There isn't a lot to this game. It's an interesting precursor to the far more stylized Hotel Dusk, but on its own it's a nice story with a middling selection of puzzles and generally mundane exploration.

To give the game some credit, I did enjoy the story. While it was predictable and none of the characters stood out as ones I loved, there were some great ideas, I was generally engaged for the whole (admittedly short) playtime and, ultimately, the emotional core tugged at my heartstrings and I felt myself welling up just a tad towards the end. It's close to something excellent but falls short, being a solid effort which I can't take much fault with.

The puzzles, though, vary in quality massively. There are some unique uses of the DS's features that, disappointingly, I couldn't make the most of because I emulated this one. Notably, closing the system partially and using the reflection of the screens to find a puzzle solution is one of the most genius uses of the dual screen gimmick I've seen. Unfortunately, the actual difficulty of the puzzles was low, with solutions coming to me almost instantly. This was made worse by often not knowing HOW to input my solution. You will have to investigate certain objects multiple times, or after interacting with other things, in order to progress sometimes. It was incredibly frustrating when I knew that an object would be important yet Ashley would refuse to grab it until I'd done something else. There's one instance where you're supposed to remember a small object TWO CHAPTERS back and, after you need it, return to that location to snag it. Irritations are usually small but common and while I can't say I hated any of the game's puzzles, I scarcely enjoyed them.

And, all in all, this game is just good. The gameplay doesn't hold the story back but the story doesn't strive for too much and that's okay. I'm keen to get through the rest of CiNG's library (a shame they went defunct), especially to see how the sequel to this game shook things up.

I really had a game that takes like, 5 hours to beat on my shelf for 2 years lol.
Anyway, Trace Memory/Another Code is the definition of cozy. The environments and music just has this unmistakable vibe to them so that even though it's such a short game, I really don't mind taking my time with the puzzles, which thankfully are never too obtuse or complicated, yet take advantage of the DS's capabilities... for better and for worse. There's definitely too much microphone related bullshit for my liking.
It's no FDC2 or anything, and it seems CiNG's own works would only get better after this, but it's definitely an enjoyable time. Here's to hoping the remake can recapture the magic

-dude it’s so wild how edgy things could be in the mid 00s in a way that didn’t seem tasteless or needlessly provocative but instead was just edgy to further the plot n characters. like I think this was rated teen but there’s some v dark themes here that I wasn’t expecting for a game that looks and feels so childlike on the ds.
-love ds 3d graphics sm, chunky and blocky little polygons. flower sun and rain, style savvy and this are all very fucking cute and unmatched in terms of aesthetic. running around on this cute little beachy island that’s like totally abandoned and the dusty af mansion, the caves at the end w the blocky trees hanging over the characters. also just rlly love the designs for all these characters and rlly enjoyed seeing beautiful 2d drawings of the characters turned into blocky chibified rough caricatures.
-tbh when this comes out on switch I will probably pick it up bc I don’t know if my broke bitch laptop can play wii games well (I think it can but idk) but I also don’t know if I’ll replay this unless it’s majorly diff in terms of the story. like they rlly could’ve either cut out a lot of fat/backtracking or made this a lot longer adding in lots of characterization and motivation for the characters, but instead it’s a weird middle length for a game where by the end I was kinda idk bored??? idk I think the switch vers. looks rlly cute, love how switch games look for the most part.
-the two blonde dudes are kinda yaoi idkkkkk…
-the story is soooo cute, mostly why I wanted to play this even though I barely knew anything about the story I just always thought ashley’s design was so slay. but yeah def connected w this and w ashley and her search for family she doesn’t even rlly know if they want her around or who they are. it’s why shattered memories is one of my fave stories the more I think about, this isn’t totally comparable and not nearly as good for a variety of reasons but I still found ashley’s relationship w her dad rlly cute and sweet. also liked all the parallels between her and d and how so many adolescents feel like lost and lonely and invisible. heavy important stuff for what is basically a kids game, wish I played as a kid but tbh I was a dumb kid and would’ve gotten stuck on puzzles early on especially if played before I had iphone.

