Ashley Mizuki Robbins

Ashley Mizuki Robbins
Another Code character
Ashley, as depicted in Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories
First Episode Appearance	Another Code: Two Memories
Final Episode Appearance	Another Code: R - A Journey Into Lost Memories
Created by	Taisuke Kanasaki
In-universe information
Nickname	Robins (alternate spelling in PAL regions) Ash (by friends)
Family	Richard Robbins (father) Sayoko Robbins (mother) Jessica Robbins (aunt)

Ashley Mizuki Robbins ("Robbins" spelled "Robins" in PAL regions), is the protagonist of Cing's Another Code video games, Another Code: Two Memories (released in North America as "Trace Memory") and Another Code: R - A Journey Into Lost Memories.

Following the release of Another Code: Two Memories in 2005, Ashley was recognised as a vital character of the point-and-click adventure genre, who helped to spark interest in and reform the genre within Japan.

Despite lukewarm overall reception to Trace Memory in America, Ashley's character was mostly positively received by western game journalists, and critics, and is considered to be a rare example of a "well-rounded female lead" in video games. Most praise is given to her relatable and genuine teenage personality. Ashley's character and role in Trace Memory has been the focus of academic studies into comprehension and motivation for reading in children.

Owing in large part to Trace Memory's lacklustre western reception, and subsequent non-release of Another Code: R in America, Ashley has fallen into obscurity in the west. In modern gaming culture, she mostly has cult status within adventure game circles as one of the two characters iconic to the now defunct Cing, and is considered a long-forgotten cult icon of the early Nintendo DS era.

Within mainstream gaming culture, Ashley is most recognisable to modern audiences via her appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series under the name "Ashley Robbins".

Conception & Localisation

Ashley was designed by Taisuke Kanasaki, the director and character designer for Another Code: Two Memories. Ashley was designed by Kanasaki to appeal to both male and female players. Ashley was originally intended to be 17 years old, but her age was later changed to 14 by Rika Suzuki, the game's scenario writer, to appeal to a wider range of age groups. To this end, Ashley was designed as a character that young boys find appealing, and her "ghost sidekick" in Two Memories was given the design of a young boy.

Ashley's character was slightly altered in localisation by Ann Lin of Nintendo of America's Product Development Department, to make her more "realistic" and less "accepting" than her Japanese counterpart. She commented: "I think that a believable character, a believable person would have certain feelings of betrayal, not just acceptance. I wanted to explore that just a little. I think the [Japanese text] was a little more accepting, not really questioning the weirdness of meeting a ghost or any of the [strange] circumstances that had befallen her".

Fictional biography

Ashley is an honest, inquisitive, kind, and smart Japanese American teenage girl who is Japanese on her mother's side. She lives in Seattle with her Aunt, Jessica Robbins. The Another Code games focus on Ashley's strained relationship with her estranged father, Richard, and the murder of her mother, Sayoko, which still haunts them both. Ashley is haunted by a recurring nightmare due to witnessing her mother's murder as a toddler, which she has almost every night. Ashley is 14-years-old in Two Memories, and in Another Code: R, Ashley returns as a now 16-year-old aspiring musician. Another Code: R reveals Ashley's birthday as February 25, 1991.

Ashley is a tomboy, in both appearance and personality. In Another Code: R, it is stated that Ashley has a hard time relating to other girls her age, and that she doesn't have many friends. However, boys tend to find her interesting and relatable; in particular, young boys look up to her, so she easily befriends them. "Girly-girls" types tend to mock her and her "lack of appeal", and Ashley states strong dislike for these kinds of people.

Owing to her age, Ashley's biggest flaw is her inability to view things from an adult's point-of-view. She can become especially childish and selfish regarding her feelings towards her father and aunt. She is aware of her habit at how she can be selfish in her feelings towards her father, and her need to control herself around him.

Ashley owns several devices made by her father. One of these, the "DTS" or "DAS" (a pastiche of the Nintendo DS), is a multipurpose device which, amongst other more mundane features, allows her to activate the "Another" memory machine, and in Another Code: R, hack into security feeds at Lake Juliet. The "TAS" that her father made in Another Code: R (which resembles a Wii remote) allows her to hack past card reader locks. These devices are locked to Ashley's genetic coding, via her fingerprint and facial recognition, and thus cannot be used when by other people.

In Trace Memory, the American version of Two Memories, Ashley was made more sceptical compared to in the original release, and was given more a sense of humour.

Role in Another Code

Two Memories takes place the day before her 14th birthday. Her father, whom she believed to be dead, out of the blue, sends her an invitation to meet him on "Blood Edward Island"; the island is named because the family who once owned the island and lived there, the "Edwards", were all rumored to have met a bloody end. After arriving on the island, Ashley's attempts to reunite with her father lead her into journey to uncover the truth behind her family and her mother's murder, while also uncovering the truth behind a mysterious project code-named "Another". In the process, Ashley meets and befriends a ghost with amnesia who cannot remember his life or how he died, and only recalls the single letter "D". Ashley and "D" agree to help each other uncover their own answers on Blood Edward Island.

