Honestly, I'm glad I chose to revisit this game after dropping it intially just shortly after it's release day. 

Me dropping wasn't so much related to the game's quality (though I will get into why it didn't pull me in immediately in this review), but rather that it just had an unfortunate timing of release, where there was just too much going on with video games and in my life for me to to play it through. Basically, it was competing with the new Prince of Persia game which released a day earlier and the eventual winner of that battle royale for my attention: Last of Us Part II Remastered. Ultimately, TLOU2 was the crack of a horror survival game that felt right for me back then.

A good year later, I was finally in the mood and had the time to play a story-driven puzzle adventure again and after almost picking up Emio the Smiling Man, I made the decision to just go with this game from my backlog instead.

Anyway, what is Another Code: Recollection? It's a remake and collection of the original Another Code games. Basically, it feels like somebody had the bright idea that those old games for Nintendo DS and the Wii respecitvely, could benefit from a "Life is Strange"-esque remake. Maybe I'm paranoid, but is there any other reason that the main character got a re-design in the second game to feature a red flannel shirt reminiscent of Rachel Amber's shirt in LIS and that the box art has a strong similarity to the remastered box art of LIS? I guess it could be nothing.

Anyway, the Recollection game features both a remake of the first DS game Twin Memories and the Wii game R: A Journey into Lost Memories. The first game follows Ashley Mizuki Robins as she is about to get reunited with her deadbeat father on her 14th birthday on Blood Edward Island, home to a Resident Evil-esque mansion holding many secrets. There she meets the ghost boy simply called D who she teams up with to resolve his unfinished business while also dealing with her own quest to reacquiant with her father. The second game - which is locked behind the first game's completion- happens 2 years and not to go too much into spoilers I'll just say it's about a camping vacation Ashley undertakes which yet again leads her down uncovering a mystery related to her - and her new companion Matthew's - lives.

I guess I should cover why I couldn't get into it when it originally released. Well, the game feels a bit rough once you start it with minor annoyances just throwing me off a bit more than they should have. Starting with the autoplay taking a bit too long to transition from line to line, the default camera scrolling being set to a ridiculous 20% speed and just the early game path being slightly indecipherable with bushes feeling like massive roadblocks. On my second playthrough I did however bring the patience to figure out things more. I chose not use autoplay, but manually progress the dialog with a nice flow and boosted camera scrolling up to 50%, which took care of my grievances. You could technically also turn on directions to tell you where to go next.

I already compared the game to Life is Strange and yeah, that's a bit how gameplay works here. It's a story-driven point and click adventure with at times pretty tricky puzzles to progress you through the game. I guess that gamification element is kind of why I appreciate this more than any Life is Strange game after the first one. In particular the Twin Memories part of the game gets brownie points from me, from just feeling like it was also inspired by Resident Evil's mansions with all these elaborate secret passages, hidden compartments and complicated passwords. It's just fun to explore and figure out. Misses the zombies though.

The second part was a bit duller in terms of puzzles. There I fel like the gameplay sorta devolved more into just going from point A to point B and puzzles being less elaborate and exploration-based, but just immediate roadblocks you have to solve on the spot to progress. To be fair, it makes sense in the context of realism and the second game's setting. Can't have too many weird passages and complicated locks in a tourist camp, but I can't help feeling like Twin Memories just resonated with me more due to the more complex gamification.

But before I get too negative on Journey into Lost Memories, I will say that as far as the ending goes, the second part was more satisfying to me. It nicely attached itself to the first game as a sequel and the antagonist was better than the one in the first game.

I guess the story overall and the sci-fi elements of the plot were quite neat. I'd give it an 8/10. Some occasional elements did feel a bit contrived to serve the story's intended destination. There are also some elements to the first game, that I felt were kinda brushed under the rug in the second game, that I still have questions about.

Anyway, the graphics overall were fine. I like the visual novel aesthetic during the dialogs, but some textures are Switch-tipically rough. Soundtrack is good enough. They had like 90% of the game voice acted - to mixed results, but fair enough overall. Also, I don't care what anybody says, the Lake Juliet theme in the second game goes hard.

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Travel to the remote Blood Edward Island as Ashley, a 13 year old girl in search of her father in Another Code™: Two Memories. Ashley receives a letter from her father who she believed to be dead, setting off a chain of mysteries and visions into the past. Investigate your surroundings and locales while solving puzzles to reveal the truth in this refreshed retelling of the original Trace Memory™ game for the Nintendo DS™ system.

Experience Ashley’s full story, including the events of the first game’s sequel—Another Code: R – Journey into Lost Memories. Previously unreleased in North America, this second installment completes Ashley’s intriguing tale as she journeys to Lake Juliet two years after the events of the first game to uncover the hidden truth surrounding her mother.

This collection includes fully enhanced versions of both original games, featuring overhauled visuals, fully explorable environments, new voice acting, puzzles, music, and more. Optional hint and navigation systems have been added to help players new to adventure games.

Playscore of Another Code: Recollection, based on critic and gamer review scores.

Another Code: Recollection

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