A game that feels really mature in its themes and tackles them with a lot of thoughtfulness and sincerity. A lot of these puzzles are somewhat standard “use thing on other thing” affair for an adventure game like this, but a few of them use the DS in SUCH a cool and creative way (if you’ve played the game you know the ones I’m talking about), and it felt really rewarding uncovering the game’s mysteries bit by bit through figuring them out. I like how it balances character interactions with its plot, I think the stuff with discovering D’s past being optional to the ending actually adds a lot of pathos to that side of the story in the way only an interactive medium can achieve, makes it feel less like an artificial “video game-y” completion necessity and more like genuinely going out of your way to be helpful and kind to a friend.

Also it takes place on my birthday and me and Ashley share a birthday! That was a fun surprise haha

A very quaint and sweet game about memory and loneliness. Ashley is a very good protagonist, and her relationship with D as well as his own struggles are very nice and authentic. They really do just feel like two lonely kids finding solidarity in one another, becoming fast friends as children tend to do. The gameplay and puzzles are fun, and the atmosphere is off the charts. The ending is sort of insane in a way that I really, really appreciate, as are the two mysteries regarding each kid respectively that slowly unravel throughout the course of the story. Here’s your warning to be VERY thorough in your investigating or else you’ll miss out on the true ending and feel horrible about it.

Compared to Cing's later works in Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Trace Memory feels more like a rough tech demo for the DS... but what a charming little tech demo it is! You play as Ashley Mizuki Robbins, the daughter of two scientists who were presumed dead years ago, only for Ashley's father to send her a letter years later asking her to come to Blood Edward Island to learn the truth. Accompanying her is a device named the Dual Trace System (DTS), which very much resembles the classic DS model and can read DS game cards data cards scattered around the island of her father's logs. She eventually bumps into the ghost of a boy named "D", who also doesn't remember a thing of his past, and together, Ashley and D must navigate the abandoned island's sprawling mansion to unravel the mysteries of their respective pasts.

Puzzles are a bit of a mixed bag admittingly. A few of them are a bit rough around the edges; during multiple parts of the game, I had trouble grabbing or contacting objects on the screen with my stylus due to really imprecise or tiny hitboxes. In addition, a good chunk of the puzzles are extremely simple: some are tap and drag puzzles like breaking a bottle or rotating a crank, and a few are just inventory puzzle chains (item A will get you item B which is used to obtain item C). Nevertheless, I do have to respect the ambition for certain sequences. The DTS also comes with an in-game camera to take pictures of scenery so you don't necessarily need a pencil and paper alongside you while playing, but there's also a nice overlay feature that lets you place images on top of another image made transparent to decode hidden passwords; it's a nice little gimmick that I wish was utilized a bit more. I also have to give Trace Memory credit for utilizing practically every feature of the DS, with a couple of microphone puzzles and another DS open-shut puzzle that I think is basically Cing's speciality considering I have yet to see any other developer tinker with that idea. Outside of these interactive puzzles however, I do wish that the inventory puzzles were a bit more facilitated: key items have to be obtained from tapping around observable scenes that appear to have a lot of distinct items of interest, but upon tapping in many of these areas, most end up as red herrings that only provide a single line of flavor text. I also admit that as short as the game is (five hours, about half the length of Hotel Dusk), it was a bit easy to get lost within the mansion since I wasn't provided with a map but often had to backtrack to previously explored locations in past chapters for key items that became obtainable once I passed the right checks in future chapters.

Trace Memory's doesn't quite achieve the same feeling of presence as what I'd come to expect for Cing, with its strange mouth animations upon still-figures (as opposed to Hotel Dusk's distinct inky animated character models) or its fairly contrived puzzles that seem to make little sense in the context of its narrative (as per most tech demos), but I do think its heart is in the right place. Despite how much flavor text I had to mash through just tapping everywhere, picking up on those little details to add to D's past or stumbling upon another data card kept me engrossed in the central mysteries for tighter world-building. While I do prefer the first-person 3D environments of Hotel Dusk as opposed to the top-down exploration of Trace Memory, I have to concur with MelMellon that the ability to highlight more specific areas of interest in 2D while displaying its more vast environments in 3D grants Trace Memory a combination of detail and immersion that few games manage to achieve. Finally, even if the central narrative isn't quite as intricate or intimate as Cing's future work, the game wrapped itself up quite nicely with no plot holes (and keeps you aware of the running plotline with its end-of-chapter summary quizzes, much like Hotel Dusk would later utilize), and the final reveal of D's fate as a reward for thoroughly exploring the mansion and unlocking all his memories made the whole experience worthwhile. I came in expecting a short cozy adventure game highlighting both the potential of the DS and Cing's early ambitions, and I got just that, so all in all, I'd say it was a pretty good day.

