not a lot of people have written very constructively for this game and honestly? it doesnt really need it. i think almost anyone can understand the magic of the clicking sound played when hopping between objects, or the relief from defying fate knowing our victim will trudge on through life, maybe even with a new perspective. the innocence of a seemingly lost soul without its memories, left only with determination for oneself but eventually gaining sympathy in the face of others. this is probably one of the best paced games i’ve ever played. every puzzle racks your brain just enough where it doesnt feel exhausting or too easy, and when put together with fun characters and mysteries, everything flows surprisingly smooth. finding that solution and watching events play out brings out a similar (but more suspenseful) satisfaction to watching a domino effect. every character is incredibly sincere and charming to a point where there’s not a single character i dislike. while i think the ending played too much into the sci-fi aspect, when the credits rolled i was nearly on the verge of tears. i was happily somber watching our colorful cast fade away while masakazu sugimori’s beautiful eclectic score played overhead (sidenote, i really wish he had composed more stuff. his scores always fit their respective games like a glove). the previously thought impossible ending we’ve been striving for has now been made possible. ghost trick has climbed the ranks of my favorite games and i’ll certainly remember it for a long time coming. the greatest lesson taught is that being dead is awesome.

this game is absolutely phenomenal, dare I say it's even better than any ace attorney. short and sweet, this game doesn't suffer from bad pacing, everything is p straight-forward, the puzzles were just right, no need to rip my hair out or smth, everything went pretty smooth, the music is so good and the character designs are really bright and unique as well as their personalities. i can't go into spoilers because this game just needs to be played blind. one of the rare games that got me so immersed and obsessed to just finish it because the plot is so appealing and makes you just wish to know what's the deal here. 5/5 from me also missile my most beloved doggo <3

A man dressed in black holds a young woman at gunpoint. He's a hitman, hired to erase all those who possess knowledge about something our unlucky gal has stumbled upon. Between her and the barrel of the shotgun is a man, who realizes what's going on and wants to do something to help. Except... he's already dead, his body lying face down in the ground, and his disembodied spirit just watching helplessly.

Not all is lost: with the help of another ghost nearby, he learns of a spirit's ability to possess and manipulate various objects, as well as, when faced with a corpse, the unbelievable power turn back time to just before that person died. After a bit of trying, he is able to prevent the girl from being assassinated. All is well! Only, he's still dead. Even worse... he has no idea who he is, or why he died. With the girl he saved being the only person who might have a clue about what transpired, he elects to follow her, and the night that follows is a sequence of ever more unbelievable events.

Coming out of several years in a row working on the Ace Attorney series, director Shu Takumi wanted to try something different, creating a new IP that pushed the beloved style character-focused stories of his previous works even further. To achieve that, he planned on using a disembodied spirit as a protagonist as a means to explore multiple locations and connect more intimately with more characters, in a way a person with a physical body wouldn't be able to. This opus took years to come into fruition, and how cruel it was that, in the saturated and piracy-ravaged market of the Nintendo DS's later years, it earned the label "cult classic" instead of the shorter and more deserved "classic".

Ghost Trick is an adventure game unlike any other ever made. Its unique style of puzzle gameplay puts the player in control of Sissel, the amnesiac spirit, whose most basic ability is to hop between highlighted objects in a scene and use them in some way, like moving a cart or turning on a light. In the most basic stages of Ghost Trick, that's just his goal: traverse a certain location to cause something to happen, or to eavesdrop on a conversation and obtain a piece of information.

Everything changes once he finds a dead body and travels back in time to exactly four minutes before that person's passed away. We're presented with the sequence of events that led to that death, and are then set loose in the scene with the goal of altering it and preventing that terrible outcome. Naturally, Sissel cannot talk or otherwise directly interact with anyone in the past, so in case he needs to change someone's behaviour, he must use his powers over objects to induce them into the desired course of action.

