When this was announced during the September Nintendo Direct, I was incredibly excited. The Switch being such a success seemed to give spotlight to many of their more underappreciated franchises less likely to be seen on the behind the competition consoles like the Wii U and Nintendo 64. This was a full ground up remake uniting the style of two obscure games by underappreciated developer Cing (RIP), one of which was built on the touch screen and the other one heavily using motion controls that never released in America. It sounded like a dream come true, especially because later that year I played through Cing’s effort made in between those two games, Hotel Dusk, and thought it was great. It was packed with cozy noir vibes, an ensemble bursting with secrets of a wider picture, and puzzles taking advantage of the DS in unique ways. Seeing Cing’s stomping ground returned to after being bankrupted for 13 years had me excited to see how those concepts were translated into a modern form.

The Another Code duology stars Ashley, a curious and anxious teenage girl on a journey to find the dad who had been missing from most of her life, to eventually unraveling the aims of his scientific research of memories and the self. Both games give her a companion to bounce off of, areas to explore for objects, people to talk to and discoveries to unravel.

In Two Memories, it follows a triangular structure that meshes puzzle, point and click and visual novel-esque adventure fairly seamlessly. Ashley and ghost companion D explore a mysterious mansion room by room, solving light puzzles and balancing discoveries about the work Ashley’s father had been doing about his memory technology with stories about D’s past to move on from his own personal demons. With little distance between the rooms, it helps to make sure that one of those three game modes is always happening. Gameplay/puzzle stuff is constantly affecting your understanding of the story and it makes everything feel breezy but still of heavier importance than the DS original.

Despite the focus on puzzles not trying to be particularly hard with the main goal being the intermingling stories of Ashley and D, I do feel like there was far more to do with them, in both games. The original Another Code was a DS title and the DS had a lot to work with: two screens, a microphone to blow in, a pen to draw and the ability to close the thing. The Switch’s console gimmicks outside of gyro have largely been put on the backburner outside of just, the general console to handheld gimmick. A lot of puzzles can seem very binary without that console stuff. They work fine, but it might’ve been interesting to (optionally) reincorporate tech demo aspects of the console seen in a game like 1-2 Switch into here to make a puzzle or two more memorable.

Presentation is a mixed bag; figuring out how to bring a game from the underpowered two screen handheld to an underpowered TV handheld console I can imagine had a lot to figure out, but I believe most of their choices were sensible. The characters were redesigned as more fully animated people, with a white sheen reflecting with the almost watercolor lighting of the island, and while stiff in the short dialogue moments, the more dedicated cutscene animation was nice to see when it happened. When examining objects, cute little heads of Ashley and D pop up to show emotions they feel when first examining an object, many of these having voice clips. The game has an appreciable quality of life toggle for both exploration and puzzles if you get lost. Possibly my favorite touch of the presentation here is the journal-like design of the map. Ashley will constantly make notes around different rooms and locations reflecting her goals and personal thoughts in a way that feels distinct to who she is, so keep checking whenever something new happens in the stories! It’s a nice touch of soul. See here: https://i.imgur.com/W2Jav71.jpeg

On the downside, there’s the voice acting, which for being such story-driven games it’s disappointing they chose largely unknown Canadian actors (except Asuna SAO Abridged, she was a pleasant surprise in her brief parts). This was possibly done to save money on such a niche game but a majority of the English cast turns in dry and stiff performances with overly fast line reads and somewhat muffled emotional oomph. Despite not having seen any of this cast performing for video games or even anime, Ashley’s voice still manages to shine as an increasingly believable teenage girl balancing enough interests and cute quirks with the right amount of sarcasm and tears. I just wish that extended to anyone else in the cast, particularly her father. You can switch to Japanese for more consistent performances across the board from everyone, but imo it also makes Ashley herself stand out less from the others so make your choice if you wish.
What’s a bit harder to get around is the camera while walking around. This is more an issue in the first game than the second one given how claustrophobic the mansion’s hallways and turning staircases can be but it’s unfortunate even after adjusting the camera speed how much space Ashley talks up on the screen while running around at times being hard to see beyond her transparent shape when climbing stairs or the camera closing in too close while examining items in rooms. This can make it a bit disorienting walking around in small rooms.

Despite those quirks in presentation and simplistic puzzles, I thought the overall story of the first game felt tight in tying exclamations for mysteries with your exploration as a narrative hook, with a very sweet ending and protagonist easy to root for in her desires. The one major gripe I have is with a certain character. I’m not gonna say who but you’ll know when you see him. They do very little to hide themselves as incredibly impersonal, (this goes beyond voice acting, with even the camera pointing the tell out right in the center of the screen) and it makes Ashley seem like she can’t catch a hint. This game is rated T and is far too niche for most of the Switch’s kid audience, but come on, there were many ways they could’ve made the reveal land far more effectively. While the ability to use the DS was regrettably lost on the developers, I enjoyed my time learning about Ashley and D while exploring the mansion bit by bit in this first game.

