Thursday, December 28, 2023

Demo Play Thursday - Another Code: Recollection On Switch


For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch game Another Code: Recollection. This game, from developers Cing is set to come out in January.

I was interested in this demo because i didn't play the original game on Nintendo DS and i was curious which of the two games included in this collection we would get to try. on the eShop page, it doesn't provide information about the demo, it seems to be for the main game itself. so going in there were a few questions.

right from the beginning one big question was answered immediately as the game informed us that our save will be carried over from the demo to the full version of the game. Tho, what it didn't say was that we have to do a manual save ourself as the game only has an autosave. On the demo home screen we're also welcomed with a link to buy the game from it's eShop page which is a great thing that not enough games do. it makes me feel like some effort and attention was put into this demo, even if it's just the start of the first game.

the final big question left is, after playing it for over an hour, do i want to buy it and continue the story. Honestly, no. what i played in this first hour probably did more to turn me away from the game rather than hook me. I wasn't that keen on how the story was told, especially with a flash back we had to play through, and a conversation on the boat that felt weird to have when surely we would've had it before in the past. The gameplay was also a little frustrating. i mention a few times in the video that i didn't like how slow the camera was, but i could just about deal with it. despite how good the game looks, the thing that took me out of the experience the most was how emotionless the character's faces and body language was. the main character looks great, but her face shows little emotion. the same with the character we meet near the end of the video. the emotions i imagined they'd be feeling were replaced with that person starring blankly straight faced. 

It's possible i might've enjoyed the Nintendo DS original more than this Switch version because the DS is a portable handheld that was, at times, used as a book. it's limited graphical abilities, when compared to the Switch, might've helped hide the emotionless characters. This demo did a good job at showing me that this game, or this version at least, isn't for me.