Really, I'm happy as long as developers keep putting out new adventure games for the DS
Trace Memory
Before Hotel Dusk, the atmospheric film noir adventure game/interactive novel that got a significant bit of attention for its excellent writing and a return to the puzzle and logic-based adventure games of the '90s, there was Trace Memory, an enjoyable, but not nearly as absorbing or engaging, mystery/ghost/science fiction thriller adventure game.
Hey, you play it, /you/ try to narrow down the genre.
Ashley Mizuki Robbins is a thirteen-year-old girl who's lived for most of her life with her aunt, ever since the mysterious deaths of her parents', a couple of research scientists, when she was three. Of course, not long before Ashley's fourteenth birthday, she gets a letter and a package from her very not dead father, and Ashley and her aunt go to meet him on the happily named Blood Edward Island where he's apparently been hiding out for the last decade, for reasons he doesn't bother to explain to his daughter. The game opens as you arrive on the island to be received by no one at all. Ashley's aunt goes to find life and when she doesn't come back, Ashley goes to find out what's happened. Ashley explores the island, which, of course, is basically abandoned, deserted, and inexplicably filled with puzzles Ashley needs to solve and scraps of clues about what her father's doing and why he's here. Also, the ghost of a little boy who wants Ashley to help him find his memories - everything about Trace Memory is about someone's memories, their importance, their fragility and while Ashley is trying to figure out her past, she's also trying to discover the mystery of the ghost's, D, death, and how it ties into the mystery of the abandoned island and the old mansion her father's working in.
That's basically it - most of the game is just Ashley and D, poking around, solving puzzles, trying to put things together to figure out the mysteries around them. Some of the puzzles use the DS with great creativity, some of them are what I think of as Myst-esque, and some of them involved the DS in quirky ways that I just couldn't get to work despite doing what I was supposed to be doing, and I had to look the answers up on Gamefaqs. The two separate plots really are separate - I never got the feeling that they really merged, their only connection being the bond between Ashley and D - but they're interesting and it's fun to puzzle over the mystery with the character. The two characters are likable, even if they aren't that bright, and their portrait art is cute and expressive. Less cute are the chunky 3D polygons that represent the map area and Ashley on it - the simple map and little dot to represent the character used in Hotel Dusk is both easier on the eye and easier to navigate. But that's really a minor aesthetic quibble - enjoyment of the game hardly hinges on the bloody /map/. None of these are the real problem with Trace Memory.
The problem is that you should be able to finish it in less than ten hours - I think it took me five, six hours, max. An afternoon and part of my evening. That was it. That, sadly, is not worth the price of a new game. It isn't really worth the cost of the game used, which is how I got it. It's the perfect rental game - but you'll have to find somewhere that will rent it to you. I certainly couldn't find a copy for rent here, and my game store used to have a copy of /Persona 2/ to rent.
Trace Memory is fun, a good way to spend a quiet afternoon or evening, as long as you aren't spending thirty or forty bucks on it, although people who've already played Hotel Dusk may want to skip it - it's obviously a rough precursor to the enthralling mystery game, and the company's later game pretty much blows Trace Memory out of the water in every way.
But, man, is that little ghost boy adorable.
My parents' Sir Alec Guiness boxset is staring at me from one end of the desk. At some point, I should really watch them. The question is, which? Rewatch The Ladykillers or The Man in the White Suit? Or watch The Lavender Hill Mob, which has bank robberies and wee Audrey Hepburn? Or The Captain's Paradise, where Sir Alec has multiple wives and, apparently, ends up in front of a firing squad. Nothing says comedy like a firing squad.
Before Hotel Dusk, the atmospheric film noir adventure game/interactive novel that got a significant bit of attention for its excellent writing and a return to the puzzle and logic-based adventure games of the '90s, there was Trace Memory, an enjoyable, but not nearly as absorbing or engaging, mystery/ghost/science fiction thriller adventure game.
Hey, you play it, /you/ try to narrow down the genre.
Ashley Mizuki Robbins is a thirteen-year-old girl who's lived for most of her life with her aunt, ever since the mysterious deaths of her parents', a couple of research scientists, when she was three. Of course, not long before Ashley's fourteenth birthday, she gets a letter and a package from her very not dead father, and Ashley and her aunt go to meet him on the happily named Blood Edward Island where he's apparently been hiding out for the last decade, for reasons he doesn't bother to explain to his daughter. The game opens as you arrive on the island to be received by no one at all. Ashley's aunt goes to find life and when she doesn't come back, Ashley goes to find out what's happened. Ashley explores the island, which, of course, is basically abandoned, deserted, and inexplicably filled with puzzles Ashley needs to solve and scraps of clues about what her father's doing and why he's here. Also, the ghost of a little boy who wants Ashley to help him find his memories - everything about Trace Memory is about someone's memories, their importance, their fragility and while Ashley is trying to figure out her past, she's also trying to discover the mystery of the ghost's, D, death, and how it ties into the mystery of the abandoned island and the old mansion her father's working in.
That's basically it - most of the game is just Ashley and D, poking around, solving puzzles, trying to put things together to figure out the mysteries around them. Some of the puzzles use the DS with great creativity, some of them are what I think of as Myst-esque, and some of them involved the DS in quirky ways that I just couldn't get to work despite doing what I was supposed to be doing, and I had to look the answers up on Gamefaqs. The two separate plots really are separate - I never got the feeling that they really merged, their only connection being the bond between Ashley and D - but they're interesting and it's fun to puzzle over the mystery with the character. The two characters are likable, even if they aren't that bright, and their portrait art is cute and expressive. Less cute are the chunky 3D polygons that represent the map area and Ashley on it - the simple map and little dot to represent the character used in Hotel Dusk is both easier on the eye and easier to navigate. But that's really a minor aesthetic quibble - enjoyment of the game hardly hinges on the bloody /map/. None of these are the real problem with Trace Memory.
The problem is that you should be able to finish it in less than ten hours - I think it took me five, six hours, max. An afternoon and part of my evening. That was it. That, sadly, is not worth the price of a new game. It isn't really worth the cost of the game used, which is how I got it. It's the perfect rental game - but you'll have to find somewhere that will rent it to you. I certainly couldn't find a copy for rent here, and my game store used to have a copy of /Persona 2/ to rent.
Trace Memory is fun, a good way to spend a quiet afternoon or evening, as long as you aren't spending thirty or forty bucks on it, although people who've already played Hotel Dusk may want to skip it - it's obviously a rough precursor to the enthralling mystery game, and the company's later game pretty much blows Trace Memory out of the water in every way.
But, man, is that little ghost boy adorable.
My parents' Sir Alec Guiness boxset is staring at me from one end of the desk. At some point, I should really watch them. The question is, which? Rewatch The Ladykillers or The Man in the White Suit? Or watch The Lavender Hill Mob, which has bank robberies and wee Audrey Hepburn? Or The Captain's Paradise, where Sir Alec has multiple wives and, apparently, ends up in front of a firing squad. Nothing says comedy like a firing squad.