With Nintendo’s wide range of IPs – from Metroid and Mario, to Starfy and ARMS – it’s always an unexpected joy when something from days gone by suddenly gets a breath of fresh air. The year of 2024 is the return of the unsung heroine, Ashley Mizuki Robbins. In spite of not being nearly as well known as Yoshi or Marth, Ashley remains one of the most relatable and engaging characters that comes from one of the lesser known series, Another Code. A true relic of the DS era, Another Code: Two Memories saw a sequel (Another Code: R) that never made it to North American shores, but saw modest success in both Japan and Europe. Fans can now rejoice as the entire saga has been brought together in the new, unified story, Another Code: Recollection.

For players who missed both the DS and Wii titles, here’s a brief rundown.. Ashley was raised by her aunt most of her life, believing her parents to both be dead. On her fourteenth birthday, Ashley receives two important gifts: a machine called the DAS and a letter sent by her father, who reveals himself to be alive and working on a top secret project. The initial adventure sends Ashley to Blood Edward Island to find her father and reunite, and also learn more details about what he’s been doing for almost her entire life. The second adventure takes place years later, when Ashely is sixteen, and she explores Lake Juliet to learn more about her mother. Both titles keep you firmly in the shoes of Ashley, though the first adventure also let’s to learn more about D, the ghost of a young boy who inhabits Blood Edward Island.

If you’re coming to Another Code: Recollection purely to play the second story that was kept from you back in the Wii heydays, I have bad news: you must complete the first game before moving on. Nintendo has decided to marry the two into a single entity when first loaded, which makes sense if you’re coming in completely fresh. To be honest, the DS release of Another Code is nineteen years gone by, so everyone could benefit from a refresher of the storyline. Additionally, this really is a different game: puzzles and interactions have been modified, adjusted and sometimes completely removed to suit the Nintendo Switch’s interface versus the DS’s dual screen approach. As a result, this doesn’t feel like your usual port or remaster: the game really has been recreated from the ground up.

For gameplay, players control Ashley in a 3D, third person perspective as she explores every inch of mansion and campground to discover information, useful items and secret clues. You’ll end up picking up all sorts of things to help move the game along, some of which seem innocuous until the time comes to use them. There are more than a few times where you’ll need to talk to a character multiple times just for the sake of interaction before the game can move on. With no death states and a singular direction to ultimately move, there isn’t a need to rush through anything, even when the life and death stakes feel very pressing.

There’s a lot to love and appreciate in Another Code: Recollection. First and foremost, I positively adore the soundtrack. The choices of piano pieces, electronic ambience, and a shockingly hilarious sung theme song about Lake Juliet paints a vivid and important world of music and life. For the second mission, Ashley is very focused on the band she has at home and the sincerity of her love of music and how other characters give her influence and ideas only shows more and more the deeper you get into the game. The first mission is so saturated with different, evocative piano pieces that I spent plenty of time just living inside the world, drinking in the feeling and the sounds.

The voicework, by that same token, is also quite strong and well performed. I toggled between Japanese and English (which was seamless, thank you!) and ultimately landed on English. Though Ashley comes across as rather unsure of herself initially, she builds in tone and dynamics, especially as she encounters more and more characters who want to speak with her. D has an ethereal quality that goes beyond voice filters, but actually delivers an entity long divorced of physical existence and emotion. Richard, for all his faults, sells his devotion and love of his daughter and her happiness, and that’s hard to do while also being a forgetful stereotype of a scientist. Players need to be sure to have headphones at all times so they don’t short themselves on the aural aspects of this tale.

The graphical nature of the game is a split decision, but I ultimately land on the side of positive. For the quest on Blood Edward Island, it’s easy to simply look at the DS and decide the new Switch version looks better. Indeed, being able to see how detailed the Edwards’ family home now looks on a larger screen with a better perspective gives body and life to the original concept. Another Code: Recollection pulls no punches in giving identity to the nooks and crannies everywhere, which makes wanting to explore the house in its entirety a much greater aspiration. It didn’t hurt that I was trying to find all the bonus QR cranes hidden about either, as that was a fun extra to give more back story for how Richard (Ashley’s father) coped living here for more than a decade.

However, there were some oddities that felt unfinished or unpolished specifically in the port of Two Memories. For players who spent any time in Paldea with Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, it was odd how often simple foliage looked rough and heavily pixelated. That same feeling came through when looking around the perimeter of Blood Edward Island and having some trees look like they were made of LEGO. Additionally, the human and ghost cast both felt like their animations were limited and ended in bizarre moments. For every good conversation that happened, there were just as many when a character just stood with their mouth open, or Ashley was baring her teeth like she was trying to frighten a predator. While I know some of the ideas were being created from the ground up, it still took me out of the moment.

