Back in 2005, small Japanese developer Cing, Inc. released a rather ambitious adventure title called Trace Memory. While the game was severely lacking in terms of story, character development and puzzle difficulty, it did make use of all the features of the DS and showed just how powerful the system could be in the hands of the right developer.

Now Cing is back with a new adventure game called Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and we're all left wondering if they've learned from there mistakes. Unfortunately the answer to that question is far more complicated then you'd expect.

As far as story and character development are concerned, Cing has definitely improved. This time around, characters are richer and more alive, while conversations, the bulk of the game play, feel fluid and natural - a rare occurrence in modern adventure games. In fact, the entire localization team deserves a big pat on the back for the relatively few spelling mistakes and the true expertise they showed in writing vocal accents.

Something kind of unique about Hotel Dusk is that all the characters have fully fleshed out back-stories that neither begin nor end at the hotel. While they are all caricatures of the sort of patrons you'd find staying in a slummy hotel, they are not simply there to advance your own story. Though Dusk is the end of the line for you, for them it's merely one more step on their respective journeys. In many ways this helps make Hotel Dusk seem more real and alive instead of falling into the trap of simply being a means to an end like so many games before it.

Visually, the character designs are nothing short of stunning. In their previous game, Cing had chosen a very Japanese art style, but in Hotel Dusk they've instead opted to go with more western style character designs. In addition to the more realistic look of the new style, Cing has also made the characters look like they are sketches. This helps give the game a sort of film noir feel and just looks fantastic. Sadly the same cannot be said for the parts of the game that are rendered in 3-D.

Textures are flat and pixilated, completely lacking the artistic detail that the 2-D character sprites have received. Considering the level of detail put into over 2-D assets and the small size of the game world it's hard to understand why this is the case.