The timing of Another Code: Recollection’s release — shortly after Sony’s hyped-up but completely superfluous and unnecessary The Last Of Us Part II Remastered — is kind of hilarious.
And this game starkly highlights the difference between (let’s not beat around the bush here) a cynical cash grab of a “remaster” and a full-on remake that brings an oft-forgotten game (or pair of games, in this case) to a whole new audience, divested of the less desirable aspects of the baggage that came with its original context.
Another Code: Recollection, in other words, is an excellent example of how to do a remake of a game. And whether or not you played the original Nintendo DS and Wii games in the series by the dearly departed developer Cing, it’s a very worthy use of your time to play the Switch version. So let’s take a closer look.
Another Code: Recollection takes the two previous games in the Another Code series — 2005’s Another Code: Two Memories for Nintendo DS (known as Trace Memory in the US) and 2009’s Another Code R: A Journey into Lost Memories for Wii (previously unreleased in North America) — and combines them together into one coherent whole.
You can see where the “split point” is in that Another Code: Recollection still tells two distinct (albeit connected) stories, but new developer Arc System Works has worked hard to make the pair of them feel consistent with one another — no small feat considering that they were originally designed for two very different systems with very different control schemes.
For the unfamiliar, the DS version of Another Code: Two Memories saw you navigating protagonist Ashley around using the touchscreen and a top-down view of the areas you were exploring, while the Wii entry adopted a point-and-click interface with minimal freedom to “explore” off the beaten track. Another Code: Recollection replaces both of these control schemes with a recognisably modern third-person over-the-shoulder camera, with a context-sensitive action button allowing you to interact with anything Ashley stands near or looks at.
The upshot of this is that Another Code: Recollection feels like a thoroughly modern game — because it is. It’s been completely rebuilt to work well on the Switch, and anyone who has played a third-person game from the last ten years will be right at home with it immediately. The game does feature very occasional use of motion controls, but it always makes sense in context, and these brief, infrequent sequences also work well.
It’s also worth noting that the game looks gorgeous. Being a Switch game, the tech is obviously more limited than one would get on a more powerful system, but this is very much a case of art style trumping photorealism.
While the backgrounds are, at times, relatively low in detail — there’s even one scene in the Journey Into Lost Memories segment where you can clearly see the inscription on a statue has “Lorem Ipsum” placeholder text — the cel-shaded characters are gorgeously animated and expressive, and they’re very much the focus. It might have perhaps been nice to see some slightly more elaborate lipsync animations, but overall the game has a thoroughly pleasant “animated movie” look, and the beautifully lit indoor scenes in Two Memories arguably show Another Code: Recollection looking its absolute best.
Despite the two parts of the overall narrative now sharing an interface and control scheme, they still feel quite distinct from one another. The most obvious difference is that the Two Memories section unfolds in a relatively confined, mostly indoor setting, while the Journey into Lost Memories segment features a lot more in the way of outdoor areas. Protagonist Ashley also ages by two years between the two parts, which gives her a markedly different personality as she goes through something of a “moody teenager” phase — though she still remains convincingly recognisable as the same character between the two parts.
Two Memories also feels a little more puzzle-centric, while Journey into Lost Memories feels like it places a stronger focus on the narrative — though this may just be down to the fact that the Journey into Lost Memories part is significantly longer than Two Memories.
Let’s stop comparing, though, and look at each part in turn — beginning with Two Memories.
In the Two Memories section, Ashley comes to a mysterious island known as Blood Edward Island in search of her father, whom she had presumed dead for most of her life. Shortly before her fourteenth birthday, though, she received a letter from him inviting her to Blood Edward Island and, encouraged by her aunt and guardian Jessica, she decided to go and see what the situation was.
Upon arriving at the island, Ashley loses sight of Jessica and is left to explore on her own. Before long, she encounters a ghost of a young boy named D, who appears to have lost his memories. While Ashley’s priority is on finding Jessica and perhaps her father — if indeed he is still alive — she determines that her hunt will likely help D recover some of his memories, also, as it appears that D once had some sort of attachment to Blood Edward Island, and specifically the large mansion that forms the setting for most of the Two Memories segment.
Mechanically speaking, what then unfolds is actually structured quite similarly to a traditional survival horror game — only without either the “survival” or “horror” elements. By that I mean that the game unfolds in a fairly limited geographical area, with progress gated by locked doors, the keys for which are usually concealed behind puzzles and cryptic clues.
Ashley can explore any areas of the mansion she has access to freely, though in practice the structure of how the Two Memories segment is designed means that she takes a relatively linear path through the building. She does encounter doors that are bolted from one side at several points, however, and unlocking these allows access to different areas via shorter paths than she had to take when first discovering these parts of the mansion.
Progressing in Another Code: Recollection tends to involve exploring the new areas that have become available to you, examining objects and sometimes interacting with characters. In the Two Memories segment, this typically culminates in at least one puzzle sequence per room, and these are either completely self-contained or involve making use of inventory items that Ashley acquires during her investigation.
Another Code: Recollection takes great pains to ensure that modern players never get “stuck”. There are two optional features that assist here: firstly, an objective pointer that shows where Ashley needs to go next (though not necessarily what to do) and secondly, a hint feature for the puzzle sequences.
