Trace Memory

Written by Dave Hulick  on September 02, 2005

Final Glimpse: If you traced a memory, what would it look like?

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What would compel a 13-year old girl to venture to an uncharted island by herself? Candy? Something pink? Something shiny? In Ashley Robbins' case, it is a package that she received from her long deceased father inviting her to come celebrate her 14th birthday on Blood Edward Island. Such is the premise for the upcoming adventure game for the DS, Trace Memory. Heavily influenced by point-and-click Adventure games like Myst and the Monkey Island series, Trace Memory is looking to add some depth, a compelling story and complexity to a DS lineup that is sorely lacking such things.

Instead of relying on addictive gameplay mechanics, adventure games rely on a well-written story to keep players interested. Fortunately, Trace Memory has a very interesting premise and promises a story full of plot-twists, not plot-holes. There are two protagonists in this title: Ashley, whose parents supposedly died 10 years ago during a top-secret government research project of the human memory, and D, a ghost who is stuck in limbo and cannot pass on until he remembers his past. After meeting early in the game, these two team together to uncover the plethora of secrets to be found on Blood Edward Island and to solve the mystery of their past.

Trace Memory uses the dual screens of the DS to exhibit a very interesting blend of pre-rendered scenes and real-time graphics. The top screen displays a detailed pre-rendered image of the area you are currently in, and the bottom-screen provides a top-down navigational view using real-time graphics. This adds greatly to the immersion, another key factor in an adventure title. Unfortunately, there are also some downfalls to this method. There are times when the landscape will change in the real-time view but remain the same in the pre-rendered view. For example, one part of the game has you retrieving parts of a broken sign. After you reconstruct the sign, it will still appear broken on the top screen.

The touch-screen plays a major role in both puzzles and exploration. Movement can be had by using either the D-Pad or stylus. When you touch a point on the touch-screen, your character will begin walking towards it. If you hold the stylus down in front of your character, she will continually walk forward. This method of control works surprisingly well and is a joy to use. Puzzles were built from the ground up to utilize the touch-screen as much as possible in order to maintain a fresh variety of experiences throughout the game.

The E3 Demo on display this year was fully translated in English. Nintendo has obviously put a lot of time behind the translation and English script-writing, and it is very apparent. Ashley has very well-written dialog and she has a very unique personality that is well conveyed. All the pre-rendered scenes were also edited to feature English text where needed.