Another Code: Recollection Nintendo Switch Review

Another Code: Recollection reimagines and brings together the two prior Another Code games into one, cohesive experience.

Creative Staff:
Director: Tetsuro Shoji
Producer: Shinya Saito, Satoshi Shimada, Toyokazu Nonaka

What They Say:
Sleuth your way to the truth in two fully enhanced mystery adventures with Another Code: Recollection

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.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
In 2005, a Japanese game developer named Cing released a point-and-click mystery adventure for the Nintendo DS called Another Code: Two Memories, which developed a cult following for its interesting characters, dark storyline, and occasionally taxing puzzles which used the technology in the DS in unique ways. Another Code: Two Memories was later released in Europe under the same title and then in North America as Trace Memory. In 2009, Cinq followed this up with a sequel for the Wii titled Another Code: R – A Journey Into Lost Memories, which garnered a similar small, but dedicated, fanbase and again saw release in Europe but not, this time, in North America.

Cinq went out of business in 2010, and the series lay dormant until now with Arc System Works and Nintendo teaming up to bring us Another Code: Recollection, a complete remake of both games, rebuilt in a new game engine with a reimagined storyline that ties the two parts together better to create a more cohesive experience. To say that the announcement of this release in the September 2023 Nintendo Direct was a surprise is an understatement, but as one of the dedicated fans of the original DS release—not to mention also being somebody who has never had the chance to play the sequel—I was very excited to get my hands on this remake. And just like that original release, this remake brings a lot of charm, a good amount of intrigue, and a few warts that in no way ruin the game but do mar what would otherwise be a terrific experience.

Two Memories tells the story of our heroine, 14-year-old Ashley Mizuki Robbins, who has received a mysterious letter from her father, Richard, whom she has not heard from in eleven years since the death of her mother, Sayoko. This letter contains a mysterious device known as the DAS—Dual Another System—and a request that she come to meet him on Blood Edward Island, where he has been living since his disappearance working on some mysterious research project, known only as Another. The game opens up with Ashley and her aunt, Jessica—with whom Ashley has been living with—arriving on Blood Edward Island, only to find that Richard is nowhere to be found. Jessica leaves Ashley in the care of the boat’s captain while she scouts around, but soon after Ashley hears a scream, and when she goes to investigate, she finds Jessica missing.

The mysteries deepen when Ashley finds an abandoned mansion on the island, and while poking around trying to find a way in, she discovers the presence of the ghost of a young boy who only goes by the moniker of D. D has wandered the island for the past 57 years, and cannot recall any details of his prior life, and in all the years he has wandered the island, Ashley is the first human who has been able to see him. As Ashley is heading into the mansion to try and find her aunt and discover the truth about her father, she also agrees to assist D in any way that she can to help him recover his lost memories.

In fact, lost memories are a theme with this game (and the reason for the great pun in the release’s title—Recollection means that it’s both collecting these games together again but also a hint at the memory motif). Aside from uncovering the truth of D’s past, much of Ashley’s story comes from memories she has buried deep and consciously forgotten herself, much of it concerning the night when she witnessed her mother’s murder. Unraveling the mystery of her father’s disappearance, the nature of Another and the DAS (which looks suspiciously like a Nintendo Switch…), and how this island ties into it all will require her to dig deep into her own memories and recall details she has long since tried to forget. What kicks off from here is a puzzle-based adventure game that delves further into the mysteries of the island and the mansion, slowly discovering that the truths that both Ashley and D are looking for are tied together much more closely than they dreamed when they first met.

As a fan of the original on the DS, I could not help but compare the two as I was playing through this. In fact, I actually replayed the DS original right before this game came out to make sure it was fresh in my mind for that exact purpose. This remake is a lot more than just a retelling or remaster of the original game; rather, it is a complete reimagining of it. While the basics of the story remain the same, a lot of details have shifted around or changed so that it leads into the second game more naturally. These changes are mostly positive, as I think the story develops better and makes a bit more sense, though some of the intrigue from the original has been lost with the way things are being portrayed this time around.

