Customer Reviews

Again

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since this appears to be shaping up as the first review of this game on Amazon, I should state my biases up front. Let me be clear that I am coming at this game from the perspective of someone who really enjoyed "Hotel Dusk: Room 215" and was essentially hoping for more of the same from this game (which is by the same developer, so that didn't seem like a wholly unrealistic expectation). Regardless, if you haven't played "Hotel Dusk," large chunks of this review are probably not going to make much sense, so I apologize for that in advance.

If you'd like to save yourself some reading, here's the capsule review: If you haven't played "Hotel Dusk" and you want a really good adventure game for your DS, I'd advise getting that instead of "Again." If you have played "Hotel Dusk" and you're hoping that "Again" will be pretty much like that game was, only even better because they've had a couple of years to improve their craft, prepare for some disappointment. While "Again" is an OK game, it isn't anywhere near as good as "Hotel Dusk." In a strange way, this new game sort of feels like it should have been the old game, by which I mean, "Hotel Dusk" plays like I would expect it to play if the developer had already made "Again" and wanted to make another game to address the first game's shortcomings. Instead, it's the brand-new game that has more shortcomings compared to its predecessor, and that's disappointing. To me, "Again" is a big step backwards from "Hotel Dusk" in terms of both story and gameplay.

The most similar thing about "Again" and "Hotel Dusk" is the visual presentation. It's a distinctive style, and personally I like it a lot. The characters are presented as 2D "sketches" which look like actors who have been rendered as pencil drawings, but in "Again" they are in full color and have a much more photographic quality whereas in "Hotel Dusk" they were black-and-white and more stylized. (It also makes story sense that the characters have been upgraded from black and white to full color; "Hotel Dusk" is set in a run-down, nearly abandoned hotel during the late 1970s whereas "Again" is set in a mid-sized city in 2010.) I thought that the style worked really well in the older game and I still think it works really well in this game. There is a neat transition effect when you enter a new scene where a silhouette walks across the two screens of the DS and the background fills in behind. I never got tired of looking at the characters or the static backgrounds. In the fully-interactive 3D scenes the graphics do not try to be "photo-realistic" (which so often just ends up looking blurry and washed-out anyway). It's easy to tell what the various objects are, and you will rarely encounter any sort of "find the pixel" type difficulties. They've upgraded the engine since "Hotel Dusk" (higher level of detail on object models, more and better textures) but the main point is that "Again" looks just fine. There is a lot of video but it is almost all in the context of flashbacks or visions which are rendered in a clever way to show you what the game needs you to see without giving everything away at once. You will not mind staring at this game for the 8 hours it will take to finish. (This was actually the first game I played on my brand-spanking-new DSiXL, and it looked great on the larger screen.)

I will be brief when talking about the plot because frankly there isn't a whole lot to talk about, which is a shame. I wouldn't want to give away what little suspense there is, so I'll just say that there was a series of murders in the past, another series of murders is occurring in the present, and all signs point to the murders having been committed by the same killer. You play the FBI agent who is responsible for solving both sets of murders by figuring out how the past and present events are connected. As one might expect, your character also has a very personal interest in solving the crimes, so there is a simultaneous exploration of the character's own backstory as he works to unravel the mystery. It's not terribly original, but with some cool gameplay mechanics and the unique art style, this could have been a very solid game; unfortunately the story fails to hold up its end of the bargain. The plot is astonishingly predictable (assuming you have ever read at least one mystery novel or watched an episode of "Law & Order"). I can virtually guarantee that you will have figured out what is really going on long before your character does and as a result all the "revelations" end up having very little shock value or emotional impact. Honestly, most of the twists and turns are so obvious that I didn't even get a sense of satisfaction every time I was proven right about what would happen next. The inevitable cheesy cliffhanger leading into a sequel is also telegraphed almost from the very beginning of the game. There is no nice way to say this: the story is mediocre at best. The plot was the most disappointing aspect of "Again" for me, not just because it was bad on its own, but because "Hotel Dusk" had a story that was better in every way.

