate several key points throughout the game, sometimes in a particular order, without much guidance, or feedback letting you know if you've done anything correctly, or if you've missed something and locked yourself out of this ending. After one playthrough, I felt like a guide was required for the subsequent playthrough, to at least point me towards any "missables". Still, it's a neat exhibition of the various features of the DS, and a cool format for an adventure game like this.

Trace Memory is an experience far different to anything I've played, and one that I imagine was quite novel at the time. The game opens on a mystery: Ashley Mizuki Robbins travels to the enigmatic Blood Edward Island to meet her father, a man she long presumed dead. The game follows her adventure through the island, uncovering the secrets of the family who once called it home, and the secrets of her own family.

The game has the player controlling Ashley from a top-down perspective on the bottom screen, while a first-person view is shown on the top screen. Upon reaching certain locations, this first-person view can be transferred to the bottom screen, where Ashley can inspect and interact with environmental objects. Not only does this approach make full use of the Dual Screens, it allows for the use of pre-rendered images, which allows the environments to be crafted without worry for the rendering capability of the hardware. Blood Edward Island has a real sense of place. Graveyards, mines, and mansions all feel truly lived in yet abandoned, as if the people these places were built for have long since left.

The bulk of the gameplay involves Ashley solving puzzles to remove obstacles that bar her progress. These are mostly a joy to complete. The novelty of the dual screen concept is taken quite far, and progress will often involve a player having to remember small details about the environment. These larger environmental tasks will involve smaller puzzles, which is where the DS hardware is truly used to its limit. Blowing on the microphone, interacting on the touchscreen, and shutting the clamshell DS are all ways to interact with the objects presented. Unfortunately, this is where I encountered issues. Some touch puzzles seemed to not consistently respond to input, and I was fully unaware of puzzles that didn't involve the touchscreen, which led to me violently tapping my bottom screen, trying to get something to happen. I do not own nor have read the manual, so it's possible the latter issue is more of my fault than it first seemed.

The plot of Trace Memory is all about memories and their inherent unreliability. Ashley is constantly told that one of her most formative memories is simply a recurring dream, and she meets someone who has no memory, and must reclaim it through investigating the environments. Ashley ultimately learns that despite their unreliability and the pain they can cause, the memories a person has fundamentally shape who they are; it is unethical to try and alter them.

Trace Memory is an excellent game that uses the unique nature of the DS hardware to shape how the player interacts with the game. While some issues with the puzzles hold it back from greatness, the narrative and presentation make this a standout experience for me. I also don't think I was able to access the full breadth and depth of the narrative, so I will be replaying this at a later date. Trace Memory is a game I will be thinking about for long after today, and I am eager to look into the rest of Cing's DS catalogue.

I had fun streaming this, but also kinda laughed at the meta of it being a DS game and the device the main character uses is clearly a DS.

An experiment has gone wrong and the main character's father has disappeared and you need to solve puzzles to get out tough situations and solve the overarching mystery going on.

Beyond this I don't remember much beyond frustration that one of the solutions to the puzzle was to close the DS. Something not too obvious when playing with an emulator.

Stream + Gameplay

O fato desse jogo ter uma nota tão baixa me deixa muito triste, uma história simples contada da unica forma possível, um videogame. Esse jogo é obviamente uma tech demo doq o DS podia fazer, mas mesmo sendo isso ele ainda é surpreendentemente interessante, diferente de muitos jogos que utilizam das funções de touch ou mic do DS esse usa duma forma divertida e que não cansa. Agora a história puta que pariu, mesmo sendo bem simplinha, ela é extremamente sentimental e genuína, não tem como tu não se importar com o D e a Ashley, sei lá só clicou muito comigo, fazia tempo que eu não sentia que iria chorar num final.

Único triste é que eu não peguei o final bom, mas mesmo assim puta que pariu que jogo, curtinho e muito divertido.

En época de ds un juego de estas características llega en español fue un logro.

Buena historia y puzzles muy complejos que te hace quebrarte la cabeza. Un ejemplo que aún me acuerdo, por lo que me costó descifrarlo, era que tenías que cerrar la ds para poder resolverlo. Estuve un buen rato intentándolo y lo resolví porque cerré la consola ya por frustración y resultó ser la clave.

Aún tengo que probar el remake de switch, pero espero alguna función así con el giroscopio, los mandos...