The second game, Another Code R, was never officially released in America, and with Wii games being region locked and difficult to map emulation controls for, I was excited to get into Trace Memory’s followup that never made it stateside for the first time officially. Imagine my surprise when I was told that it majorly cut down the game and even changed the endgame flat out. This game has Ashley exploring a much more open area in the forest with houses, a restaurant and a boating lodge with some isolated houses here and there filled with puzzle objects. It’s a far larger affair befitting its initial transition to a home console. Although it was initially jarring going from the end of the first game to this one where Ashley’s relationship with her dad is a lot rockier, I ended up liking Ashley a LOT more as a protagonist in the second game. Her emotional range is more thorough from being more excited to being snarkier and more sardonic when the story tests her patience without losing the vulnerability. More characters for her to bounce off made many of her character interactions more dynamic, and this game gives her a more special interest in music which leads to some pretty cute scenes.

Sadly, the second game, being so much bigger, means that it loses a lot of momentum and focus that the first game had in favor of being almost exclusively conversation to a greater ensemble of characters. And of these new characters, there are only about 3 of them with any real intrigue about them. It's not like the cast of Hotel Dusk where it feels like almost everyone has something interesting to add; the cast here are more flavor for the general vibes of the campsite/town area. In the first game, you were exploring a mansion bit by bit, constantly learning more info about Ashley’s dad’s research and D’s past while solving puzzles at a constant rate. In the second game, almost any puzzle is reduced to a scant series of button pushes and stick turns to open doors for nearly the whole game, with only about three clock puzzles over halfway through the title even approaching the already basic puzzles of the first game. The “combining items” idea is used even less here than it was in the previous game and the camera overlay introduced in 1 is never used, once, throughout the whole thing here. All we get is wonky controller/console turning, not wanting to use any special JoyCon features in a game like this that practically ASKS for it with how much the original version made you tilt the Wii Remote! In addition, this second game has a much harder time balancing out your primary companion’s story with Ashley’s own mystery. The resolution to his subplot is earned and compelling, but the way it takes so many hours to pan out means a lot more time will be spent running back and forth around the overworld to various dialogue prompts with mostly uninteresting new side characters and the pop-in of foliage becoming increasingly distracting.

The upside of the longer runtime is that everything comes together well in the final third of the game to greater dramatic effect than its predecessor. The last two chapters really bring home the whole journey across this duology, tying well into the implications the first game ended with while also saying even more about who Ashley choses to be. A Kingdom Hearts-esque plot beat around this part ties well through the adventure game choice selection stuff. Discovering a big twist about one of the scant interesting new players was surprising yet believably foreshadowed to find out and while maybe the exclamations went on for a little too long it left the plot off on a far heavier emotional tone than I expected, complemented by the moody dark lighting of the sky and some fairly somber music. At the end of the day, even with the more glaring pacing and scope issues in the second game, the heart of Cing’s storytelling and protagonist writing carries through and makes Ashley’s journey across these two games feel affectionate and meaningful, topped with nice end credit presentation.

Regardless of any gripes regarding translating these two games to a more standardized console, I’m very happy this exists. They did a good job with this collection, I’m happy to have finally experienced Ashley’s story across these two games and I’m happy Nintendo was willing to let Cing refugees from Arc System Works dig into the IP bucket to reintroduce Another Code to the world. I dread the idea of trying to transplant Hotel Dusk’s far more distinct style into these graphics, but I’ll respect those at Nintendo using their currently massive success to find hidden gems from their back catalog for new fans to uncover.

……………………….Custom Robo next please?

In the 2013 video game Puppeteer, a breezy and simplistic yet charming 2.5D platformer that justifies its 2.5D more than the bulk of games in that style ever have with its stage show aesthetic, your character Kutaro is a wooden puppet. A big part of the game is collecting puppet heads which act as hit points

There are a total of 104 heads to collect across the whole game. Every single one of these heads has a unique animation associated with it if you can hold onto it in the right spot. Could be a unique contextual moment within the game to take a shortcut, get rewards, skip a boss phase, or reaching a bonus stage. Beating the game will give you a head that can perform the contextual action of any other head to see the work put in, but there’s still that desire to find which heads you missed to see their distinct sense of character.

That is a level of soul and dedication you really only see from developers incredibly passionate about their craft and appreciating their effort a decade later it’s a damn shame to see Japan Studio shuttered now when it could be the perfect gap material between Sony’s mega blockbusters.