Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (2010)

Ghost Trick is a masterpiece of a game. I realized that I basically never use that word outside of the absolute pinnacles of my favorite media like One Piece, my favorite story in the entire world. But I think this game deserves it.

Ghost Trick is so fun right off the bat. Trying to avert deaths by using wacky Rube Goldberg interactions is great. I was excited every time there was a new puzzle. It was fun to just look at all the stuff and be like "How am I gonna use a globe, a suit of armor, and a vase to get this guy's medication to him?" That was one of my favorite levels. There is a level that is somewhat frustrating, the only one in the game that functions as sort of an escort mission, but it's pretty simple once you understand what to do, but it took me a while to figure that out.

Something that I didn't expect from Ghost Trick though, was some of the most endearing characters I've seen in a while. Lynne, Missile (especially Missile), Jowd, and a character I shouldn't mention, compelled me endlessly. I wanted to see how they fit together, and how they interact and shape the story.

And that interaction is really the heart of Ghost Trick. Just as the gameplay revolves around small interactions of objects to achieve a grand goal, that is the core theme of the game. Connections between the characters are what lead to all outcomes, both bad, and, eventually, good. This is not a new concept in media. It's quite common, actually. But Ghost Trick achieves this in a way that fits both the gameplay and the story in a masterful way.

This game affected me emotionally more than any other game I can think of recently. Others have been the first season of Telltale's Walking Dead, and Red Dead Redemption. In those, they were tears of sorrow, and in this, it was of joy and relief. I do wonder how I would feel if I didn't own two black cats.

I think that's about all I have to say about Ghost Trick for now. I'm gonna go listen to the soundtrack.

Thank you, Sissel.

I remember playing the demo for this game back when you had to download Nintendo DS demos to your DS through the Wii download service. The demo did a great job of setting up the game's main thread and hooking you in. I always wanted to play the real deal but by the time I gained financial independence I had mostly forgotten about it. Thankfully the game was popular enough to warrant a current-gen remake and finally I was able to experience the full package.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is everything I had hoped it would be and more. I honestly feel like I have to dig a bit to even come up with any real complaints. The art style and direction is striking, eye-catching, vibrant, and creative. The soundtrack is a total bop that I can see myself being nostalgic for given a few years. The Rube Goldberg Machine style puzzle gameplay is unique, fun, and knows exactly just how complex to get before reeling it in so as not to feel overwhelming. And finally, the plot has the charm and wackiness of Ace Attorney while feeling a bit more grounded and featuring stronger writing. All this fits into a package that never overstays its welcome but also ties up its loose ends elegantly. It's a game that really impresses in every respect.

If I was forced to come up with a nitpick, I'd say that I wish there had been a bit more of the villain side characters Beauty and Dandy. I thought they were a fun pairing and would have loved to see more of them in the game. If you're unacquainted, think Jessie and James from Pokemon except they aren't chronic fuckups. Or at least not too much anyway.

I guess also that the stealth-style chapter around halfway into the game stressed me out a bit, but even then it was a welcome switchup to the gameplay and I think the stressful nature of it was intended, given the context in the plot at that point. So it's hard for me to paint it as a negative.

If you're a fan of the Ace Attorney games or visual novel puzzle game hybrids I think you owe it to yourself to check this one out. I only wish I had done so sooner, because I had a fantastic time.

Lately I've been doing this thing where if I hear a video game is good, I'll purchase it without looking into it, going completely blind sometimes without even knowing the genre. I've always heard people say Ghost Trick is one of if not the best game in the entire Nintendo DS library, so I decided to purchase it and give it a try after it got a remake on modern consoles. I finally got around to play it and my god, those people weren't lying. Ghost Trick is an amazing game that executes all of its ideas almost perfectly, and I had a blast playing through it.

in Ghost Trick, you play as Sissel, a recently deceased ghost who has lost their memories. You soon discover that you have the ability to possess objects and manipulate them, and it's now your job to use this power to find out more about your past and help your new friends out along the way.

The game's writing is masterful, it feels like the developers are always in control of everything, and you're just along for the ride. It's also has great pacing, as it keeps feeding you new information at all times without ever feeling overwhelming, and in the end you'll know all about the world without even trying. The story's full of twists and turns, yet you're always able to figure them out seconds before they're revealed. The writers are always one step ahead of you. It makes you feel smart by giving you that Aha! moment when you solve the mystery, and immediately takes it away from you by twisting the mystery even further. I love it.