Okay, so it looks good but the plot is pretty thin. How does it play? Well, if you've played "Hotel Dusk," you will of course recall that you spend pretty much the entire game in a first-person 3D exploration mode, breaking out only for certain manipulation-type puzzles and for the conversations. "Again" keeps both of these modes ("first-person 3D exploration" and "conversation") but draws a very clear line between them. "Again" limits the use of first-person 3D mode to a small number of specific locations (one or two per chapter). In a nutshell, the locations where you talk to people are 2D; the locations where you do stuff are 3D. This makes some sense because of the story (which has you zig-zagging all over the fictional city of Clockford) but to me it still felt like there was a lot less "there" there compared to the previous game. Then again, one could argue that in "Hotel Dusk" you spent a lot of your time just running through the hotel to get from place to place, which "Again" abstracts away into having you tap the place you want to go from a list of available locations, saving the full-blown 3D presentation for those moments when you are in a place where it actually matters. I can't really pass judgment on this decision; given that your character spends most of his time driving all over the city I think it was a logical choice. I do wish that there had been a lot more of the 3D scenes, though.

Although there is less 3D exploring in "Again" than there was in "Hotel Dusk," the way you actually go about it is very different and quite cool. The core concept is that the main character has the ability to see a place in both the present and the past at the same time, and most of the game's puzzles revolve around the notion of reconciling these two views. It's traditional first-person point-and-click adventure gaming with a "spot the difference" twist. Essentially your job is to identify the handful of key areas in each scene where the past and the present differ in meaningful ways (such as a chair being knocked over) and then modify the present scene so that it matches the past, thereby triggering visions of what really happened in that spot. It's a solid concept, not terribly original but very well executed on the DS hardware. The use of the side-by-side screens works beautifully, especially because you hold the DS like a book while playing. You see the past on one screen and the present on the other screen, and as you move around the 3D world your character is looking from the same point of view in both time periods, so for example if an object was/is in a particular location in one time but is/was gone in the other time, you see it on one screen but not the other. The "past" has a grainy black-and-white film quality to it and the total visual effect is just spot-on. Each time you "fix" an element of the present to match the way it was in the past, you are shown another short segment of the overall vision, and once you have all the segments, you are then asked to put them in chronological order which unlocks the complete vision and allows you to see what really happened. Overall, I enjoyed every single one of these scenes; the puzzles are almost all very easy but the way the scenes are put together makes up for the lack of difficulty. These sections of "Again" demonstrate the quality adventure-game craftsmanship that the developers are capable of.

Really the only negative aspect of the 3D scenes is that you have a "psychic energy meter" which is depleted each time you try to alter the wrong thing in the present. If the meter runs out, your character dies and you have to start the scene over. This only happened to me once, and the game auto-saves your progress frequently even if you forget to save it yourself, so the hindrance is minor, but it's totally unnecessary and therefore grating (kind of like the "conversation health bar" or whatever it is in the Phoenix Wright games). The punishment for getting things wrong in an adventure game is that you don't solve the puzzle and therefore you are stuck until you get it right. Adding an arbitrary "game over" mechanic for what essentially amounts to clicking on the wrong thing is kind of silly, especially if it forces the player to replay scenes that she's already watched or redo a set of static puzzles that she's already solved (the player experiences nothing new by doing this, it just artificially lengthens the game). As I said, though, the puzzles are so easy that for the most part you'll be at little risk of actually running afoul of this. I mention it only because it is a design sin and therefore ought to be called out; it doesn't end up detracting from the game in any meaningful way, but if the puzzles were actually hard, then this mechanic would quickly get very irritating.

So the good news is that the "past vs. present" scenes are a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the bad news is that you'll probably only spend about two hours of your total eight-hour play time in those fun 3D exploration and puzzle-solving scenes. You'll spend the other six hours in the "driving around asking people questions" 2D mode which is frankly not very interesting. You have a list of locations and there is one character you can talk to at each location. As you learn about additional locations they are added to the list. You don't walk around, even on a 2D map; you just see pictures of the place you're visiting and the person you're talking to, and carry on a conversation by choosing questions to ask from a short list. Calling these things "dialog trees" is perhaps being generous since most of the "trees" only go one level deep. In each chapter (which represents a day or part of a day of the larger investigation) there are a handful of different characters that you can talk to, so it feels kind of non-linear for a little while, but sooner or later you reach a point where you must do X before you can do Y before you can do Z. Bottom line, you're going to go to each of the predetermined set of locations and have all the possible conversations before you can finish each chapter. I haven't replayed the game, and don't intend to, but based on my play-through I would be shocked if there was even a single thing that could change about the story. There are a couple of scenes where you and your partner (a fellow FBI agent) will "review what you know" which is similar to the "quiz" scenes in "Hotel Dusk" where you have to pick the right facts in order to proceed. These scenes basically serve to make sure that you understand what you're supposed to have learned about the plot up to this point.

