I've heard of Wooster College, but imagine my surprise when I discovered a Wooster's Pizza restaurant a town or so over from where I live?

Ok, I'm in Day 9 (I think!), and I've found something that quite irritated me... not something big, but I found the following passage very tedious...



I dunno if the writers were really so uninspired for this part... hopefully, I'm (almost?) done with it, so I don't mind too much anymore... especially since the story is becoming even more interesting



Anyway, I really praise the writers for keeping me interested, even though the plot can get quite a bit predictable at some point... but they always manage to surprise you in the end, hopefully! I really want to get to the bottom of this affair, and I'm pretty sure the writers have got some nice revelations up in their sleeve.

So, I've finally finished the game, and it's high time for me to give my final thoughts on the game.
I won't repeat what I've already said though (about the art style, the music, etc...), except that everything keeps on getting better as days go on. It took me 13h to complete it, though I would have finished it under 13h, if I hadn't been stuck at the freaking puzzle



Too bad the game wasn't as long as HD though. The music gets really nice towards the end, and some tracks really conveys the sense of urgency and tension of some situations wonderfully well.

Anyway, I would really recommend the game to anybody who loves adventure games, but please, don't start making comparisons with HD, you really wouldn't do Again any justice at all. Again is not perfect, but it's a great game nonetheless. Not the GOTY, but still a game you'll probably enjoy, just like I did.

My favorite characters are definitely:
- J (when he's angry... like after the big revelation of Day 10, or 11. I love when he starts shouting!
- Maureen... I mean, her song theme is really nice, comforting and soothing. And come on, she's so nice, always cheerful, and her smile is simply wonderful. And man, she's really useful. Not a certain snackoo-eating detective I know :p
- Lane, when he's being a jerk.
- Roger... I mean, this guy is just made of plain awesomeness. Not only he's one of the most useful character of the game (with Maureen, and Hugo), but his "sprites" are definitely my favorites in the game. Wooster, if you're ever gonna rip Again's content, please rip Roger's sprites first, I want some of his as my next avatars :p
I'm gonna write to Capcom, and force them to swap Larry Butz with Roger in GS5/GK2!

As for the ending,



Anyway, the story really gets better and better. I had quite a few ZOMGGGFFFLRRRZORGL!!!! moments,

.

I'll probably replay this game in the future, though I don't know when exactly. Probably after Last Window, if it ever come out in the US/EU.
And oh, I finally got an answer for the questions I had about this game. Yep, Cing really did develop the whole game, Tecmo just gave the money to produce it, and did no more. The story wasn't written by Rika Suzuki (HD, Another Code: R and LW), though she did supervise the whole thing. And Satoshi Okubo may not have composed the music, the composers nonetheless did a good job with the soundtrack.
And I compared the game, with the very first screens of the game... my god! What a change! Actually, I'm pretty sure they did a complete reboot in late 2008, which explains why the game was delayed until 2010. And frankly, that wasn't a bad idea at all. The final product may not be perfect, it's much much better as it is right now.

If Again turned out to be Cing's last game in the US/EU, I could say that even if they didn't get to leave with a MEGA-BOOOOMABAGABOOOM-BAMBAMABAM, at least they've given their most loyal fans a pretty nice game I really enjoyed playing. But of course, I want LW, so please NOE, and NOA, please localise the game for us!

So long, Cing...

I have a new theory about the cliffhanger.


:D? :D?

Alrighty L~A, after college is over, and after I've had my fun poking around in Another Code: R, I'll take a stab at looking for DS ripping items.

Honestly, I may have been looking into DS ripping tools anways. I don't think there's a good collection of Dusk or Trace Memory Sprites at all. And Again isn't popular enough for the general fandom to do it. It's up to us. But, if what Defufuf(?) has said holds any weight, then ripping animations out of the game would likely be beyond my skill set. Animated sprites tend to be compressed, and without something that can decompress for me, I'd be basically posting a jigsaw puzzle, Might have an easier time getting the backgrounds though. Again no promises.

... MAN, now I can't use the word 'again' without thinking of Again. CiNNNNNNG! (Shakes fist)

Well, I was hoping that, maybe you could find some 'picture' of the characters, not necessarily their 'sprites' (I understand it may be a bit too difficult for you, and I'm not gonna ask for the impossible). I checked on Google, there wasn't a single screenshot of Roger at all. Grr. Hope you can find some backgrounds.;; which makes me wonder, where did they take all those pictures for the background? I think the University is actually in Japan, but as for the rest... one that particularly puzzle me is the one with 'Farmacia' in it... why in Spanish?

And yeah, I agree. Haven't seen much HD or TM sprites at all, except a few ones as avatars (mainly HD).



Ha ha, I know what you mean. :D

***

@Jesswee:

The hotel dusk sprites were stolen from the official websites; pre-animated and all for us. There's not a rip on the net to my knowledge.

I liked this game. It had a good story. Some of the twists were well done.


Maybe this is just me, but I HATED having to open the cabinet door in the 1st crime scene. It was extremely annoying.