I also really like the worldbuilding. Every part of the game has a purpose, and they all connect with each other without anything missing. The best part is probably the characters, as they're all very fun, lovable and unique. The story takes place during what's arguably the most important night this city has ever seen, and yet these characters make everything feel calm and lighthearted. The world's probably about to end and everyone is stressed out, but that doesn't mean you can't take a moment to mess around with your friends.

The presentation is definitely my favorite part of the game. The character design is great, where even characters made to look generic can be told apart from each other just with the amount of details they all have. And the animation? Simply phenomenal. Every character moves in a unique way, and it elevates their designs ever further. I love it.

I think the game's only problems lie in the gameplay. Ghost Trick is a puzzle game, and in each level you have to use your ghost powers to create what's essentially a Rube Goldberg machine to try and save the life of your companions. The concept's interesting and can be a lot of fun when it works, however, most of the time it ends up turning into a bunch of trial-and-error trying to see what you can manipulate. Did you move this item ahead of time by accident? Too bad! There's no rewind button, now go back to the checkpoint. To mitigate this, puzzle sections usually take around 2 minutes to get through, which makes the gameplay a lot more manageable, but it can still get annoying at times.

The original Ghost Trick came out 13 years before this release, and while you can obviously tell that this is not a game originally designed for modern devices, I also don't think the game itself is hurt by the change in consoles. The new HD graphics look amazing, the new arrangement for the music is still good, and the controls work without any major issues. Sure, having more information on a second screen would definitely be useful, and some of the moves you have to make would be a lot easier if you had a touch screen, however everything functions properly as you're playing even without the DS exclusive features. I think it's an excellent port.

IN CONCLUSION: Ghost trick is great. It tells an excellent story with less-than-excellent gameplay, but never to the point where it feels bad. The game has a colorful and fun cast of characters, and the story is expertly crafted and always knows how to surprise the player. It's an amazing experience that you should definitely try if you're interested. 9/10

Ghost Trick; Phantom Detective is undoubtedly a game with a lot of charm. It plays on a common trope of main protagonist having an amnesia and it's on player to figure out who you are and what has happened. With that said it is a type of game that is heavy on story and will leave you in the dark for the most of the play through. This is of course understandable for a detective mystery. However, I feel like the first Ace Attorney, a game made by the same author, did a better job of misleading the player and made him prematurely jump to conclusions. In Ghost Trick, a story is adding and adding complexity and confusion till the very end where it all falls into place. The story itself concludes well, but the structure can lead to a player losing the interest somewhere in between.

I also had some issues regarding the themes that the game describes. The themes themselves are rather dark - multiple murders, capital punishment, assassination plots, holding hostage and so on. However, the game chooses to portray them in a weirdly lighthearted way. Sometimes even childish way. The similar way that the Advance Wars series portrays war. Which is, at least for me, a bit off putting.

The story is also told trough the puzzles, which require player to navigate through the scene by manipulating different objects. For example: you need to nudge the ball to hit another object, that creates a path of points, that enable you to proceed. The whole sequence is also timed which adds another layer of complexity. The whole puzzle section is really beautifully animated. Silent characters have so much personality communicated just through their movement. Art direction and character design is definitely a high point of this game alongside memorable soundtrack. Because of the detailed and quite long animations, the puzzles were a bit tedious to solve, as you had to repeat a sequence multiple times before you could figure out the solution. But during the game play I got used to it, so it wasn't such a big deal. The puzzles could benefit from some variety. A good example is the introduction of missile in the late game. But I would like to see more of that early one in the game.

Overall the game is well executed and delivers upon its promises as it doesn't have much technical issues. It is at least worth trying it out and see if the story captures you. But I wouldn't blame you if you quit somewhere in the middle.

I just came back from beating the game and I am in awe at almost everything. The characterization, the limited point and click gameplay, the narrative, THE ANIMATIONS. All of these are woven together to make it possibly one of the best games that I have ever played. Shu Takumi didn’t have to go THIS HARD ON THE GAME, but he did. I’m not going to be saying much because if I were to, you’d get less out of the experience than playing it blindly. If I had very small problems, there are moments of trial and error and almost every button prompt isn’t told to you. I will point out that the story gets even more convoluted after the 2/3 mark. I’m still kinda confused at what happened. But that’s all I have. Play this game for yourself and don’t watch anything before you do. I'm very comfortable calling it the most underrated game that I have ever played. Please give the attention that it deserves.

