Do you remember what you got for your fourteenth birthday? A bike? A video game? Clothes? Ashley Mizuki Robins got something a bit different from the norm - a letter from her father who she thought had died when she was three and a small device that looks quite similar to a DS. However, her father is on a remote little place on the sea known as Blood Edward Island... sounds a bit creepy, no? At least you have Auntie Jessica with you... well, you do until she goes off to look for your Dad and doesn't come back. So Trace Memory begins, a game well worth raving about but at the same time, revealing the best bits will spoil the game for you. Still, doesn't stop me trying! Nintendo and Cing's collaboration plays like an interactive novel, so it's just as well that the story is one of it's strong points. The mysteries around your parents and the island are gradually unravelled through conversations with other characters, all of which are pretty likable and avoid Americanisms that can so often grate in a Japanese title, and picking up various bits and pieces. While the game is pretty text heavy, this is not a problem at all and you just get hooked into the search for your father, amongst other things. Some gorgeous artwork, which is well animated, and some atmospheric music also get you into the puzzle-solving mood and while some of the 3D graphics displayed on the bottom screen can be a bit rough, it still retains a strong stylish appearance. The other little neat touch is that Ashley has the same birthday as you - quite shocking as many probably forgot they put their birthday into the DS when they first got it - and it all helps to relating to her character more and building up an emotional bond. As for the puzzles themselves, some of them will have you screaming, "That's genius!", at your DS - once you've sussed them out! The early stuff is quite simple, from piecing a sign together with the stylus to scrubbing rust off an iron grinder but the later stuff makes fantastic use of the DS besides the touch-screen feature. Perhaps some might be irked how you need to find the puzzle first, then the solution - for instance, you can't pick up the metal brush until you've seen the iron grinder on which you have to use it - though others will welcome the element of 'thinking back' and once you've become accustomed to this idea it's not a problem. Controlling Ashley on the bottom screen (the top will show a still from a first-person perspective depending on where you are) is a breeze. You just point to where you want to go and she goes there - easy! That the game controls so well reflects the care, detail and attention that Cing have applied to the title. They've ensured that the only frustrations you're going to have are with the puzzles, which have a pretty logical basis once you clock the solution but it's good to see a handheld title stretch the grey matter without needing to be a member of MENSA to solve any of them. What there is of Trace Memory is sublime and gripping. More importantly, it shows that these games can work well on the Nintendo DS and we can only hope someone else eventually does the obvious and makes some good old-fashioned point-and-click titles. However, what there is of the game isn't really that much. The game consists of six chapters and can be completed in around five hours. Furthermore, as an adventure it appears to offer little replay value, besides tracking down some extra cards for Ashley's DAS. The game doesn't seem to have other endings either, though the fate of one character differs depending on how much information you got on them. As such, it'd be hard to recommend buying this game at full asking price, as even without any unnecessary padding that so many games resort to, it is still a little brief. However, if you're comfortable with it's brevity, it's a title well worth checking out.
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