I'd like to take this moment to say that:








ts;dr (too spoilery; didn't read): I loved this game. And I agree with the rest of you, basically every time I say "again", I think of this game. Pretty sad...

And I can finally say Edward again (AGAIN! LOL!) without thinking of Twilight. Thank you, Cing.

Oh damn, I forgot about that limitation on his visions. Everything else I was ready to just hand wave xD

Hum, that's a possibility, indeed. Though I personally think he would have tried to



though, the two theories don't necessarily exclude each other. Guess we'll never know unfortunately.

Bought the game about two weeks ago and just got to it. Reading over the thread thus far, it seems my impressions are pretty close to Woosters. I can only assume that most reviewers didn't play it all, weren't adventure gamers or have some form of learning disability. While probably the "worst" of Cing's games, I thoroughly enjoyed AGAIN all in all.

Though I wish I'd checked in earlier to see someone had done a rip of the music, it would have saved me the effort of recording it myself via the DS. Though it does look like it's via the DS sound format, which I've noticed doesn't sound quite right for some tracks on some games so maybe I'll still finish my own recordings...

If we don't get Last Window, AGAIN will sure be a bittersweet swan song for Cing over here...

Glad to see people enjoyed the game.
I finished it a few weeks ago.

Oh that piano puzzle.. I got it just by trying different permutations
of the keys... (knew which ones to hit, but not the order )

I just hate it when people slam the game because "it's not hotel dusk"..
...well duh!
It's NOT hotel dusk
it's AGAIN!

The art style is not my favorite, but I feel it's perfect for this kind of game
(many police dramas use a style like that, no?)
And the music is good too

The game reminds me so much of J.B. Harold's Murder Club
for the Turbo Graphx CD-ROM (I still can't believe we didn't get the remake for it
they made for the DS)

I really wonder why people had so much problems with the piano puzzle?
I personally didn't find it really difficult... at least, it became pretty obvious (and rather quickly, I should add), that the solution was



Personally, I found the answer on my second try, but only after I had done what is in the spoiler tags :p
I had much more trouble with the grate thingy



Man, what a dumb puzzle xD

Ok, I've played through the game 3 times now and I'm still missing 2 pieces of music that were in Bolt Storm's 2DS rip, specifically AGAIN2-001a and AGAIN2-000a. Does anyone recall where these play? I like the game and it's music, but I don't think I can play through it a 4th time straight... Could those tracks be unused music that is still in the code but didn't make it into the game? Any assistance on this would be most appreciated.

Even missing those I have 4 more tracks than the 2DS rip, and if I add in the cutscenes and visions I have close to 50... But those two missing tracks are driving me insane.

I'm pretty sure the second track you're mentioning IS in the game, though I can't say where exactly, I don't remember precisely... Yet, I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that song at one point in the game. As for the first one, I'm not as sure as for the second one, but I'm pretty sure it's also used in the game. Unfortunately, I don't remember when you hear it.

Sorry for not being of much help... Wooster and me have been trying to find some names for the tracks, and I can tell you it's not very easy with some of the songs being used only once in the game, and you can't remember when exactly... especially with the tracks you simply don't remember ever hearing in the game :p

That's me. I swear the 2nd one playes in the game, and the 1st one seems real familiar too... I may just use the 2DS files to grab those two for the time being. It's not like I can't go back in and grab them if we can find where they are...

What have you guys come up for with names? I'm not real happy with most of what I've used for them myself.

Ok, so the final preliminary recording and editing are done, and everything is tagged. I've given L~A and Wooster a copy of what I have so far to look over as far as the naming since they're probably better at that than I and after all that's decided on I'll be releasing the soundtrack.

Anyway, more as it develops.

i don't think we'll be seeing more of cing as the company filed bankruptcy.

Any other games that follow what they produced (ex: again 2) won't nearly have the same effect as if it was done by cing, which was one of the few companys to fully exploit a console potentials (not to mention other stuff).

Ok, I think I've done as much as I can do. Here is the final release of the soundtrack.



01) Eye of Providence
02) Intro Movie
03) Lobby of Hotel Miranda
04) Character Jingle
05) J's Observations
06) Investigate the Past - Normal
07) Investigate the Past - Pressing
08) FBI Field Office
09) Save Game
10) Clockford City Map
11) Cutscene - The First Dream
12) Urgent Conversation
13) Cutscene - First Murder
14) Hugo Watt - Ace Reporter
15) Lane Martinez - Lead Detective
16) Maureen Yashima - Forensic Scientist
17) Witness Interview - Moderato
18) J's Dreams
19) Witness Interview - Allegro
20) Witness Interview - Allegro (Variation)
21) Reviewing the Facts
22) Chapter Break
23) Witness Interview - Presto
24) Charles' Song - Happy Time
25) Request Station
26) Another Murder
27) Cold Sweat
28) Fragment of Past Visions
29) Cutscene - The Fourth Murder
30) Investigate the Past - Urgent
31) Cutscene - Rushing to the Scene
32) Cutscene - It Was Him.
33) The Awful Truth
34) Mom's Song - Ave Marie
35) Cutscene - In Front of the Old Warehouse
36) Danger Ahead
37) Investigate the Past - Imperative
38) Providence Appears
39) Witness Interview - Providence
40) Cutscene - The Final Act
41) Cutscene - This Is An Intermission
42) Investigate the Past - Closure
43) Memories
44) With Gratitude
45) Cutscene - The End
46) Staff Roll
47) BONUS - Investigation 01 Visions
48) BONUS - Investigation 02 Visions
49) BONUS - Investigation 03 Visions
50) BONUS - Investigation 04 Visions
51) BONUS - Investigation 05 Visions
52) BONUS - Investigation 06 Visions
53) BONUS - Investigation 07 Visions
54) BONUS - Investigation 08 Visions
55) BONUS - Investigation 09 Visions
56) BONUS - Investigation 10 Visions