These sections are superb puzzles. They force the player to go through the scene several times, understanding what are the pivotal moments in the scene and what tools they have to work with. Sometimes, it's a simple matter of finding the right timing to perform a certain action, or finding a way to gain more time. In other occasions, the paths Sissel can take in a certain location must be thoroughly explored in order to gain more information and act appropriately. There's even cases where more elaborate chains of object manipulations must be enacted -- if the thought of preventing crimes by building Rube Goldberg machines sounds appealing in any way, this is the game you need to play.

More than the puzzles themselves, however, what's most intriguing is their execution. A pitfall games centered around puzzles often fall in is that those get in the way of the narrative, especially towards the end of the campaign where the difficulty is at its highest. Ghost Trick, on the other hand, follows in the footsteps of Ace Attorney, interleaving them with action and character moments. In addition, as the story progresses, the game focuses on offering a larger variety of puzzles through exploring different locations and featuring new characters instead of scaling the difficulty. Both of these decisions confer a flawless pacing to the narrative. The final section of the game, in particular, is so extraordinarily well paced that it doesn't feel like playing a game, but being part of a story yourself.

A story which is in itself, exceptional, and alone worth the price of admission. Shu Takumi was cooking he put forth the idea of a ghost used to explore a large cast: there are many, many characters in Ghost Trick, all of them worthy of being someone's favorite, and the game has the time and means to move between scenes, giving each person time on the spotlight and exploring their personality and motivations. Of note is that Ghost Trick is home to the single best dog in all of gaming: Missile, the Pomeranian, based on Shu Takumi's real life dog at the time, is a standout character whose energy and charm wins over just about anyone who plays the game for a bit. The uncontested best boy.

Each scene in Ghost Trick is rendered in a sidescrolling 2D view, which is in itself pretty rare for a narrative game, but the way the story is presented is what really makes the game shine: the scene direction treats each sideways view of a location as a stage, making heavy use of theater language to convey thoughts, emotions and information to the spectator. This is reinforced by the team's rejection of motion capture, which led them to hand-animate the flashiest, most unique and detailed animations for each character, sometimes establishing a character's entire personality simply from the way they walk into the stage. The game's flat colors and strong shapes may make every frame of it a painting, but seeing it in motion is the truly breathtaking part.

Ghost Trick's only debatable flaw is that the story being told here is so extensive and so complex that it makes the experience into one the player has to give credence to, and has to be willing to stick with to the end. The script very slowly unveils its hand, and it might feel, at times, like certain arcs were forgotten or huge plot holes are being opened. And that's not true: the plot is masterfully paced and paints a complete and concise picture by the time the credits roll, but because that process takes time, it demands a certain openness from the player, a willingness to engage with the narrative and let it unfold on its own time.

Which is to say, its only flaw is being too good for its own sake, a demerit that can no doubt be worn as a badge of honor. Ghost Trick is an exhilarating experience, and it is a blessing that it survived its weak sales performance on the DS and went on to be ported and remade for other platforms. Sissel's supernatural adventure between the worlds of the living and the dead deserves to be seen and enjoyed by more people.

Like a cool glass of water on a summer afternoon.

I’ve tried getting into Ghost Trick a few times, but I never managed to stick with it for very long. I don’t really know why this is; Shu Takumi’s earlier Ace Attorney trilogy gripped me at a fairly young age and never let go, so I can’t really fathom why I kept dropping Ghost Trick not long after finishing the tutorial. I think it’s just because I hate timing puzzles. That’s a petty reason, but it’s the best I’ve got. After some consistent prodding from my good friend Chef033, however, I decided that I was gonna get all the way through Ghost Trick once and for all.

I did, and it ruled.

It’s the kind of game that’s hard to talk about without getting too deep into spoilers — it’s a murder-mystery, after all — and it benefits heavily from unearthing its secrets as you play. While some of the twists and turns are incredibly obvious (perhaps intentionally so), others will only become apparent about ten seconds before they happen. These latter moments are obscenely hype, and I wouldn’t dare dampen anyone’s experience by giving them away. If you know, you know; if you don’t, you should experience them for yourself.

