What happens when you remake a middling game? A really wonderful second chance at a story.

Although they're not all apparent until the final act of Journey Into Lost Memories, the parallels between the characters and stories in both halves of this pair of stories are fascinating, and I encourage people to play this game just to get these characters and their experiences into their heads.

While the actual gameplay in this collection is just serviceable, the writing can feel awkward at times, and the voice acting wavers in quality, I loved my time with these games. To borrow common parlance, the vibes were on-point. I loved all of the character descriptions and their gradual updates throughout each story, I enjoyed the newly-developed puzzles, and I liked most of the character redesigns (although I kind of wish Ashley's dad hadn't received such a drastic change). Really just a great experience with plenty of likable characters and decent production value (at least outside of grassy fields). I pray for Hotel Dusk and Last Window to get similar treatment, and I also hope they'll do a great job of preserving those games' rotoscoped art style.