Now, if you played "Hotel Dusk" and have been paying attention to this review so far, you might be scratching your head wondering how I can criticize "Again" for having 75% of the game take the form of conversations. "Hotel Dusk" is (in)famous for containing a massive amount of dialog. All I can say is that in "Hotel Dusk" having all of those conversations was mostly fun and in "Again" they have somehow managed to make it mostly not fun. It's not painful, it's just very very bland and ultimately feels pointless. Unlike "Hotel Dusk" where the conversations actually seemed to matter to the story, you had decisions to make, and the other characters reacted to your choices (sometimes ending a conversation early if they didn't like what you said, for example) in "Again" you will definitely end up clicking on every single option and it doesn't even seem to matter what order you choose. Most of the conversational exchanges are a couple of sentences. It was enough to make me wonder if the developer got a lot of complaints about how much dialog there was in "Hotel Dusk" and deliberately decided to dumb this one down. The problem I have is not so much with the writing itself, although the writing isn't great; the problem I have is that these sections don't really feel like you are playing a game at all. It literally doesn't matter what you do except that if you don't do it, the story doesn't move forward. Your job as the player is just to click through every item on the menu. It's like traversing the world's largest phone tree except every menu just says "push 1 to get to the next menu." Every single interaction that you have with another character could just as easily have been reduced to a single information dump of "you went here and talked to this person and this is what you learned." Of course, if they had done that, the game would have been reduced from 8 hours to more like 2-3 hours. Then again, it would have been the 2-3 actually fun hours, so maybe that would not have been a bad trade-off.

To be fair, I will admit that there is a tiny bit of adventure game DNA to be found even in these sections, in the sense that there is a progression of events in each chapter; for example, quite often you have to visit certain locations to unlock new dialog options or cause characters to show up in other locations. You also have a cell phone, but it doesn't get used that often and in any case it's essentially just another "location" to visit anyway. Although you can pick up a few items, overall the use of "inventory" is quite limited; every now and then you'll need to carry an item from one area of a scene to a different area of the same scene, or get something from someone in the present to help you complete a scene in the past, but that's about it. Sometimes you can elicit a response from a particular character by showing them a photograph or item that you're carrying. By and large, however, you as the player are forced into an incredibly passive mode during the investigative portions of the game. Even by adventure-game standards, which I will admit are pretty low in this area for the most part, the dialog trees are almost always boring, repetitive, and pointless. Their only redeeming quality, therefore, is that they are so shallow, and if that isn't damning with faint praise then I don't know what is.

So there's the gameplay. Bottom line, it is about 25% cool 3D adventure / puzzle-solving and 75% boring investigation / lame clicking through endless conversations. (To be clear, I like investigation, I don't mind reading large chunks of my adventure games, and I am totally fine with elaborate dialog trees. So it is possible to include any or all of those elements in ways that I will enjoy very much. Unfortunately, this game doesn't do that. But, the 25% that is fun, is really fun, and hey, it only lasts 8 hours, so at least it's not as bad as Final Fantasy XIII, which I am told finally starts getting interesting around hour 20, about 16 hours after I gave up in despair and ran my copy through a blender.)

I would not say "do not buy this game at all," but I might say "wait until you can get it for 40-50% off, which probably won't take long." I paid the full $30 and think I would have been much less disappointed with the game if I had paid $15. It felt a lot more like a $10-$15 game than a $30 game in terms of length and content. I don't feel ripped off, because I did have some fun with the game, and my personal "minimum time per entertainment dollar" threshold is somewhere around $4 an hour, but in a perfect world I would like a longer experience than 8 hours for $30, especially when out of the 8 hours there were really only 2-3 hours of what I would call really engaging gameplay. That being said, "Again" is much, much better than "Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy" (which is on my short list of candidates for "worst adventure game of all time") so at least I can say with confidence that this is absolutely not the worst adventure game you could possibly buy for the DS.

In conclusion (and thank you for actually reading this far!) I would say that "Again" is just OK. For me personally, "just OK" might have been sufficient to garner a better review, if only "Hotel Dusk" hadn't been so much better in nearly every way (and if only it hadn't been so much better THREE YEARS AGO). "Again" ends with a scene that is about as close to the promise of a sequel as you can possibly get without just coming right out and showing a picture of the next game's box art. (One can only imagine what they will name it.) I hope that the sequel ends up going all the way back to the formula that made "Hotel Dusk" so good. Now that would be worth buying... again.

Again bills itself as an interactive crime novel but the emphasis is on the novel part more than the interactive part. Platformed on the Nintendo DS which has had a number of outstanding crime adventure games, Again starts with an interesting premise. As the player you take the role of Jonathan Weaver, a young FBI agent whose parents were murdered by a serial killer nineteen years earlier. The killer nicknamed ` Providence " was never apprehended. But now it seems as if Providence is back. A murder in a local hotel seems to indicate the same MO as providence. Furthermore, Weaver finds a note addressed to him at the scene of the crime, toying with him.

As in most crime solving games you will be required to investigate the crime scene and interview witnesses and suspects. There's little of the technical analysis that you've seen in games like CSI. You're not dusting for prints or using UV lights to check for blood or doing any sort of lab work. Makes sense since you're not technically a CSI investigator so you'll find yourself interviewing those lab personnel who analyze evidence. But Weaver has one unique tool to use in his investigations...he is psychic. He has the ability to look into the past of a crime scene and see objects and events in the past. When this happens your DSI, which you hold open like a book, displays the past on the left side and the present on the right. Weaver basically examines those things which are different from the past to the present.

This is certainly the most fun and unique aspect to Again and gives it a bit of a leg up over similarly-themed games. It's too bad that you don't get to use the ability more and that the gameplay doesn't focus on the psychic/supernatural element. Along with your partner Kate Hathawat, you will spend most of your time in prolonged conversations. Again is aptly named because you will use your stylus Again...and Again...and Again to go through the lines and lines of text that you have to sit through. And every time you read a line of text on the right, the picture on the left side of the DS screen changes to the person who spoke the line. The second time I played the game I literally spent an hour just reading text and not doing any actual investigation. If I'd wanted to read a book I would have bought a book!

Much of the dialog in Again is just inane filler. For example, Weaver will say to Hathaway, "Let's go speak to so and so..." Hathaway will respond with something like "Sounds like a good idea" and Weaver will reply, "Ok let's go" and on and on. The game designers seemed to feel a need for the characters to explain every move they make in the minutest detail. Pretty soon you're just racing through the text hoping something of interest comes along. If this were a book you'd likely have put it down after a couple of chapters. Point: Spoken dialog doesn't always translate well when written. We get all the pauses, "umms", "hmms" etc...that are a chore to read through.

The graphics use photographs of live actors that are given a minimal amount of animation to change facial expressions or body movements. These can often be laughable, especially the police detective in charge of the case who constantly strikes one "look at how macho I am" pose after another. There are a lot of characters in the game but one is just as uninteresting as the next. The actors who play Jonathan and Kate look too young to be believable as FBI agents.

While on paper Again had a good concept and its introduction of psychic elements was unique, the bland and slow-moving gameplay keeps it from building any lasting suspense.

I don't understand all the negative reviews.

This game is an interactive crime novel. It's about an FBI agent Jonathan Weaver who can see into the past. I love mysteries and reading so this game is perfect for me. J was cute but I found Kate to be a litte annoying.

If you're stuck, you can always go back to the field office and Kate will give you a hint. Basically you're going to different places and talking to people.

The plot was interesting enough to keep me entertained. I thought I figured out a few things about it but turned out I was wrong. Some of the puzzles are bit hard if you don't know where to look or who to talk to but all in all, they're fairly easy to master.

I like the full motion video they do in the game. They use real life actors instead of animation. In my opinion, the DS needs more mystery and horror games.

If you're into games like Hotel Dusk or Phoenix Wright, then you'll probably like this game. The story provides a decent mystery and keeps you off track from solving key info for most of the game, though nowhere near as well as Heavy Rain.

The actual game-play itself is a little too linear and easy. There are essentially only two variations of investigation: visiting a site for clues and interviewing people. Visiting the sites is simple enough; explore, find stuff, click to investigate. Sometimes finding the right object can be difficult, but it makes sense once you find it.

Interviewing people is easy and repetitive. You talk to a person and then just select every option you're given. Sometimes you have to talk to people who don't know anything, but the story won't progress unless you do thus making the game very linear. There are good details that come about and help you get closer to solving things, but for the most part the game wastes your time. The system doesn't even make good use of the option to show people items/evidence.