The cast is full of colorful, larger-than-life characters, and you’d be hard-pressed to forget a single one of them by the time the credits roll. Each of them are given so much personality purely through these lavish, indulgent animations; Cabenela’s little Michael Jackson-inspired dance that he does when he enters a room reportedly took a month to animate, and it shows. Ghost Trick loves to keep crossing a line from “that’s impressive” to “how the fuck did they even manage to do this” pretty frequently, and it’s nothing short of a visual treat. The incredibly crunchy, pixellated models sell a strong visual identity, and it’s a style I vastly prefer over the remaster’s smooth, high-LOD variants.

And goddamn, the music is good. "GHOST TRICK" — the theme that likes to play at the end of chapters — is one of the best “you did it” songs of triumph I’ve heard in a game. From what I’ve read, a lot of the music was composed without Masakazu Sugimori nor assistant Yasumasa Kitagawa having context for what was actually going to be happening in the game, which is shocking. Everything fits together so neatly, and finding out that it was mostly just the product of “I’ve got a vibe in mind and I’m going to just make things that fit it” almost seems unbelievable. It’s like accidentally creating the final missing piece to a puzzle you’ve never seen before.

It’s an immensely, immensely impressive game, and the only foibles I can find are that having to loop through a lot of the same, slow events when you make a mistake can be frustrating. My emulator let me fast-forward through a lot of the repeated downtime, and I imagine I would have been a lot more annoyed if I needed to sit through it all in real time, every time. Even so, what’s here is still wonderful, and it deserves your attention. It took me far too long to get around to actually finishing it, but I’m very glad I ended up seeing it through to the end.

It’s “Missile”!

Played with BertKnot.

Nestled between two development phases that have shaped the Ace Attorney series – on the one hand, the main trilogy, flanked by Apollo Justice (2007); on the other, the spin-offs culminating with Dai Gyakuten Saiban (2015) –, Ghost Trick appears to be a breath of fresh air for Shu Takumi, who perhaps wanted to distance himself somewhat from Phoenix Wright. And for good reason, the title seems diametrically opposed to what made the success of the legalistic franchise, taking the counterpoint of its writing, its gameplay or its mysteries presentation. In particular, Ace Attorney was initially intended for a Japanese audience, already well versed in crime mysteries. Ghost Trick, on the other hand, was designed to be even more accessible and adapted to an international audience, while making good use of the capabilities of the DS, then nearing the end of its cycle.

The player takes on the role of Sissel, in an in medias res beginning. Recently killed, he wakes up in ghostly form and realises he has new powers: he can interact with objects as well as go back in time, four minutes before a person dies, if they have died recently. With these abilities, Sissel, whose memory is hazy, sets out to find answers about his identity, which leads him to rescue several characters, including Lynne, who seems to be at the heart of the mystery. The game unfolds over eighteen chapters, each of which takes place in a given topographical space. The first few chapters are confined to the junkyard and the superintendent's office, but it doesn't take long to visit a variety of appartments or a restaurant, all of which are connected by telephone lines that Sissel can use to get around. This mechanic helps diegetically to justify the wide variety of environments. The pacing benefits from it, because it has a frenetic feel to it, with action and revelations following one another.

The core of the gameplay consists of completing an specific objective in every chapter to further Sissel's quest. This may be saving someone's life or finding a way to get to another place. To do this, Sissel must move between cores of different objects and interact with some of them to create a path for himself and find a solution to the situational problem. The movements are done with the stylus, which allows an exceptional fluidity in the gameplay. The puzzles always remain logical, although a certain simplicity can be criticised. Apart from a few levels that are a little more ambitious, the solutions are fairly linear and can be easily brute forced by the player, especially since they are helped by dialogue bubbles – although optional – that always point in the right direction. This is not a major flaw, as the pacing justifies such an approach and the slapstick nature of the puzzles compensates for their simplicity, while creating such an elegant relationship between gameplay and storytelling. Moreover, many of the puzzles require interaction with objects at a specific time, or else one has to rewind to the beginning of the scene or checkpoint. More complex and cryptic actions could be detrimental to the feeling of progression, if one had to go back in time several dozen times.