The biggest issue I have with the changes to the story is the way the surrounding characters are portrayed. In the original, from the very beginning, there’s a strong sense that nobody in Ashley’s life is telling her the truth and that we can’t be sure who she can trust. She’s been living with Jessica for eleven years and loves her aunt dearly, but from the get-go, it’s clear that Jessica is hiding something from Ashley. When Jessica disappears, Ashley’s concern is for her aunt’s safety, certainly, but just as strong is her desire to learn the truth that Jessica is hiding and a fear that her aunt isn’t the person Ashley thought she was. In this game, Jessica is clearly hiding stuff from Ashley, but she makes it clear that isn’t even sure where the truth lies and that they are coming to the island to uncover those truths. Jessica is a lot more likable from the outset here than she is in the original, and it lessens the sense of danger that Ashley might be walking into.

More concerning to me was the introduction of Bill, the game’s ultimate antagonist. Bill is Richard’s partner, but Ashley had never heard of him until coming to Blood Edward Island. When we first meet Bill, he is passing himself off as Richard, and since Ashley has no real memory of her dad, she’s ready to believe him. In the original game, it’s clear to us that Bill is a bit shady, but Ashley is happy to finally meet her father, even if it isn’t quite the emotional reunion that she was hoping. And when she finally meets the real Richard, she isn’t sure who to believe. In this game, Bill is a lot shadier, to the point where Ashley isn’t just disappointed in the lack of an emotional reunion, but she is actively suspicious of him. Then, when she finds the real Richard, she immediately believes him because nothing felt right about Bill. The original game provides a lot of misdirection that you have to sort out that really added to the intrigue of what is unfolding around Ashley and builds a sense of isolation around her as she, and we, is unsure who exactly she can trust. That sense of isolation is blunted in this version because it creates more of a distance between those that we can trust and those we can’t and generally makes it clear from the outset who stands where.

That said, I do feel like the overall story flows a lot better in this version than in the original. While the characters might be a bit less mysterious, I do think they’ve added a lot of depth of personality, and there is a lot more interaction this time around than there was in the original. Ashley in particular feels a bit more of a developed character this time around. She is not exactly a blank slate in the DS game, but she’s a bit sassier and a little less willing to put up with other people’s nonsense in this one. In particular, when Richard does not show up at the boat dock to meet her, she is a lot more willing to just pack it in and return to the mainland. Her motivation in this version is far more about trying to save her aunt than her own concerns, and the more she unravels about the past of her father and the mystery surrounding her mother’s death, the less she wants to know. While I like Ashley in the original, there she is a lot more of the blandly determined RPG heroine, while in this one, she feels a bit more real—a 14-year-old thrown into an impossible situation who just wants to go bury her head in her pillow and forget it all. It makes her a lot more relatable.

I think a large part of the reason that this game has more depth in storytelling is that the general nature of the game has shifted a bit. Earlier, I called this a puzzle-based adventure game, and while that is true, it is a lot truer of the original. This game is a lot more cutscene-heavy than the original and plays a lot more like a visual novel than a true adventure game. There are puzzles, sure, but the focus is more on developing the narrative than slowly uncovering it as a result of your exploration. So we linger more on details, have longer conversations, and build stronger connections. One thing I was constantly impressed with was how much sly foreshadowing they slid in in places that was easy to look past but still clear if you knew what to look for. As such, the already solid narrative feels that much more realized.

However, that increased focus on the story does have a bit of an impact on the gameplay. While there are definitely a good number of fun puzzles in this game, nothing approached the diabolical nature of some of them in the DS version. The DS game has a habit of utilizing the hardware in unique ways that really require some outside-the-box thinking—including one where you bring up different images on each screen and then close the system most of the way so that the two screens are reflecting on one another, revealing the answer to a question. The Switch—while certainly distinctive in its own right—does not really have the type of hardware that would lend itself to those sorts of unique puzzles, and it shows in what we have. There are some brain teasers, sure, but I never found myself stuck for any significant amount of time. To that end, I suppose the game is a bit more approachable, but it was also a disappointment. If you do find yourself stuck, though, there are also two hint systems you can activate to help you—one to point you in the direction you need to go and the other to give you a little push on the puzzle you might currently be stuck on. Again, the point clearly is to make the game a little more accessible than the original, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The other thing that was a bit surprising is how little of the game is actually missable, a sacrifice to the desire to tell a more cohesive story, I suppose. What I mean by this is that there are two concurrent storylines in this game—Ashley’s and D’s. In the DS original, completing Ashley’s storyline is necessary to beat the game, but completing D’s is not. There are actually two endings to the game: the normal ending where you don’t find all of D’s memories and a good ending where you do. In this remake, you cannot complete the game without finding everything for both people. Again, this was probably done to tell a better story, and to better lead into the second game, but again, it lessens the sense of adventure, because nothing is truly missable. There are a bunch of origami cranes scattered around the island which lead to diary entries written by Richard that you can technically miss out on (these are represented as memory cards in the original), but the diary entries just add some context to things, and don’t actually change the gameplay at all.

Completing Two Memories leads directly to its sequel, Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories. The sequel takes place two years after the events on Blood Edward Island. While Richard returned home from the island with Ashley and Jessica, a blissful family existence was not in the cards. With too many years apart, Richard and Ashley are not particularly comfortable around each other, and after a year or so, Richard took a job at a company called J.C. Valley in the resort town of Lake Juliet. Early in his tenure, he would be sure to return home on the weekends, but he has been staying away more and more lately, and Ashley has generally washed her hands of him. When Richard reaches out to her to suggest that she come to Lake Juliet for a camping weekend, it takes all of Jessica’s powers of persuasion to convince Ashley to go.

However, much like at Blood Edward Island two years earlier, when the bus drops her off at Lake Juliet, Richard is nowhere to be found. Ashley—who over the previous two years has refined her sense of sass and developed wonderfully into a moody, snarky teen—is ready to jump right back on the next bus that comes along and return home, but while she is yelling into the void, her backpack containing virtually everything she brought with her is stolen by a younger boy, and she knows she has to find him and recover her bag before she has any chance of getting home.

Venturing into the resort area of Lake Juliet, she eventually finds her father, whose absence from picking her up this time is at least just absent-mindedness and not anything malicious like at Blood Edward Island, but before the reunion can find any sense of happiness, Richard is called away to deal with a crisis at J.C. Valley, leaving Ashley once again to fend for herself. Feeling uncomfortable in the presence of her father’s coworkers, none of whom she actually knows, she decides to go find her father’s house, and along the way, look for the boy who stole her bag. But as she ventures farther into the resort, she stumbles upon a new mystery, one that concerns the town, its history, J.C. Valley, and somehow, Ashley’s mother, and just like at Blood Edward Island two years earlier, unraveling this mystery will require Ashley to dig up long-dormant memories which hold the answers to questions long since hidden.

Where A Journey into Lost Memories was never released in North America, and I was not living in Europe at the time of its release over there, I don’t have the history with the sequel as I do the original. As such, I was almost more interested in playing this than in the first half. Two Memories certainly threw me some curveballs I wasn’t expecting, but this was an entirely brand-new experience.

In almost every way, A Journey into Lost Memories is a bigger game than its predecessor. There are more characters, a bigger area to explore, more puzzles, and a more complex story to uncover. As such, the game both feels a lot more wide open but also a little less focused than Two Memories. In reality, it is every bit as linear as the first game, but with how many different directions it pulls us in, it feels like we are meandering more towards uncovering the truths we have to find than following a direct, logical path.

Once Ashley leaves to go find her dad’s house, she soon finds the boy, Matthew, who stole her backpack (which, of course, he has lost by now), and it turns out that he is a runaway who is looking for his father who disappeared five years earlier. Unable to leave people in need, Ashley agrees to help him search for clues as to his father’s disappearance. Additionally, she also meets three people her age—Tommy, Elizabeth, and Janet—who are in a band together, and who had planned to enter a big band competition, but internal strife with Elizabeth is threatening those plans. Like with Matthew, Ashley cannot help but be drawn into their conflict and look for ways to bring the three together, and mend Elizabeth’s wounded heart at the same time.

As Ashley is running around helping her new friends, she is also slowly uncovering deeper intrigues into the resort, finding that her mother has ties to the area and coming to the realization that her father’s decision to take the job at J.C. Valley might have been a mask to himself investigate the mysteries of the area and the research he’d tried to bury two years earlier. Digging even deeper into her memories will bring Ashley closer to understanding her mother, but that knowledge might be difficult to accept. However, as D told her two years earlier, “Even though facing the truth can be hard, in the end, it’s always for the best.” And with that mantra, she finds the courage to keep going.

If I had to guess, in the Wii release, completing Matthew’s and the band’s quest lines led to a good ending, but weren’t technically necessary to beat the game. They are now, and probably the first two-thirds of the game is dedicated to solving their issues. While Ashley’s quest is established early, very little progress is made on it until Matthew and the band are out-of-the-way, and this is what leads to me feeling like the game is a little more meandering. However, I also don’t necessarily think that’s a problem. It’s just a bit of a difference in perspective. Two Memories is more intimate; A Journey into Lost Memories more communal. Which one is better is purely a matter of taste. For me personally, I think I still like Two Memories better than its sequel, but I still enjoyed a lot about A Tale of Lost Memories.

Another pretty major difference between the two games is one of tone. The storylines that Ashley follows are similarly dark and mysterious, but A Tale of Lost Memories feels a lot more lighthearted than its predecessor thanks to their respective settings and cast of characters. Where Two Memories has you digging around a dusty old, abandoned mansion on a secluded island—called Blood Edward Island, just to really hammer the point home—the sequel takes place in a sunny lake resort town. Similarly, the first game sees Ashley and D alone most of the time, while the few others we do meet here and there don’t often inspire confidence, while the second game has an often peppy group of people that Ashley regularly interacts with. If you didn’t know what Ashley was up to, you wouldn’t know that anything was wrong. Even Ashley is more open and surer of herself in the sequel, a mark that she has grown up some in the two years since her first adventure. It all lends itself to an atmosphere where it does feel like we’re actually on a vacation rather than a serious adventure.

But frankly, thinking about them still as two games is almost a pointless exercise. While the assets of the two games are treated separately, and there’s a clear line of demarcation drawn between the two, Another Code: Recollection essentially treats them as one game. Near the end of Two Memories, Recollection adds in a plot device that shows Bill working with somebody on the outside and attempting to send Richard’s data to an address at J.C. Valley, linking the two together, and as I said earlier, when you beat Two Memories, it leads right into A Journey into Lost Memories without pausing at all. My understanding, too, is that there are a lot of story changes to the sequel to help it become a more seamless experience. While it makes sense that you have to beat Two Memories to play A Journey into Lost Memories, I was actually a bit surprised that the ability to jump right into the sequel is not unlocked upon completion of the total game. If you want to play A Journey into Lost Memories again, then you have to start from the beginning of Two Memories (or, hopefully, have a save at the end of it).

However, at the same time, being able to start from the start of the second game might be a bit of a pointless exercise, too, as I think that for most people, there would be very little replay value in this. The originals at least had the possibility of “failing” to fully beat the game to entice you to come back and try again, but this remake doesn’t allow for that. The linearity of the game is such that nothing is missable, and there is no real way to lose, so replaying would just be if you wanted to revisit the story. While some people, including myself, would enjoy that, the reality is that for most people, this will be a one-and-done game.

In Summary:
Another Code: Recollection is a very surprising release. The original games certainly have a strong, cult following, but it does not change the fact that they are very niche releases. A simple porting of the games to the Switch would have been surprising enough, but a full-on remake with a reimagined story, new puzzles, and full voice acting was previously unthinkable. And frankly, I love it. As part of the cult following of the original DS game—all six of us—I’m very happy to see this series get some more attention, and I can only hope that perhaps a remake of Cinq’s spiritual companion series, Hotel Dusk: Room 215/Last Window – The Secret of Cape Wes, might be on the way. My only concern is that because of the effort, I understand why this is a full-price game, but I worry that at that price, it will again fly under the radar. If you are not a fan of visual novels, then I can’t really recommend this, as this remake really leaned into the “novel” part of that, but if that doesn’t bother you, then I encourage you to check this out. The characters are great, there’s some good mystery, and a fun story. You probably won’t need to play it more than once, but you’ll enjoy that one playthrough. Recommended.

Content Grade: B+
Graphics: A-
Sound: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Controls: A-

Age Rating: T—Teen
Released By: Nintendo
Release Date: January 19, 2024
MSRP: $59.99
HD Video Output: 1080p
Approximate Play Time: 15-20 hours (less if you use the hint system)
Replay Value: Low

Review Equipment:
Nintendo Switch (w/HDMI Connection), TCL 40S305 40” 1080p Roku Smart LED TV