E3 2005: Trace Memory – Hands On

For quite some time American DS owners have been watching NOA for news regarding the release of a title by the name of Another, which was changed to Another Code, the story of a young girl named Ashley in her quest to find her missing father and the mystery of her mother’s death. Well, as of E3 2005 that game is now known as Trace Memory and has been confirmed for an American release sometime this year.

Among the things that make this title unique is the fact that its a first party Nintendo title, and has a very dark spiritual story behind it tangled in a lost girl and the death of her mother and father when she was only a child. Their names were Richard and Sayoko Robbins and they were in an accident when conducting experiments with Human Memory in a government lab. Ten years later though, Ashley receives a letter presumably from her missing father telling her that he is indeed alive and is being held captive on an island called Blood Edward. Ashley travels there to discover that they were also working on a computer called Trace that could generate memories. She finds it and takes it on her adventure. She also meets a ghost named “D” who has lost all of his memories and has no idea of his life, death, or otherwise, so they decide to team up and work together to solve each of their respective problems together.

Nintendo had Trace Memory on the floor at E3 this year, and I got to have some time with it in person. The Graphic engine isn’t the greatest in the world, but it has some really intuitive elements. The top screen is used to give you a 2D first person look at whatever Ashley is looking at, whilst the bottom screen in used to give you a scrolling 3D overhead view of everything that is going on. You can use either the D-Pad or the stylus to move Ashley around and you use the stylus to touch certain items to bring them into a zoom view on the bottom screen so you can inspect them or collect them for later usage. The whole point of the demo was that Ashley was trapped inside the Blood Edwards Island cemetery, and you have to help her find her way out.

As you walk around, tall items such as tree trunks are smoothly moved past you as you walk around, and the leaves are done in 2D to give a greater sense of detail. That’s how the game tends to work, but using both styles together to add a greater sense of detail in places where each would benefit rather than just stick to one concrete look the whole time.

The game is planned for release this September, and that is probably due to the fact that it’s an adventure/RPG type title where the emphasis in on the story meaning that there is tons of text in the game. Of what was in the demo, the story seemed to be extremely well written and thought out which should make traveling through the title and extremely pleasant experience when it ships this September.