The emphasis of Ghost Trick is actually in its direction. Having to see the scene play out once, before attempting to change it, seems to be a precursor to the Dai Gyakuten Saiban's Dances of Deduction. The usual gameplay loop boils down to trying to interact with all the items to understand how they can alter the environment, before sketching out a general strategy. This approach is always adequate and shines in some chapters, where the time pressure is quite high. The new mechanic introduced in the last chapters does not change this general pattern, as it is straightforward and rather constrained in its use. If it brings a welcome freshness, the difficulty never rises with it – probably for the better. After all, what matters is the conversations between the characters, as well as the absurdity of Sissel's actions.

As such, the enjoyment one gets out of the game is proportional to the affection one has for this type of ambience. Ghost Trick borrows from the dark thriller and pulp, sprinkling them with a generous layer of wit. This is done through the dialogues, whose quality is largely reminiscent of Ace Attorney, but also through extremely delicate animation work – often used to give the player very subtle clues. Inspector Cabanela, a throwback to the disco era, moves with exaggerated and eye-catching gestures, while the rest of the cast is full of absurdity, defusing tense situations. Seeing a character roll over or throw himself, posterior first, into a lift forces an entertained grin. The game makes good use of overly sped-up animations to underline their silliness. In the same spirit, the appearances of Missile, Kamila's Pomeranian, carry such energy that they revitalise the game when it needs it. Death itself is defused by its comical and temporary nature. The game is best summed up with a smiling Lynne enjoying 'being dead once again', while her musical theme assails a confused Sissel.

This is not to say that Ghost Trick doesn't have more touching moments, but they never manage to establish any deeper theme. While the quest for Sissel's identity works at first, with genuine character development over the chapters, the question is somewhat put aside too quickly at the end, which favours answering the other mysteries. Furthermore, the rest of the cast, plagued by their own contradictions, fails to convince in the dilemmas they face. All the characters are presented as suffering from their choices or as being flawed individuals. Unfortunately, the further the title progresses, the more Sissel understands that they all had good reasons to act the way they did. Because the game emphasises its comical nature, all scenes of violence – physical or psychological – are defused, without finding any real convincing answers. Then again, the title manages to get around most of these issues, precisely because of its pacing and mood, but those shortcomings may prove to be frustrating.

Ace Attorney, even in its self-imposed supernatural setting of spiritualism, manages to formulate stories that remain fundamentally tragic. The strength of the series is perhaps precisely in showing that murder is a permanent wound for society, which can never really recover from it. Ghost Trick takes the opposite direction, highlighting that it is always possible to save those who have been killed. This downplaying of the fatalistic symbolism is probably due to the impossibility of developing the identity themes of each character too deeply. Another explanation lies more simply in the game's rather short length.

Nevertheless, Ghost Trick remains one of the most immersive experiences on the DS, with an elegant use of the touch screen. Whereas Ace Attorney could be played with just the buttons, Ghost Trick offers the opposite approach, thus making the distinction between the point-n-click and the visual novel genres. The modest frustrations that may remain are relatively minimal and never prevent the game from being highly enjoyable. While it hardly reaches the heights of Ace Attorney, whose revelations are more intelligent and clueing much more subtle, Ghost Trick charms with its unique atmosphere – visually and musically – and a simple, but engaging gameplay system. The title is part of the swansong of the DS and a good example of the exceptional animation skills of Sayuri Shintani's team. Unfortunately, the game suffered from particularly poor sales, but perhaps this is a sign that Ghost Trick should remain what it is today: an experience without parallel.

