I'm conflicted on this game. On one hand, I love Shu Takumi's humor and style. I also love the Ace Attorney-like music, the beautiful animations, and the character designs.

That said, I didn't enjoy the game's story. The conclusion was too clichéd and there were some plot holes here and there.

The puzzles also weren't that great. All of them can be solved by just trial and error.

I want more games like this, but some parts still need perfecting. Still, it's good to see a big company like Capcom tackling a niche genre, so I commend them for that.

Tenia este juego en el punto de mira desde hace tiempo, dado que venía del creador de Ace Attorney y madre mía, ¿Cómo es qué no lo he jugado antes?

Lo mejor que podéis hacer es jugarlo sin saber nada, porque madre del cordero los giritos que va pegando.... Que buenísima
historia, así en corto.

P.D.: Missile se ha ganado por derecho propio un huequecito en mi corazón ❤️

Shu Takumi really has a thing for detective games involving talking to deceased people featuring a wacky team of legal workers and criminals centered around a grand conspiracy reaching back generations that you aren't told about until the very end, huh. I guess after replaying Ace Attorney 4 and the Great Ace Attorney, plus thinking about Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright, I didn't really end up that invested in this story cause Shu Takumi really likes making this one type of story again and again.

But, gotta say, pretty good story this time around. The narrative never forgets the central mystery (despite how hard it tries to), the events of the game are engaging and present the MANY plot twists in a fun way, the conspiracy is easy to follow and explains every element of the strange game in it's own weird way, and even the themes manage to remain ever present without showing themselves too early. Then even the gameplay hits a nice sweet spot for mystery/puzzle games, where you want the player to experiment and try solutions within the rules without gaining access to information they shouldn't have yet, plus creating interesting consequences of these rules that will be brought up later to create new puzzles.

Shu Takumi's (well I have to assume it was him given he's the only credit that could possibly be in charge of this) story is classically wacky and weird in his usual style, and unfortunately this time it leads to much more of his usual unnecessary explanations or annoying conveniences. It was very satisfying to remember or realise something about the plot of this game directly before getting more details on that point, however it slowly turned pedantic as the game made sure you fully understood what the next plot element or explanation was in greater belittling detail the further you play (figuring out who the justice minister was ahead of time and what directly happens after that felt cool, until the game told you unnecessarily). And I understand this is me going into great detail about a nitpick, however this is how it feels whenever the game explains every scenario, nitpicks or not. That's before even addressing the time travel problems that always show up, conveniences of chance, and the overabundance of dialogue reiterating what is going on.

The music consists of very rock-spun ds detective sounding pieces all in a similar style to Ace Attorney, the sound effects are literally an alternate world's version of Ace Attorney sounds, but the visuals take a fun classic limited 3D turn into something from New Super Mario Bros that's always fun to look at. Animations are fluid (on this version) and expressive, popping straight out of the 2D-3D blend of backgrounds that look straight out of nothing, I can't think of a comparison it's just that uniquely stylized.

I don't know though, despite all my ramblings of 'idk pretty good, reaches just above a passing grade', this game reminds me how weird and wacky games can be. Why does this game exist? Fun, first and foremost. Every minor or major problem I had with this game was overriden by the things it does well that other games don't usually worry about that much. There's always something happening in the mystery so it's constantly recontextualising your understanding of what's happening, when most other mystery games I've played all work off a basic unchanging understanding of what's going on. New information is always being added (during investigation) whether it's useful or not, where other games give you information to confirm other pieces of information you already have. This game works off your pattern recognition to see connections through coincidence, adding on top of how other games work with your pattern recognition to follow more complex lines of reasoning than what had proceeded and to use the mechanics available to you in more complex scenarios. It's fresh (despite being over a decade old) and stretches some brain muscles that have been lying atrophied outside the 'safe' zone for mystery game design. And this isn't a dig at other mystery/puzzle games, just something nice to have and made this experience uniquely exciting to experience, covering over the problems this different style creates.

I don't know how to end reviews. Um... game good :)... uhh :|... Writing spoiler-free reviews of mystery games is limiting, but it's very much worth it to keep you following the logic in finding the conclusion along with the game. And damn, this one fun journey.

Really makes you feel like, wait what? Why did you barge into my house, can I help you? Did the lamp just move? Ghost Trick? What are you talking about, get out of my house. I'm going to call the police under my comical anvil hanging from a thread. Wait when did that pair of scissors get there?

Look no shade if you loved this game as a kid or whatever but as an adult I found the writing to be god awful trope-y anime bs. I hate the dialogue, I hate how every single text box has one of like three different dings to indicate emotion, the plot is somehow contrived/full of plot holes yet completely predictable, only a couple character designs manage to be good while the rest are either bad or outright offensive, the "puzzles" do not require you to use your brain and instead force you to trial and error things you couldn't possibly know beforehand... I dunno man. how is this so highly regarded?

Back on the Nintendo DS, I remember thinking that this game was a masterpiece. It was funny and it had quirky characters, an interesting storyline, and awesome music. I guess for a Nintendo DS game, it was a big deal. At the time, the gameplay felt innovative. Unfortunately, now that I've replayed it on Xbox One, I don't feel as positive about it.

In this game, you play as Sissel, a ghost who's trying to find his lost memories. Being a ghost, you can't directly interact with people, but you have a special ability (called a "trick") to act on small objects. You can do things like, for example, turn off a lamp or press a button.

The game's goal is to solve "puzzles" using these "Ghost Tricks". The puzzles are varied, but most of them involve saving someone's life or helping someone escape.

The good:
The game is addictive. Every chapter is interesting and ends in a cliffhanger, making you want more.

The puzzles are fun to figure out. You can move different objects and it's always fun to see how interacting with something will affect the stage.

The music is good. There are exciting and sad tracks which capture the mood of the scenes. It sounds very similar to Ace Attorney's music.

The animations are fluid and the art is varied and colorful.

The bad:
The story was a complete disappointment. It's full of plot holes and for a mystery game, this had a very unsatisfactory conclusion. The story deals with time travel, so by the end it's confusing and nonsensical. I'm not a fan of inconsistent time travel stories and couldn't really look past its flaws this time around.

The sliding puzzles which are an optional feature added in this release, are boring and add nothing of value to the game. Plus the music in them is repetitive.

The game also has a 4:3 (I think) aspect ratio despite being in HD. I think the reason for this is that the developers thought making the game widescreen would ruin the puzzles? Not sure about it but it's disappointing.

Finally, the controls suffer on the transition to home consoles. On the Nintendo DS, you could move Sissel using the stylus, so it was easy to accurately move him from one object to another, but here you need to use the stick and it's not as precise.

Conclusion:
I can't say that I didn't like the game, but I liked it less than the first time I played it. However, I think it was nice of Capcom to give such a niche game a second chance. I just feel that, after playing multiple visual novels and adventure games, this one didn't land as well for me. If it gets a sequel, I hope we get a better story.

The only criticism I can make about Ghost Trick is that it's very done when it's done. This is barely even a criticism! Every aspect of it is so tightly wrapped up, tied into a perfect knot, with no answers left and every aspect explained. It's like a good whodunnit, and once you know who done it, well, that's sort of it isn't it!

But imagine it's the best whodunnit you've ever read, and it's also an extremely clever point and click adventure with the verbage of a contraption game. Imagine it has the best dog who is the goodest boy and an author pet-insert. No actually, the dog is just the writer's dog, and he's such a good boy.

Try to play it without spoilers because the game has so many plot twists! And they're all so fun, so enjoyable, so delicious! The characters are fun and a delight.