FINAL RATING: 10/10

GREAT, CREATIVE puzzle gameplay with BEAUTIFUL visuals and animations (omg the animations), AWESOME music, POSSIBLY THE BEST STORY EVER TOLD IN A VIDEO GAME and some of the best characters I've ever seen in a game to boost.

This is not like "A Script" in the way critics talked about the God of War reboot, it is an amazingly written mystery story that dialogues perfectly with the game mechanics, creating a game that is greater than just the sum of its parts with a SUPER SATISFYING and WTF ending.

Ok I'm out of positive adjectives.

10/10 MUST PLAY. If you don't have a DS I think it's available for iOS too!

Imma just copy something I wrote on Reddit.

Ghost Trick is the best ds game I've ever played! I've only played about 5, but I suspect it'll keep that top spot for a long time, it's an amazing game. The characters are amazing oddballs that have the best animation, the best dialog, and great characterization. In fact, there's a feature where you can have the characters talk and they'll give small hints and I couldn't stop myself from using that feature even if the solution was obvious because I loved reading their dialog. The gameplay was great and I have not seen this type of gameplay in any other game, very original.

There was one problem where, about three quarters into the game the gameplay got old. At that point they tried adding mechanics, but it didn't work, the game is a bit too long. That problem existed to a lesser extent with the story also, but the story was good enough that even though it meandered a bit in the middle, it was still captivating. And it was completely worth pushing through. That ending! Holy shit, that was an amazing ending to a story! Delightfully convoluted, satisfying conclusion, brings characters together for some more dialog and animation, it was just amazing. I was nervous that the ending wouldn't be too great because parts of it were obvious and I did guess about a third of it, but I could not have guessed how amazing the end was. That's not to say that the end was the only good part, the first two thirds of the game are amazing and then the quality is taken away from the next part and concentrated on the ending, but it was entirely worth it. Sorry for rambling, I am just enamored with how awesome that game was

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention. I actually played it on the 3ds (ds flashcart), but I wish I had played it on my phone. The annoying gameplay segments reminded me about an extra credits video about how people like games like Super Meat Boy with difficulty and all because it lets you get right back into the difficulty right away. There's about an hour in this game where there is enough difficulty that you're wishing that that was the case. In general this game is right to have all the animations and everything because it's a big draw to the game and it's not all that hard of a game either, but for about an hour I was wishing I had save states and fast forward, this is a perfect game to play on an emulator and I would highly recommend it to everyone

Edit2: Also the music was amazing, I didn't know the ds had the capability to make such good music, or actually come to think of it, it was really well made around the limitations of the ds.

Now for a negative, this game had the same problem as Professor Layton in that I never really felt like I was the one solving the mystery, it felt instead like I was watching someone else solve it. For some reason the end didn't feel that way, instead it felt like I was finding out alongside him, and I don't remember if the starting felt that way, but the entire middle definitely felt that way

I'm writing this review fresh from beating this game about an hour ago. I've been playing it all week. I think the initial high might wear off sometime in the next few years, but until then I'm sticking to the notion that this game might be the best that the DS has to offer. Its such a great game. The animation is smooth, the story is wonderful, all of the characters are like-able. The mechanics and the narrative are extremely well designed and the music will give me the nostalgia feels for years to come.

Part murder mystery, part time travel, part point and click adventure style puzzle solver, Ghost Trick : Phantom Detective had me on my toes just like an extremely good book. There are 18 chapters altogether, and each chapter will run you maybe 10-30 minutes depending on how well you solve the puzzles and whether or not you are reading and enjoying the AWESOME storyline.

Here is how the game starts out.

And with that you're off! It's rather difficult to discuss the game and its mechanics without giving too much away, but within the first 10 or so minutes of the game you discover that you are able to manipulate objects within the game, and that when you possess a corpse with your spirit, you are able to travel back in time just 4 minutes before the death of the corpse and alter their fate. Using these mechanics, you are able to save the lives of the people you come across, one of which happens to be a detective. After possessing someone's corpse and saving their life, it is also revealed that you are able to communicate with the people whose fates you have been able to change. Detective Lynn has a spotty memory about what happened that night before you ended up dead, but she has her own mysteries she needs to solve. Together, the two of you cooperate in order to make sense of everything that has happened and will happen that night.