By contrast, the porting of the second game felt significantly smoother and cleaner. Not only was the greenery better rendered, but the people felt more precise and alive. Ashley displayed and used a whole range of facial expressions (mostly annoyance and anger) that I didn’t see during a time where I felt she had a much bigger reason to be angry. I’m sorry, but “My dad forgot to pick me up” versus “My father lied about his state of existence” feels like a much smaller deal, and yet it’s 16 year old Ashley who’s selling the moment.

As for gameplay, Another Code: Recollection is all about the puzzles and the items, and the difficulty really lies on how intuitive you feel the game is. For me, the first storyline was more challenging in execution but simpler in clarity. When I stumbled upon a puzzle, I often could decipher what needed to be in a matter of moments. Putting that in place, however, was a beast of a different nature, and I had to constantly reference the camera application of the DAS in order to really put things where they needed to go. I was also shocked that the touchscreen wasn’t utilized in this game. Two Memories was literally a proud showcase of how the twin elements could really work on the DS, and Nintendo did Ashley dirty by relegating everything to buttons only. While I understand the reasoning, it didn’t thrill me as a handheld player.

The second half of the game felt lighter in terms of puzzles, and also cleaner since the puzzles came from the Wii era and thus made the transition to the Switch more smoothly. Ashley’s time in Lake Juliet is more of a walking simulator than the first, so you have more exploration and more pointless fun (like buying souvenirs) that doesn’t necessarily do anything, but did satisfy my urge to punish my father for being late by racking up a bill at his expense. Also, the puzzles being in the forest and not a sorrow mansion meant getting a bit more creative with the placement and reasoning, and I did like the outside the box thinking to make it all make sense.

Another Code: Recollection also recognizes that, some of the time, players simply want to move forward instead of figuring things out for themselves, and there is an incredibly generous system in place as a result. Not only are there the options for hints for the puzzles (and I do mean hints, not solutions), there is a toggle for “exploration assist” which is invaluable. As the first game was top down in the original incarnation, the assist now both gives the direction you want to head as well as highlighting where you should interact next. For someone who became more invested in the story than the actual puzzles themselves, being given a clearer path that I could turn on or off was a lifesaver.

And indeed, the story and the feeling is what keeps Another Code in a situation of high enjoyment for me. There’s something very genuine and human about the tale, even as we mix in sci-fi elements like a machine that can rewrite someone’s memories. The complexity of a daughter who never knew her father and a dad who simply cannot keep his mind focused to be a supportive parent is painted in detail that makes the connection without overstating the facts. The struggle to be understood and to also try to understand goes both ways, and the dynamics of Richard and Ashley are so important, particularly in the second act. I kept moving forward because I desperately wanted to believe they could find common ground. A way to let each other know they were heard and loved, and dammit I got my satisfaction.

Yet the distractions of trying to fluff out the game to a more “appropriate” size left me with moments of confusion for side stories. D’s history is tragic and has some ties to the main event, but really could have been overlooked and avoided in favor of simply focusing more on Jessica, Ashley’s aunt, or Bill, Richard’s partner in science. The time in Lake Juliet should have been more about Ashley’s mother and her life, and less about other scientists that Richard met or the little bastard that stole my backpack. There’s the bones for a perfect story, but the fat around the joints keeps it from moving with fluidity.

Another Code: Recollection isn’t exactly how I would have imagined it or wanted it. Truthfully, the lack of touchscreen interaction was disappointing, and there were times where the puzzles were simply lackluster and basic, though it happened infrequently enough that I didn’t hold it against the game. I wish I could have jumped straight into the Lake Juliet section, but knowing what Ashley and Richard went through first is essential to having empathy for both child and parent. It’s truly a remarkable story of love, loss and coming to terms, framed through a scientific subterfuge tale that’s full of betrayal and greed. This is a tale that can’t be told through film or novelization, but through walking in the characters’ shoes and experiencing it as best you can. In the end, it’s the moments that we hold onto – both good and bad – that keep Recollection in the positive spectrum of my memory.

 

Graphics: 7.5 With the Wii models as framework, characters and locales look great between both chapters, but there’s a slight blandness that keeps this from being truly remarkable.	Gameplay: 7.0 Exploration, identification, and puzzle solving are all wildly engaging, and the story moves at an ideal pace. Side moments big down the high fluidity potential, and lack of touch interface shuns the games’ roots.
Sound: 10 I’m in love with the Lake Juliet song and love to use the piano movements as study and relaxation tones. Voicework is earnest and heartbreaking at times. No notes.	Fun Factor: 8.0 The core of what made this game such a legend still exists and thrills me to no end. I wish it was a bit better handled with some extra flair, but I can’t complain that it feels exactly how I want it to be.
Final Verdict: 8.0

Another Code: Recollection is available now on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Another Code: Recollection was provided by the publisher.