The thinking gamer's game. Shu Takumi has been making some of the most well paced, entertaining mystery stories in all of gaming while apparently wasted out of his mind, and a lot of his skills as a writer come through in this game, something only he could've ever achieved.

From the very beginning it knows how to pull you in, and that electric pace only continues, as you travel the truly bizarre, manic world, with equally unique characters in an attempt to figure out what is going on. And like all of Takumi's work, it all just culminates into a truly gripping and ultimately satisfying and truly conclusive finale.

If you're a fan of the Ace Attorney games and you haven't given this a go, it should be a priority. After playing this and The Great Ace Attorney games, I'm fully convinced Takumi is simply one of the greatest creative minds to ever contribute to the medium.

A great example of a story that can only be told via a video game; the way the plot moves and develops is so interconnected with the game's mechanics that it's hard to imagine this really existing in any other form, and that in itself is already enough to make the game worth experiencing.

I love the characters, humour, and the way the animations compliment both of these aspects so well. The story itself is largely enjoyable and very engaging, though so relentlessly full of twists and turns, and constantly asking you to suspend your disbelief even further, that I never really gained my footing for long enough to form much of an emotional connection with what was happening.

The actual puzzles in the game are generally pretty easy, especially with the game's habit of pushing hints on to you, and sometimes they struggle to elevate far beyond "interact with everything you can see", but the way they're so deeply integrated with the story, and the manner in which the game uses them to express its humour, is so satisfying that I largely think of them fondly anyways.

Also; Missile is really good.

Truth be told, I had never actually heard of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective before, but when I noticed its exceptionally high average rating on Backloggd, I decided to eventually give it a go. That was roughly a year ago, and despite how I've only just beaten the game a few minutes ago, that doesn't mean that I wasn't constantly thinking about how good it was all this time. Right from the very first frame, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective had me hooked, and I knew that I was playing something special long before I even reached the halfway mark. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is one of those games where I can barely put my love for it into words, as it accomplishes everything that it sets out to do with flying colors and does it all in such a charming, unique and lovable way.

Above all else, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a combination of a visual novel and a puzzle game, and not only was I surprised by just how well this combination ended up working, but also how each of these two main elements of the game were executed perfectly. The gameplay consists of possessing and manipulating objects in order to save people's lives, access new areas, and just generally progress the narrative, and I thought that these mechanics were awesome. On top of being a brilliant use of the touchscreen on the Nintendo DS, the actual puzzles are all incredibly well-designed, and the amount of satisfaction that came from their "Aha!" moments made me feel like an absolute genius for solving them each and every time. Along with the fun gameplay and terrific puzzles, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective features a gripping and superbly written storyline. Every single member of the game's cast is linked together in some way, and it helps that the characters were all incredibly likable and loaded with eccentricities. What starts out as a quest to find out more about the protagonist's past turns into a sprawling mystery filled with jaw-dropping twists, but despite just how many directions the game's story went in, all of its many plot points came together brilliantly, and the game's lighthearted sense of humor had me laughing the whole way through while still knowing when to be serious in order to have its emotional moments be as impactful as possible.

Although the mystery plot and the puzzle gameplay were the two core elements of what made Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective work so well for me, that doesn't mean that they were all that it had to offer. Like everything else on display here, the presentation of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective oozes with personality, as both the music and the visuals were terrific in their own ways. This game has some excellent art direction, as the distinct character designs meshed really well with their lively in-game animations. Masakazu Sugimori's music here was also incredible, as pretty much every song is catchy and funky while still perfectly matching their context within the story and the puzzles. I loved absolutely everything about Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, and I'm really glad that it's getting a multi-platform remaster this June, as it means that more people will get to experience this wonderful game.

