Overall score on pook's 100-point system (TM): 68, rounded to 70 or just 7. A good but very short game.
Graphics (25/30, judged by system)- For an early release, this game managed to outpace most of the DS competition for awhile. Nice stills and Flash-type animation tell the basic story with decent artwork and the game itself is made up of a serviceable overhead 3d world on one screen and pre-rendered stills for investigating, of about the quality of the first Resident Evil. Overall it's a nice presentation.
Sound: Fx/Voice (6/10)- Mostly ambient sounds but there are enough of them to make the game feel a bit immersive, and the sound quality is nice.
Sound: Music (5/10)- A highlight of the game, despite a lack of variety in tracks due in no small part to a very short game. What's there is enough for the length of the game so it was definitely on track to become a great soundtrack had the game been twice or three times as long and had the soundtrack maintained the variety it had. It's largely soothing and contemplative.
Gameplay: Length (3/15)- Sadly the game falls down on length. I finished the game in 6 hours. Though there is a second quest, I discovered that there was so little different it didn't seem to warrant the 3 hours or so it would require to complete it again. This is a shame because the game could easily have used more length. I used an FAQ to clue me in at 4 points, and only after each one stumped me for about 20-30 minutes. If you don't use an FAQ at all, expect a couple more hours of length as you beat your head against a wall.
Gameplay: Story (4/5)- This game is all about story, in the absence of action. It's revealed in notes found, stories told by your NPC companion and dialogue. In a sense, it feels at times a lot like Phoenix Wright (which I just played prior) in the sense of conversations are limited to 4 discussion topics per person, and finding items is similar to that game as well. A strange coincidence. That a rather large plot-point is left unresolved at the end was a story let-down…unless they make a sequel.
Gameplay: Game Design (25/30)- Trace Memory is a handheld revival of the old PC point-and-click investigative adventure games. It's fairly simple and fairly fast-moving, which is good as this type of game could bog down quickly. The mystery presented is decent and a motivation to continue.
Really, this game was an excuse to create a showpiece of the then-new DS hardware. It utilizes the DS' features as a canvas to create as many varieties of puzzles as could be imagined at the time, and usually this works. You'll use the mic, both screens, stylus manipulation and even a couple of other clever out-of-the-box ideas that are so unorthodox you might be stumped as I was figuring out what to do. This also serves as a potential downside, since being stuck in that way is no fun at all. One way or another, the game often tries to gently nudge you in the right direction: enough to cause you to think you came up with the solution yourself without being told the answer. It's a nice balance.
The overworld exploration is visually pleasing and could've been made more of. Though most of the game can be played with buttons or stylus (aside from the stylus-explicit puzzles), it's a credit to the game that I really played most of it with the stylus, even the overworld running around.
Final Thoughts: An impressive tech-demo, if nothing else. It's a great way to spend a long gaming day or a casual, relaxed weekend. At $20 it would have rated higher, but the length at retail price really drags this title down, unfortunately.
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