One of the themes of this year in gaming, for me, is to experience more from Cing, a defunct studio which I love almost solely on the basis of two games; Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Last Window: The Secret of Cape West.

Those two games to me are five star titles, not only are they great stories full of wonderful writing, characters and fun puzzles but they do something I’m a big fan of and that’s use the hardware they were designed for in fun and interesting ways.
I’m a “waggle defender”. I love the games of Nintendo hardware where non-first party developers bothered to use what was unique rather than something that could be easily ported to any machine.

Cing are King when it comes to this on DS and in a previous backloggd review, I showed they were pretty good at it on Wii too.

So yes, I played the games in the wrong order and yes completing Another Code R did spoil a minor bit of plot for Another Code: Two Memories but it did not ruin my enjoyment.

Much like the Wii sequel, you take on the role of Ashley who in this title is thirteen years old. She is called to Blood Edward Island to meet with her father who she has not seen in over a decade.
She’s there not only to find out why he has been gone so long, but anything she can about the death of her mother which took place a little while before dad up and left.
The hook? Ashley has been sent a machine called a DAS that looks strangely familiar to you (the player) and this device has messages for you, lets you store photos and then throughout the game aids you in solving puzzles.

I’m a sucker for reflecting the tech the player is using in the game, trying to break the walls of what’s in and outside of the story down.
This game doesn’t do that too deeply outside of aesthetics but as you search Blood Edward Island, meeting a friend, learning the island’s history and uncovering its secrets you get to use the DS in a few unique ways which don’t include simply button presses.

Cing would go on to do these things again and do them better in Hotel Dusk and really those words can be applied to almost every aspect of the game.
Art, music, characters, writing, plot - all of these factors are great in Another Code, it's just that they become excellent in the future.
In a way maybe deciding on how good a game is based on something that came out in its future is unfair but that is what we’re working with and whilst Another Code is brilliant and a worthwhile little gem it’s not a great, expansive or as nice and clever as Hotel Dusk so can’t be placed at those same heights.

Another Code is simple in a lot of ways, to some that would be a fault. The game and the story it tells is quite linear and the cast of characters is fairly small and even where it does expand with the former residents of Blood Edward Island’s history it’s less revelations and more reflections.
The game however is short and that is not an issue, in under five hours it tells a great tale and limiting its scope means that it doesn’t feel baggy or out stay its welcome.
The only case where an eye-roll of boredom ever happened would be clicking on something by accident and being stuck in a little bit of text I’d already read.

I had a great time with Another Code and it was very pleasant going back into Cing’s catalogue and seeing the steps they took to get to where they were with one of my all-timers.

Maybe it’s time to go even further back and play Glass Rose? I’m not sure if I am that dedicated.

Trace Memory (aka Another Code outside NA) isn't a bad game, but having played it after Hotel Dusk and Last Window, the growing pains are very apparent. This was CiNG's second game--first for the DS--and while it carries the same atmosphere as CiNG's later titles, Trace Memory left me wanting more.

The game is played from a top-down perspective with fixed camera angles, and feels a bit more like an old PC point-and-click than a VN. The story itself is decent (I very much enjoyed the final area), but is held back by it's very short length; you can beat this game in just a few hours. Some of the puzzles feel very contrived, and one of them also literally doesn't work unless you have a physical DS, as it relies on viewing a real-world reflection on the screen.

This game and its JPN/EU-only Wii sequel are getting a remake in early 2024. If you're interested, I would likely recommend waiting for that release to play this!

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

In my early teen years, one day my mom bought me this game, thinking I'd like it. I played it a lot and liked it, then was suddenly owerwelmed by a sense of dread. It began to scare me and made me so anxious that I had my mom return it.
Years later I played it again til the end and I loved it all over again!
Right now I still love it, and it still gives me a strange sense of anxiety, like if I was really a young girl in an empty mansion where ghosts and adults with bad intentions could appear at any moment. But it's a nice thrill now.

I think the soundtrack adds to the suspance: it's very light and ghostly, so you hear very well the sounds of Ashley's footsteps.
The art style is super charming and stylish.

D's story is so sad...

I didn't play the sequel for the Wii. I'd like to, but it doesn't seem to have the same charm of the DS game. And it doesn't have D (I think)!