The Characters
The entire list of characters in this game is absolutely amazing. Each character has their own personality and agenda and motive, and the animation really helps make this shine through. I won't name all of them or go into too much detail about my favorites, because the best way to experience these cool dudes is to play the game and expose yourself to their amazing cosmic mojo.

Missile has got to be the coolest dog in all of video-game-dom. He's as cool as Seymour from Futurama.
Lynn and Kamila are pretty darn cute.
Detective Cabanela is Michael Jackson.

The Animation
The animation in Ghost Trick is extremely well done. You can tell they put a lot of work into it as each frame is different from the last, and we aren't reusing a lot of animation sequences or tweening in betweening two frame slides. The first time I turned on the game I was extremely impressed with the level of quality of the animation. Heres a sneak peak!

The Story
The story in Ghost Trick is one of the best narratives I've had the pleasure of playing through in a long time. As I've said before, each chapter really had me on the edge of my seat. With each chapter you complete you continue to collect more and more information on your murder, and with each thread you pull another mystery takes its place. To some people this might be unbearable, but since the game is short it was pretty sweet. It's a real 'page turner'. The entire game takes place in the span of one night, as it is revealed in the first 10 minutes that you will be disappearing into nothingness when the night is over. As such, the game is pretty short. You could probably knock out the entire game in less than 8 hours, but in order to really enjoy the full pizzazz of the game I'd suggest taking it slow and doing a 12 hour run.

The Gameplay
The only real area that this game is lacking (for me anyways) is the gameplay mechanics. While the puzzles can be fun at times, there is a lot of trial and error that comes with figuring out what exactly you are suppose to do. You are like the 'fate' in Final Destination but in reverse, every little nook or cranny that can rotate or swivel is at your disposal. Though, I will say that every puzzle can be logically solved and there wasn't any point in time of the game where I felt cheated because the solution was too obscure or ridiculous. This is the problem I have with most point and click adventure type games like this. Though, I suppose if you really think about it, this game is only somewhat loosely related to point and click adventure games. Perhaps a very distant cousin, or uncle.

Extreme Spoilers Ahead

The desk lamp 'Ray', turning out to be a different Missile from an alternate timeline was a little spotty. It is also kinda weird to have characters you like cease to exist. Only a dog as cool as Missile would go back to the past and wait 10 years in order to figure out how to save his owner. This reminds me of that crazy cool cat that is also a red lantern member, Dex-Starr. My favorite quote from the game is definitely from Missile.

: Ten years ago...you were a top systems engineer, weren't you?
: "Systems engineer"...? What's that? By the way, I'm a top Pomeranian, you know.
: Well, it's kind of hard to explain to a dog...but it's a person who's good at using computers.
: I don't mean to brag, but I was one of the best in the industry. That's how I got roped into joining that project.

Hehehe, Top Pomeranian. XD

Yomiel's fiance committing suicide is not something I understood entirely the first time I read through the game. I actually had to go do some research online as to what exactly they meant by that. I am not sure if my reading comprehension just wasn't good, or what, but it felt like the translation was a little spotty and I missed a few sentences or something. When they first mentioned fiances, I thought they were talking about Detective Jowd's wife, which threw me off.

Looking back at it now, I can't believe I didn't realize that the main character is actually a kitty. All the signs are there! The inability to read, the lack of understanding when it comes to what most things are, like sweet potato, or how he mentioned he likes to chase rats? Really good writing here.

Those of you who have finished the game will probably get a kick out of this video!

So there you have it. If you haven't played this game yet, you gotta get on it. This game is going up on my exclusive list of awesome games, The Mantle of Awesome. I'm even going to design a few t-shirts and buttons. I really wish I could have bought the game while it was in print so I could show my support. You will probably only be able to find this game in a used game store or from a store with surplus ordered if you get in on the DS, which is the version I played. I don't have an iPad or iPod, so I guess I'm reduced to purchasing the game for all of my friends who are iOS users. Get it on your iPhone or iPad today! You won't regret it!

Here's a really awesome iOS trailer!


pictures and animations courtesy of http://lparchive.org/