Ghost Trick vive de una presentación superlativa, tanto que ella, casi solita, levanta lo que sería un original y simpático pero algo insípido y reiterativo juego de puzzles con historia extra-rocambolesca.

Pienso en la fisicalidad de los personajes, siempre completos en pantalla y de lenguaje corporal expresivamente animado; pienso en sus muy claras y particulares expresiones faciales, representadas en las ilustraciones que les dan cara (y que cambian siempre acompañadas de característicos efectos de sonido); y pienso en cómo el apartado sonoro genera tanta personalidad (con pegadizas melodías asociadas a los diversos personajes) e intensidad dramática (con esos cortes y cambios y crescendos musicales, y el sonido con el que se enfatizan y exaltan las líneas de diálogo).

Y todo esto como vehículo a un efecto de constante cliffhanging, con una trama basada en plantear enigmas que se resuelven formulando otros nuevos. Uno juega Ghost Trick completamente sumergido por el ansia de obtener respuestas. Y el juego las da, solo que cuando lo hace plantea nuevas preguntas, atrapándonos en su sucesión de intrigas interconectadas espectacularmente potenciadas por la presentación, que lleva cada nueva revelación a muy altas cotas de intensidad.

I'm a huge fan of Shu Takumi's work, and this is his style perfected. Consistently engaging and hilarious. The mystery that unravels throughout the story is more creative and deep than any Ace Attorney case.

For most of the game I keep thinking "it's not getting any crazier than this, right?". And every time it suprises me in a new amazing way. Despite how many twists and turns it takes, it never feels pretentious or confusing in the slightest.

Not to mention the 'puzzles' in this game are their own rube goldberg machines that feel amazing to solve each and every time. I'm trying to remain vague in this review so that anyone who wants to potentially play it has the same experience I got when playing this. Where I more or less knew nothing going into it. Please give it a try, it's not that long too. It's shorter than the average length of a final case in a modern Ace Attorney game, but infinitely more satisfying.

Testing bilingual reviews on here.

---------- Português ----------

Me decepciona mais no que poderia ter sido do que me impressiona pelos seus méritos - principalmente, sua identidade visual fantástica. Linear assim como uma máquina de Rube Goldberg que tanto o inspira; só tendo graça na primeira vez que o maquinário se desenrola - rebobinagens travam as engrenagens e te forçam a seguir o caminho restrito que tanto comprime o jogo. Adoraria ver as mesmas mecânicas sendo aplicadas em um jogo cuja filosofia de design fosse mais aberta. Quanto ao mistério, não acho que me importou muito em momento algum, porém escalou bem a tensão do jogo nas fases finais. Missile carrega o elenco.

---------- English ----------

It disappointed me in what it could have been more than it impressed me by its merits - mainly, its amazing visual identity. Linear as a Rube Goldberg machine which inspires it so; it only amazes in its first run - rewinds slow down the gears and force you to follow a strangling, rigid path. I’d love to see these same mechanics (time rewind; travelling through machine-like mazes) being applied in a game with a more open-ended design philosophy. As for the mystery: it didn’t really stick to me at any point, even though it scaled the pacing and the tension well enough at the final chapters. Missile hard carries the cast here.

meow
this game is like ace attorney but 10 times better its insane
these characters are filled to the brim with charm, every one of their interactions never feels wasted or there for the sake of padding out the game
also the artstyle is great for this game, very animated and it fits perfectly for a game like this
the puzzle solving is alright, most of them are fine but some feel too easy or too ridiculous to solve
or maybe im just dumb idk
however i feel like this is one of the games that just works perfectly with the touch screen, moving around and tapping shit to interact with the enviroment always feels satisfying
the whole mystery in this game is absolutely amazing as well, the twists are slightly foreshadowed but when they are revealed, the foreshadows and the actual twists themselves are always mindblowing
especially the lamp one at the end, i never saw it coming
this is definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of detective/puzzle solving games in general, and is defo one of the best games to ever hit the DS