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b1fgh2b ... NEStra.rar

Thanks to Wooster for helping with some of the name tweeking. I hope it's acceptable!

I've played this game <3
It is truly brilliant. I love it.

I just finished playing this and while replaying Again, I realized something.



Anyways, I liked this game and the music. ^^

So I FINALLY got/beat this game. I loved it, even if it wasn't as interactive as some other visual novels I like. I play VN's for their story, and Again satisfied very sufficiently.
Also, does anyone know what model of phone J's is (based off)? I'm considering getting a cell and his looks really awesome.

I really don't know about the model of the cellphone... not sure it's a real one, even though they did use real 'actors' for the characters, and real items for the items. But I'm pretty sure they would not have the money to get the authorization to use a real cell phone in the game, so they used a fake one instead.
Maybe if we could dig in the game files, and find the mobile phone stuff in it, we could try to identify, but I doubt we could do that...

Personally, I don't quite remember what the cell phone looked like, so I'd need a picture to see if I can guess which phone it is, though I really don't know much about them, actually...

And glad to hear someone else liked this game. Come one everyone, let's give Cing some more love! (especially since it looks like it's gonna be their last game... )

Just got it yesterday at Nintendo World. I love it so far. The story is very intriguing and the characters are likable. I went into this game unenthusiastic and I quickly started loving it.

...Wow. If the beginning was able to draw you in, then you are gonna go crazy when it gets good xD

Agreed. XD Most of the first part of the game was slow and unnecessary. Many of the text boxes were just "Yeah." and "Alright."

What drew me in was the first encounter with an Eye of Providence (I'm sure that part is what drew everyone else in too). But yeah, I'm on the 5th day of investigation. I am stuck and refuse to use a walkthrough. I hate Isabella's piano at the moment.



I know. XD The only things I hate about the dialogue right now is when J talks to Maureen and says "Nope. We don't have to talk to you." or whatever. Also, when he thinks "Somethings missing, we need more info." Then Kate says "Find anything?" and J says the exact same thing that he just thought.

...That puzzle was supposedly so difficult that beta-testers had to ask Tecmo for the answer. Iunno why, it was pretty simple for me....

Man I am stuck on the piano puzzle. I figured out the painting thing thanks to Cravat, but I can't figure out which order I need to put the notes in.

It's there; look harder.

I agree with Bad Player, this puzzle isn't difficult at all. You just have to observe very very carefully, and give it a lot of thought... then the solution should reveal itself.

I finished the piano puzzle earlier today.

Ah, don't feel bad. It stumps a lot of people. I think someone in this thread was saying that a lot of people had to call Tecmo for help or something. It took me awhile to notice the leaves myself! I think I may have even guessed it randomly before I saw them.

Yeah, same for me.

Finally finished Again today. As it took me 3 months just to finish a 7 hour game, you can probably guess how much I got into it. Not much.

The biggest problem to me was the horrible, horrible placement of story-advancing events, combined with an enigmatic movement system. As you move, you first move to a place "near the place you want to go", then J en Kate talk about going to the place you were going, then you enter, you talk, exit and go just outside the place you just went, talk again, and you get to move to the next place. And at times, you'd have to talk to almost everybody on the list. Who'd tell you one sentence of importance.

Didn't really like the Visions either. In the beginning it was really, really boring. Near the end, it was slightly less boring. The biggest problem I had was that the puzzles themselves weren't hard at all and the double vision just felt as a gimmick to me. It was mostly a nuisance I had to endure to advance the story.

Which was quite entertaining though. The first plot-twist was quite indeed surprising, afterwards it kinda paced on in a way you'd expect it to go and having read too much detectives, my intuition had already correctly identified Providence (of course, as Poirot would say, intuition of specialists is not some weird mumbo-jumbo, but feeling that sprouts from one's years of experience and knowledge). Nonetheless, it's the one redeeming factor of this game IMHO.

Kinda too bad I played Again after Last Window :(

Hey, I'm from Germany so i wonder if it will be released here, too?
Does anyone know?
Because i love Hotel Dusk and Last Window (: