Trace Memory - Nintendo DS

I apologize for all the Nintendo DS entries lately. The problem is that I haven't come across any games with enough allure from my consoles (other than Halo 2). I want Ninja Gaiden Black, but I don't want to spend money on it yet since it's just an enhanced Ninja Gaiden (which I already have).

Trace Memory is a point and click adventure. If you ever played D, 7th Guest, or Deja Vu, you would already know what this is. For a brief explanation of the gameplay, the bottom screen shows a top view and the upper screen shows a detailed view of what the character is looking at. From there you select an option (if available) to be able to click on items in view in order to work through puzzles.

I enjoy puzzlers, so this game got my attention (at least for several hours). What is great about some of these puzzles is that they require you to draw, blow, close, and half-close the NDS. It is a unique experience indeed. The developers really took advantage of the NDS hardware for this game.

Unfortunately, the game came with some problems. The first problem is the game is short. I completed it in several hours. This is due to the player's inability to lose. The only way to get stuck is to not figure out a puzzle. Admittedly, I did have to cheat for one puzzle. I would have NEVER thought to use my DS that way in a game. That gave the game some major cool points. Thanks gamefaqs.com.

The next problem is that there isn't much to "explore" in the game. The areas in the game just aren't very large. The game is very linear as well, and the player will find themselves backtracking to complete some puzzles.

The story is a pretty decent one, although without doing "everything" in the game, the player may not get the whole story. This is probably to add some replay value. Essentially, you will be trying to figure out two people's story, although the second is more of an extra.

All in all, I would say to defintely borrow (rent?) this game, but I can't say it is worth buying.