All in all, it's a good adventure. If you get bored easily though or aren't willing to wade through things for a good story, the game isn't for you.

19 years ago, the delightfully-named town of Clockford, Pennsylvania was set upon by a serial killer. No, not Scissorman - a maniac named Providence, whose victims shared no apparent connection, no demographic, not even modus operandi; nothing, save for the murderer's calling card - an Eye of Providence torn from the back of a dollar bill and left at every crime scene. Providence was never caught, and the case lay dormant for 19 years - until a new murder copycats the first of Providence's kills, and a message in blood at the scene promises that the same chain of events will happen - again.

Investigating Providence's reappearance for the FBI is agent Jonathan Weaver (J for short). In one of those flagrant conflicts of interest of which thrillers are so fond, Weaver is the only known survivor of Providence's initial spree. Most of Cing's stories have a supernatural angle, and "Again" is no different; Weaver has the ability to take a psychic glimpse into the past and witness events that have previously transpired at a crime scene, allowing him a front-row seat to Providence's murders. J's visions won't completely trigger, though, unless the crime scene in the present is near-identical to the one in the past, and here is where the crux of the gameplay comes in. Enter a crime scene, and J's vision will be split between past and present, one vision on each DS screen. J must look for differences between the two - a skylight ajar, a lamp askew - and restore the object to its past state; for each success, he will gain a heat-vision silhouetted glimpse of the killer's activities in that area. Restore the scene completely, and an extended flashback to the crime will play, this time with the faces plainly visible. [This is not the case-clincher one mght think, however, for reasons that will become clear.]

Remember that I said this is only the crux of gameplay, though; "Again" is not a hidden-picture game. Again plays out as a more gameplay-intensive visual novel in the vein of "Hotel Dusk." Witnesses must be interrogated to gain access to crime scenes and shed light on new developments; as with "Hotel Dusk," drawing the incorrect conclusions in your line of questioning will stop your investigation cold, and much of the game depends on whom to question and what evidence to show them. Reenacting the past isn't always as easy as flipping a switch or knocking over a chair, either. At one point, an unfamiliar instrumental piece plays through the old crime scene; how can it be identified if it can be heard only in J's second sight?

Allow me to make an announcement that will send some of you running: "Again" is rendered in FMV. Well, that's not entirely true; the video is reserved for scenes like crime reenactments, and there is no voice work. The characters, though, are portrayed by digitized actors, and, as in "Hotel Dusk", the conversations are punctuated liberally with short animated emotes. FMV is toxic to a game when done poorly but "Again"'s use of FMV is judicious and stylized, striking in its filtered pseudo-realism in the same vein as "Hotel Dusk"'s pencil sketches. It helps that the actors are decent; when this crew overemotes, you're more likely laughing with them, not at them, and I found the hammy and flirtatious forensic analyst Maureen Yashima a particular goofy treat. Cing has a tradition of nuanced, well-drawn characters, and while "Again"'s cast hews more closely to thriller archetypes this time, they still prove involving. One of "Again"'s greatest strengths, though, is the ability of its story to surprise; there were more than a couple twists that I didn't see coming, and after the resolution of the first murder, the tale truly enters what-the-heck territory.

Most of the criticism leveled at "Again" has been focused on two contradictory complaints. The first is that the text-to-gameplay ratio is very high, which is true - this has always been an issue with Cing's titles. "Again" is a definite step toward balance on that front - certainly an advancement over "Hotel Dusk," which was showered with 8's and 9's upon release, making the criticism here seem hypocritical. The second is that the the interrogation/past-diving sequences are too prominent and often don't tell the player outright how to proceed, leaving them to deduce the next course of action on their own. Geez, guys, it's almost as if we're being asked to, I don't know, *play a game* or something. Seriously, though - I got stuck a couple times in "Again," but no more than in the usual adventure title; just remember that you're not going to be able to clear every flashback on the first go, particularly in the middle stages, and will frequently have to leave to reinterview witnesses for further hints, information, or items. Keep your brain on, and you'll be fine.

"Again" isn't flawless - the denouement falters a bit, as the plot turns disappointingly straightforward and we're waiting for the characters to catch up to an obvious conclusion. The ride is worth it, though; it is a pity that Cing's puzzle crafting and gameplay never quite matched the depth or maturity of its plotting, but in that regard, this was perhaps the studio's best effort.

AGAIN is billed as an interactive novel rather than a game. And there is a lot of reading. But that's not the problem. The problem is how very tedious it all is. Each line of dialogue appears on the screen accompanied by an image of the speaker. And it appears as if being entered on a keyboard: one letter at a time. So you tap the screen once to get the entire line to appear more quickly. It takes a split second to read it. Then you tap again to get the next line. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. ARGH!!! Just let me read the darn dialogue if that's what you want me to do! It is sooooooo incredibly slow to get thru the least little bit of dialogue this way. And when there's a lot of filler dialogue (Hi, J. [tap. tap.] [Image change from Kate to J] Hi, Kate. [tap. tap.] [Image change from J to Kate.] How are you today? [tap. tap.] [Image change from Kate to J.] etc, etc, etc.) you want to just pull your hair out rather than painfully make your way thru line after line of text.

Then there's all the redundant text. The character introductions are all repetitious. First the text explanation. Then the detective character tells you who the character is (in case you weren't paying attention one second before). Then the case file gets filled in with the same info. Geez, we get it already!

I like to read. I enjoy detective novels. I don't enjoy reading one syllable at a time, which is about how this game/interactive novel goes.

The only saving grace to this game is that the story was interesting. If it hadn't been, I'd have quit LONG before making it to the end. I'd give it only 1 or 2 stars except for the story. So I'm giving it 3, but only because of the story.

My disappointment comes from the sense that this "game" was released way too soon or that they skipped critical input from adult players. The dialog is beyond juvenile and doesn't match the stated ages of the characters. Moreover the images of the characters look like the creators stole leads from TV shows (Cold Case and The Forgotton, come to mind). It seems like the designer spent too much time recreating someone else's ideas - rather than the innovation of Hotel Dusk. And please don't compare to any of the Phoenix Wright franchise - this is completely different experience.

Nothing original and only slightly original game play leaves me with this: I say SKIP THIS GAME if you're over 12. And sadly, if you're under 12 the game will not make sense. TWO THUMBS DOWN

I have played a number of point and click adventure games (or "graphic novels" as some prefer to call them), many of them detective/investigation themed in style (ex. Hotel Dusk, Jake Hunter, Ace Attorney series, Touch Detective, etc.), so when I saw "Again" for sale, I was instantly intrigued. The premise itself sounds interesting (solving cases as an FBI agent who has the psychic ability to see past events), and I could always use another detective/crime investigation type game, so I figured, why not? I'll get this game. So, I picked it up (as a gift! yeah!) and gave it a go!

Graphics (score 7/10): Well, the graphics are technically pretty good. I do need to comment on the "art" style. This game uses photographs of real people for the characters. This is not technically bad, but I guess as a matter of personal preference; I actually prefer animated characters. I just feel like games that use animated characters (like Phoenix Wright or Jake Hunter) can use an artistic style to lend some uniqueness to the character designs and make them more memorable. While there's nothing technically wrong with using real people as character models, I do feel like they are far more bland and uninteresting visually compared to hand-drawn characters. Not to mention, I felt like some of the acting during cutscenes was...lacking (a bit like watching low budget soap operas...). I know this is a sort of personal preference thing, and there may be some people out there who prefer this style of graphics over "cartoons", but I just don't like it as much. Sorry. As for the other in-game graphics, the weird thing is that instead of live-action pictures, everything else in the environments (like the inside of rooms and objects) ARE animated. It's a bit of a weird clash, but everything IS perfectly viewable and fine graphically, so I'm not going to complain.

Music (score 7/10): Well, no voice acting (which is fine by me), but the music is decent. It changes appropriately depending on the scene and builds tension properly during intense moments. It's pretty good and helps the scenes along, but it's not that memorable - no one would go out and buy the soundtrack or anything (if there actually was one). That's about all I can say about that.

Characters (score 7/10): What's the best way to describe these characters? "Bland", I think, is the word I'm looking for. I liken them to plain mashed potatoes - it gets the job done, but there are far more tasty and interesting foods out there. I don't know if my perception of these characters are tied to their physical models too much, but I just felt like they were all a bit lacking in interest. J (the main character) at least has some interesting backstory to him. In a way, these characters are a bit more realistic in that they remind me of real people far more than the over the top personalities found in other games such as Phoenix Wright (My bias for Phoenix Wright is showing, huh?). I guess that's good if you like realism, but they are not terribly memorable as a result. This game is far more heavily reliant on its story than its characters anyway, though. Really, the characters are about average-quality for this genre, so I can't complain overmuch.

Story (score 10/10): If you've ever played a detective-themed game or watched a TV show/movie about crime investigations, the plot of this game should seem very familiar to you. It's your basic "serial killer from the past has returned after so many years to commit crimes again and you must catch them before it's too late!" plotline. Yep, J was even the same agent who worked on the old case that was never solved, and now the killer has returned to strike again! Yeah, we all know where this plot is going... Even though it's practically a cliché by now, I must admit that I still enjoy such stories and it's executed very well here. I was entertained enough to want to solve the mystery and keep playing (despite certain bland characters). The story did a very good job of keeping up the intrigue - just as you think you've figured out who the killer really is, something happens that totally throws you for a loop. I was interested the whole way through!

Gameplay (score 10/10): This is a bit of a catch-all category for me. Well, this is your average point and click adventure game. There's lots of text and story, and the gameplay is primarily clicking on things to find clues, solve puzzles, and advance the story. The main difference here is J's ability to see that past using psychic visions. A lot of the gameplay involves going to a crime scene and trying to arrange the environment to match the past so J can trigger a more complete psychic vision and discover who the criminal was. This is actually quite fun, and is a nice change of pace for your average point and click adventure game. Now, I should comment on another aspect of gameplay. Again was made by the same developers as Hotel Dusk, and while I liked Hotel Dusk, it did have a serious problem with lack of direction (where you'd be forced to move up and down a hallway over and over again knocking on doors because the game gave you no indication of where you needed to go next). I know I'm probably going to be burnt at the stake for saying this, but I found Again to be much more fun than Hotel Dusk. Again does a much better job of giving the player more logical direction - there was just much less floundering around in confusion. Note that this doesn't mean that the game just gives you all the answers, I still had to do some wandering around and investigating, and I got stuck a few times, but in general you're objective is much clearer. You always know what it is that you generally need to be accomplishing, whereas in Hotel Dusk, oftentimes who you needed to talk to next was awfully random. It seems that developers Cing have improved their technique with this release. Lastly, let's discuss a few extra gameplay issues. First off, this game is played holding the DS sideways (just like Hotel Dusk). It works okay, but I still feel like it feels more awkward than holding the DS like it was supposed to be held. The last thing I'd like to mention is the way you save in this game. Most adventure games let you save whenever you want. Phoenix Wright let you save whenever you pushed the Start button, along with Hotel Dusk, Jake Hunter, Touch Detective, Time Hollow, etc. Again, however, does not. Basically, whenever you exit a building, a menu pops up that lets you save or move to another location. These save opportunities are decently frequent, but after the whole wealth of other point and click adventure games that let you save whenever you want, I still found it a bit annoying to not be able to do that here. Well, that's all of my complaints. The majority of the gameplay is excellent and very fun, so I'm not going to those little things against it.

Overall (score 8/10): NOTE this score is not an average; it's my subjective overall score. Well, this is a good game for fans of the point and click adventure game genre, especially those who are itching for an investigation/crime solving adventure. If you're already a fan of adventure games, then I'd suggest you add this one to your collection. If you haven't played an adventure game in your life and want to try one out, then this game isn't a bad starting point for that. Go ahead and give it a try!

If you want a really good adventure game for your DS, "Again" should be on your shopping list. Again is an excellent adventure game, just as good as "Hotel Dusk" - and like Hotel Dusk, its the story that draws you in - and keeps you interested until the end. The graphics are very well done, amazingly so for a Nintendo DS game. The gameplay is easy yet varied and the puzzles while interesting won't stop you from finishing the game. This game is similar to a CSI detective game - except that the lead crime investigator of this game has psychic powers.

So - if you have played Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk and liked them, this game should be your next one to be played. It is billed as an "interactive novel" and there is some reading to be preformed during the play of the game - but almost all adventure games on the Nintendo DS do require a fair amount of reading. The length of the game is satisfactory also - you get your money's worth with this game. You won't be completing it in an hour. There are many classic adventure games on the Nintendo DS and this is one of them in my book. I highly recommend it.

The game has an intriguing plot, fun gameplay, and a nice sound track. It could become a bit frustrating at times, having to check each and every possible place after seeing new dialogue whenever you get stuck, but nothing worse than usual for the genre. I very much enjoyed the game, however I would not recommend buying it for more than it's original retail price.