In Another Code: R, Ashley is in her latter teenage years and has become an aspiring musician. Despite reuniting with her father in the prior game, the two have drifted apart again and their relationship has become estranged. After not seeing her father for nearly six months, Ashley suddenly receives an invitation from him to go on a camping trip at a resort called "Lake Juliet". Ashley reluctantly goes on the trip, only to be thrown into a day full of more investigations when she starts experiencing strange sporadic "flashbacks" when she arrives. Along the way she encounters and forms a strong unlikely friendship with a young boy, Matthew Crusoe (who she calls "Matt"), who is trying to locate his missing father while running away from his uncle. Ashley attempts to uncover the truth behind both mysteries and the mysteries surrounding Matt, while keeping Matt out of the hands of the local authority, who will drag Matt back to his uncle's if caught.

Reception

Ashley has been praised as an example of a "rare, well-rounded female lead" in video games by video game journalists, and her portrayal of a 16-year-old teenager in Another Code: R has been heralded as one of the most realistic in gaming. The portrayal of Ashley's experiences with her father in Another Code: R has been angled with praise for the medium of storytelling, by presenting a grippingly realistic, dull portrayal of "daddy issues". Recognition has also been directed at Ashley's character not relying on sex appeal, her character being designed as a tomboy rather than that of a stereotypically "pretty-princess" type of character, and how she depicts the relatable and genuine personality of a girl her own age instead of relying on typical age or gender roles that video games tend to use for characters.

Ashley's depiction in Another Code: R has been noted as being more gendered than her previous appearance. Author The Cheat Mistress in the book "Games of the Decade" noted in a section that discusses Another Code: R, that Ashley's 16-year-old character had been more "tailored for the female demographic", and so despite being the protagonist of a mystery game a lot of her problems are less "Agatha Cristie" and more "One Tree Hill". She pointed to Another Code: R's use of conventionally attractive male characters who Ashley befriends, her wish to be a musician, and the game's portrayal of her issues with her father, as being all female orientated aspects of her character. However, she noted that "like soap", Ashley is a character whom any player desperately wants to help.

Ashley's character and role in Another Code has had a large impact in Japan. Suzuki stated: "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". She citied Ashley's character as a large part of this reception, saying that Ashley's character meant "there is no gender or age classification, it's just you and the story".

Perception in the West

In the west, particularly in the United States, Ashley is mostly recognised as the protagonist of the "Trace Memory", which itself is considered an iconic cult classic video game for the Nintendo DS. This was helped in large part by it being released early in the DS's lifespan. Another Code: R, was not released in America, which helped cement Ashley's western perception as a cult DS character.

At the time of Trace Memory's release in America, Ashley was considered an important character, due to her nature as an easy player surrogate, for resparking interest in the point-and-click adventure genre in Japan; this reputation wasn't as strong in the west, nor as character centric, with most talk of innovation focusing on the game's usage of the DS's touch-screen. In modern western gaming culture, Ashley's character is an all-but-forgotten heroine of an early DS era, which was helped in large part by Trace Memory's lukewarm critical reception, and lacklustre sales. As well as this, she was also quickly overshadowed by other DS icon characters such as Phoenix Wright, and most notably, Cing's spiritual successor protagonist, Kyle Hyde. Her and her games becoming lost to the sands of time was also partly aided by Cing, the developers of Another Code and the Kyle Hyde titles, going bust in 2010. Ashley's young age has been cited as a drawback of her character to western audiences. Her character's young age in Two Memories was often cited as evidence by western critics that Trace Memory was made with a young fanbase in mind; Tracy Memory was often referred to as "Myst for Kids" by critics around the time of release. This perception of Trace Memory is thought to have been a contributing factor to Trace Memory's lacklustre performance in America, the subsequent non-release of its sequel, and Ashley's fall into obscurity and cult status in gaming culture.

One aspect that has helped contribute to Ashley's status as a "DS gimmick" character is her usage of an in-universe DS (called the "Dual True System" or "DTS" in the American release) as her multipurpose tool, although this "gimmicky" nature of her character and the games has also been subjected to criticism.

The localised interpretation of Ashley's personality in Trace Memory has been praised as improving upon her Japanese counterpart. "American Ashley" has been described as more realistically sceptical, less "wooden", and as having more of a positive sense of humour.

Ashley has appeared in every iteration of the Nintendo crossover fighting series Super Smash Bros., from Super Smash Bros. Brawl onwards as a Trophy or a Spirit. She is considered by many to be one of the most useful Spirits in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which has seen something of a repark of interest in her character and her origins following the game's release.

Academic recognition

Tracy Memory and Ashley's character was used in a study into the effects of narrative presentation format on sixth-graders' comprehension of and motivation for reading, by professors at the Teachers College, Columbia University. Trace Memory was picked as Ashley's young age, a rarity in most video games, made her a perfect proxy for the study subjects. Subjects were given a comprehension assessment designed by the authors to measure both literal understanding of the story as well as higher-order comprehension of Ashley's character. In total, there were eleven literal comprehension questions relating to Ashley's character motivations, story relative, and her relationships with other characters. Her relationship with her aunt Jessica was a particular point of focus in the student.

Ashley was amongst the few video game characters that Albert Brady Curlew gave thanks to in the acknowledgements of his "The Cultural Politics of Digital Game Modification" dissertation paper.