I was trying to dig up some information on Trace Memory/Another Code this morning and found this interview with CiNG’s vice president Rika Suzuki from 2009 where she said:
"One thing that I am particularly proud of is that if you go into a games shop in Japan now there is an adventure corner, and that’s something that we feel we’ve contributed to coming back,
“It’s a nice feeling. We feel that with our games you don’t need the special skills required to play other games. There is no gender or age classification, it’s just you and the story.”
By this point, CiNG had released the original Another Code (with a perfect Insert Credit Metacritic Rating of 70/100) and Hotel Dusk and had worked on other adventure games prior to the DS as well. I think it’s fair for Suzuki to say that CiNG was contributing to the revitalization of the genre at that time.
Since then, have adventure games become more or less prevalent? Just a couple of years ago, I played the Famicom Detective Club remakes, which I thought were really well done and sparked my interest in older adventure games too. Earlier this year, I played Square Enix’s fantastic PARANORMASIGHT and I was so impressed with the cinematic touches and feeling of suspense that it invoked. In my opinion, there are still great and unique adventure games coming out! It seems unlikely to see a prominent adventure game section in a game store in 2023, but I think the genre is in a healthy place (aside from stuff like Square’s downright ridiculous and awful AI remake of The Portopia Serial Murder Case… I would still love to see a proper Portopia remake and English localization someday without AI nonsense!)
Are we in a golden age for adventure games? Was the genre really at its height in the late 2000’s or the 90’s? And does anyone have recommendations for adventure games new or old?