Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - First Impressions

Image taken from GameSpot

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective arrived faithfully at my door a day ago, and since then my fingers have been feeling rather wane and cramped, from the hurt of extended button poking and stylus holding. Or maybe it’s ‘cause outside it’s -30°C and I need to wear a parka in my house to stay warm.

I have to say right off the bat, that there may be a bit of bias in my love of Ghost Trick, as the Ace Attorney series is one of my favourites (both games created by Shu Takumi). But having gone through preliminaries, I can see how someone can like Ace Attorney and not Ghost Trick or vice versa. Game play is very different between the two games, Ghost Trick relying on physics, object manipulation, and mapping out a series of events in a short amount of time – while Ace Attorney is all about detective work, interrogations, and courtroom drama. But the fundamentals that made Ace Attorney so well liked such as hilarious dialogue, off-beat characters, and winding plot twists, haven’t missed a mark in Ghost Trick.

Suit-dude, Lynne, Sissel, and Kamila. You wish you had their hair.

Ghost Trick follows a man named Sissel, who recently died, and his journey to unravel the mystery behind his death. On his quest for truth, Sissel learns that he can interact with the dead and go back four minutes in time to try and stop their usually humorous and tragic deaths. He does this by going between the Land of the Living and the Ghost World, where time stands still and he can manipulate inanimate objects, and prevent unfortunate demises.

I haven’t finished the game yet, but from what I’ve played, the game has been excellent. The puzzles that you have to solve go from easy hard, but never brain-exploding hard. There is also a wonderful rewind feature in the game that lets Sissel replay a puzzle as many times as he has to until he solves the puzzle – with no penalties (that I know of so far).

As of right now, I’d totally recommend people checking this game out, especially adventure and puzzle game fans. So go forth and buy people! And while you’re at it, can you buy me a heater?