Honestly, neither of these are necessary for anyone who has ever played an adventure game before, and the entire game errs somewhat on the side of “very easy”, but the options are there for those less familiar or confident with the genre. This means that regardless of skill or confidence level, you can always keep the narrative moving forwards in Another Code: Recollection — you’re not penalised in any way for using either of the helper functions.
There’s only one optional element to the game, which is to seek out messages left behind by Ashley’s father that are encoded in QR codes on origami cranes scattered around the place. Since these are very small and not indicated as interactive items, they involve scouring each room fairly thoroughly — though the game’s interface is kind enough to indicate which room each note you haven’t yet found is in.
It’s worth pursuing these notes, too, because they flesh out the narrative of Another Code: Recollection rather nicely. The only slight nitpick I would say about this element is that, in-game, Ashley displays no indication that she’s actually read the messages in question, even when they reveal important information; on multiple occasions, she’ll wonder out loud about something she’s literally just read about. It would have perhaps been nice for just a line or two of the script to be conditional based on whether or not you found the relevant notes, but ultimately this isn’t a huge deal.
The puzzles in the Two Memories section of Another Code: Recollection are, while very easy, interesting and varied. The original Nintendo DS version was a bit of a showcase title for the DS’ capabilities, and made use of features such as the microphone and touchscreen. Another Code: Recollection keeps things fairly straightforward and simple rather than gimmicky, but the puzzles are still much more than simply “use X on Y”. A particularly good example is the one time in the game where you need to use Ashley’s in-game camera to overlay one image on another to discover the answer to a particular problem — I’ll leave the details of that for you to discover.
There’s always the feeling that Another Code: Recollection is primarily interested in telling its story rather than overly challenging the player, however, and this becomes even more apparent in the Journey Into Lost Memories section that follows after you complete Two Memories. This is set in the area surrounding a scenic lake, and the gameplay in this section feels a lot more focused on moving from place to place and conversing with people.
There are still puzzles to solve (and more messages hidden in paper cranes to find) in the Journey Into Lost Memories segment, but because this entire part of the narrative is much longer than Two Memories, they feel considerably more spread out. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — on the contrary, it makes it feel quite special when a puzzle sequence does arise — but it does require that you be on board with the stronger emphasis on the narrative component.
Thankfully, the narrative for this section is just as compelling as that found in Two Memories, concerning Ashley’s search for more information about her mother, who died when Ashley was very young. In contrast to Two Memories, where Ashley, along with the ghostly D, discovers much of what transpired in the mansion long after it had already happened, in Journey Into Lost Memories much of the plot is unfolding in the here and now, with characters who are present and alive.
And the fact these characters are present in the here and now means that they each have their own stories.
Two Memories isn’t just about Ashley by any means, but its narrative is mostly confined to two distinct threads, hence the name; one that happened in the past, and one that is unfolding in the present. Journey Into Lost Memories, meanwhile, has a lot more threads running at the same time, many of which don’t appear directly connected to one another until later in the overall story.
A core theme of Another Code: Recollection as a whole is that nothing truly unfolds in complete isolation, even seemingly unrelated events. This is seen in how the two main threads combine over the course of Two Memories, and how considerably more seemingly independent plot arcs end up intertwining by the conclusion of Journey Into Lost Memories.
On the whole, it’s simply a more ambitious narrative and works well for the most part, though one of the primary antagonists’ motivation for behaving the way they do is a little murky, leaving the last couple of chapters of the game arguably feeling a little out of place compared to what has come before. Not enough to spoil the experience as a whole, I hasten to add, but there is at least one character involved that will leave you with some fairly big question marks over why they did what they did.
Everything else is wrapped up nicely by the conclusion of Another Code: Recollection, however. We leave Ashley behind feeling like she’s in a much better place than she was when the whole thing started, and like we’ve really got to know an interesting bunch of characters over the course of her two adventures. If you were paying particularly close attention, you’ll have even discovered a direct connection between Another Code and two other games originally developed by Cing for Nintendo DS: Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Last Window: The Secret of Cape West.
There’s a line in Journey Into Lost Memories which posits that a person suffers “two deaths” rather than just one; the first is when their soul leaves their body and their physical form dies, and the second is when everyone who remembers them has forgotten them. Over the course of Another Code: Recollection we see Ashley establishing and rediscovering a variety of memories about everyone she encounters (and a few people she doesn’t) — and likewise, making herself a memory that they will hopefully hold dear to themselves for many years to come, too.
The story as a whole does deal with grief, loss and even trauma, but rather than being a sad game the overall message is one of hope. Another Code: Recollection suggests, quite rightly, that all our memories make us who we are, and that it’s worthwhile not only holding on to all our precious memories and seeing what we can learn from them, but also communicating with those that we trust to share and process those memories.
Rather aptly, Another Code: Recollection is a game that will likely stick in your memory long after you’ve beaten it, because while it’s by no means heavy-handed with its messages or the emotional aspects of its narrative, it is nonetheless very effective at what it does.
While it was very surprising indeed to see these two games resurrected for a modern audience, I don’t think anyone can say that it was a bad idea for Nintendo to release Another Code: Recollection. It gives two thoroughly interesting games that were very much at risk of suffering that “second death” mentioned above a new chance to be discovered and treasured — both by those who enjoyed them first time around, and those who have never seen them before.
That, my friends, is what remakes and remasters should be used for. And I sincerely hope that Another Code: Recollection is held up in future years as a shining example of How To Do It Right.
More about Another Code: Recollection
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