For the cheap seats, and those unfamiliar with developer Cing’s particular brand of gaming, Nintendo’s marketing department have added a ‘Read & Solve like a Mystery Novel!’ sticker to blemish the otherwise exquisite cover of Another Code: R. This is a message that should be heeded as a stark warning rather than a swaying endorsement; impatient gamers take note: Here there be reading…Lots and lots of reading. Illiterate and/or ADD-stricken players and those adverse to anything without regular explosions will balk at the game’s gentle pace and eye-bleeding amount of text as they curse the day that humanity evolved from crude cave paintings to the written word. And if you find yourself in the above category, you won’t find much here but frustration and tedium, and will be better served skipping Another Code: R like a lengthy cut-scene. It’s certainly an acquired taste, and one which will no doubt be scoffed at and hurled over the neighbour’s fence with contempt by gamers of the “There’s sooo much talking! When do I get to kill things to death?!” mentality. More patient and adventurous players however will be rewarded with one of the most wonderfully charming, refreshingly unique and beautifully-presented games in recent memory.
It’s been 2 years since the events of Ashley Mizuki Robbins’ first woefully underrated adventure on the DS, and though reunited with her father, Mr Robbins is back to giving Darth Vader a run for his money in the negligent father stakes, burying himself in work at a remote facility and failing to see Ashley for 6 months. Papa Robbins sends poor Ashley an impersonal message out of the blue asking her to come spend the weekend him at a family summer camp. When she gets there, however, she finds that her trip has more to do with what happened to her late mother than any fishing and campfire marshmallows.
DS playing fans of the original will quickly notice the shift in exploration; the overhead point-and-click movement interface has been jettisoned for something more suited to the Wii – a fusion of sidescrolling travelling and Hotel Dusk’s item exploration system. Players control Ashley as she jogs along the screen on a 2D path, the camera pivoting to follow her when she branches off on paths north or south. Inside rooms, Ashley will stand in the centre of the room, spinning on a 90 degree angle to check out one of the four directions, with items – much like with Hotel Dusk – handily grouped in clusters as you hover over them, a press of the ‘A’ button zooming in to check each article individually. It’s an admirable smooth and simple interface, one which complements the gentle feel of the game and that casual gamers and genre die-hards alike will have no trouble getting the hang of instantly.
Despite the shift to a more voice-friendly platform than the DS, Cing have stuck with the text-only dialogue, which will only further frustrate those with a hatred for expansive dialogue. But while Another Code: R is heavy on the text, the characters’ actions and gestures are rendered with such adorable expressiveness that it’s hard to care about the absence of speech, especially when considering the wretched “My emotions were stolen by badgers”-style voice acting found in most games. From the refreshingly serene and artistic watercolour cover to the gorgeous cell-shaded in-game characters and landscapes, you’d be hard pressed to find a more beautiful marriage of style and content on the Wii, perhaps any console.
Another Code: R, in true point-and-click fashion, is entirely linear, restricting you to the set path of the story, your next step clearly laid out for you, with characters like Ranger Dan often loitering around to block your exploration of wider areas if you try to wander to sections of the larger map before you’re supposed to. But even though the game adheres to rigid linearity, the map is so large and colourful that even when relegated to smaller sections of it, you’ll still have a lot of room to run around in, engaging in a little soda can recycling, gumball machine using, souvenir buying, food eating hi-jinks while you do so. Sure, there’s no real ‘point’ to it, aside from the cathartic knowledge that all the tacky souvenirs you’re buying are all going on Ashley’s negligent dad’s credit card (Cue vengeful supervillain laugh), but Cing manage to give the illusion of freedom even when you’re not entirely granted it. And above all, it’s just so damn fun. Well, until the fun gumball machine distraction leaves you longing for a Shenmue 3 on the Wii, then you have a whole new set of issues to deal with as you weep for something that will never be.
Cing’s annoying trend of puzzle exploration – the “You can’t have this item until you’ve found what you’ll need it for!” backtrack quest – makes an unwelcome return, though fortunately this time it’s a device that feels more improved and streamlined. Any items you now need to find will be in arms reach of the current puzzle, cutting down any needless wandering, and there’s at least a sense of narrative logic to the proceedings when you do need to retrace your steps – not being allowed to pull a lever before you’ve found the hidden trapdoor it opens avoids spoiling the reveal, for example.
Players who were disappointed in the original’s slight length might be gratified by this sequel’s extended playtime – clocking in at around 12-15 hours in comparison to Two Memories’ 2-6 hour duration – until they notice that Cing have supplemented that new-found length with a much more leisurely pace. Even players who loved the original might be nonplussed to find that the relative puzzle-to-talkiness ratio sways to the latter far more so than the original; it’s not until the last few chapters of the game that the puzzles start to fly thick and fast with the same regularity as Two Memories. Another Code’s pace and verbosity will undoubtedly be the biggest point of contention for its detractors, but though it requires a patient player, the game never feels tedious, and the entire experience is so endearingly peaceful, breathtakingly gorgeous and gently engrossing that it’s near-impossible not to relish the lengthy quieter moments.
The puzzles themselves – an equal mix of Wii remote physics brainteasers and more conventional logic-based riddles – though never quite as ingenious as those in the DS original, are consistently clever and rewarding and often fiendishly and deceptively mind-boggling; if you haven’t found yourself stuck during at least one point later in the game, and find yourself urgently scribbling possible solutions on nearby scraps of paper to try to conjure a solution, poking the little hamster controlling your brain to get that little fella figuring things out, only to slap yourself when the inevitable ‘Eureka!’ moment hits you, then you’re made of stronger and more intelligent stuff than I.
Another Code: R is refreshingly bereft of hand-holding too – you’ll find no annoying ‘Sit back, dear gamer, and we’ll play the game for you!’ nonsense, no over-simplistic puzzles with easy hints to make the game painfully easy and dull to play. Of course, the major proviso with a rigidly linear point-and-click adventure is that once you’re stuck with a puzzle, that’s it – the game’s in limbo and you’re not progressing until you’ve figured it out. Even so, it’s increasingly rare and oh so gratifying that Cing chooses not to treat their audience like under-developed remedial children and instead create something actually challenging.
An utterly beautiful and thoroughly engrossing and rewarding game, Another Code: R is the perfect game to occupy your time indoors during the last waning days of summer. There’s nothing quite like it on the Wii, which is a colossal shame, but all the more reason to seek it out and relish it completely.
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Another Code: R – A Journey Into Lost Memories is available to buy now for Nintendo Wii in the UK.
Click here to buy Another Code: R from TheHut.com, where it’s currently only £17.73.