In Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Lynne dies. Oops, did I spoil it for you? In truth, I spoiled nothing. Lynne has to die. If she didn’t, there would be no way to progress the storyline. That’s really how Ghost Trick rolls: death is only the first piece of the puzzle.

This latest adventure title from Capcom’s Shu Takumi is the first to come completely separate from the well known Ace Attorney series, and not only features a new world with unique characters and story, but an entirely different gameplay system as well. Nevertheless, logic and problem solving are still key in this quest to avert fate.

In Ghost Trick you play as Sissel, or rather his departed soul. Awakening from unconsciousness, Sissel’s spirit is presented with a scene in a junk yard. A hitman is pointing a shotgun at a young woman, and his own corpse is lying in between them. Unfortunately, Sissel lacks all memory of the man he used to be, and why he was killed. Initially, Sissel only cares about recovering his memory, but another enigmatic spirit persuades him to help the woman using his “ghost tricks.” She’d be the first lead in figuring out his own truth. But there’s a problem: Sissel only has until dawn before his spirit disappears forever.

The above mentioned “ghost tricks” are the key to unraveling Sissel’s story. Various objects in the environment have “cores” that Sissel can latch onto, and the player can guide Sissel to them with the touch screen (and while the game is heavily touch screen focused, you can actually play it entirely using the buttons as well, if you prefer). Sissel’s soul can only extend so far, though. Certain items Sissel inhabits can then be manipulated. If he inhabits an umbrella, for example, he can make it open and close. Additionally, Sissel can move across phone lines to any other location, so long as a phone call is made from there, which becomes his primary means of getting about.

But Sissel’s most prominent ability is to inhabit dead bodies, which will come up pretty frequently in the storyline. This allows Sissel to use his greatest power: traveling back in time four minutes before the person died. When he does this, not only is he able to watch how the person’s final moments played out, but he can also manipulate objects during the time to change their fate, and prevent them from dying.

While Ghost Trick has different mechanics than the Ace Attorney games, it has a somewhat similar structure. The game is divided up into real time segments, which sum up to an investigation mode of sorts. For the most part, though, you’re just trying to figure out how to manipulate the right objects to get to where you want to go. Also, you gain the ability to speak to people whose lives you save and interrogate them. This just fleshes out the story, though. You won’t have to be taking this information to court.

Then there are the segments where you’re trying to avert someone’s fate, which are akin to Ace Attorney’s court room sessions. Here, you must manipulate objects to prevent whatever happenstance causes the person to be killed. Watching the replay of the victim’s last moments, and seeing what items get interacted with, give you a good idea what to do.

The trick is, while you’re in the Ghost World (which is where Sissel moves from object to object) time stops, but outside of this events continue in real time. And it’s not enough just to manipulate objects. Sometimes you will need to wait for people to affect objects or the environment before you can proceed. This occasionally means you only have a small window to affect a proper change. And as time draws nearer to death, the music intensifies, much like when you press a witness closer and closer to cracking in Ace Attorney.

The puzzles get more tricky as the game rolls on, and in some cases there are intentional dead ends if you miss a cue or don’t manipulate an object at the right time. This may make the game seem pretty frustrating, but the truth is you can’t lose. If you get something wrong, you can rewind time again and again until you get it right. Even if you end up letting a person die, it just prompts you to start over without penalty. Additionally, often you can alter a person’s fate before averting it entirely, and these act as new restart points.

On top of that, there are thought bubbles you can press for hints, and the game is pretty good at signaling when you’ve worked yourself into a corner. To be honest, it’s better to start out just playing with objects and seeing what they do before concerning yourself with solving the puzzle right away. It will save you some pulled hair.

"I hope the accident was somehow chicken related then."

Another thing that helps keep Ghost Trick fun and fresh is its amazing presentation. The game uses 3D models that are entirely unshaded, and the perspective is always on a 2D plane, giving the game the appearance of a very smoothly animated cartoon. And it’s really the intricacies and details of the animation that give the characters so much life. Seriously, it takes pretty amazing effort for a game to impress me on the aesthetics. The music is also fantastic. It’s both jazzy and electronic, and works very well at setting the mood for scenes.

Of course, a fine story is also necessary for Ghost Trick to work, and I don’t think it disappoints here either. Granted, if you’re looking for something dark and somber in a mystery story, Ghost Trick might disappoint since it features the same lightheartedness and Japanese-style humor the Ace Attorney games are known for. I think this actually helps keep the story flowing and enjoyable since it largely focuses on death, which is not an easy topic to make fun. Nevertheless, the game does have its sad moments as you start learning how other people are connected to Sissel, and their own hardships. Aside from some nitpicks, and a few parts I thought were lame, I really enjoyed the story of Ghost Trick.

I also like how the story is divided up. It’s contained in 18 decent sized chapters, as opposed to Ace Attorney’s four to five enormous cases. And while those cases are broken into smaller segments, Ghost Trick’s chapters bring about an easier means of jumping back and replaying specific points of the story, if you so desire.

By and large, Ghost Trick is a fun mystery-themed adventure game. I’d certainly recommend it to any Ace Attorney fan, and I’d also say it should suit any fan of story-based adventure games who might find Ghost Trick’s features something off the beaten path. I can’t say I’ve ever played another game that offers the same experience as this.

This review is based on a copy of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective purchased by the reviewer.

Tags: adventure, capcom, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, nintendo ds, review, story

This entry was posted on Monday, January 17th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.