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As a result of some friends throwing a geeky movie-watching-marathon, I recently found myself on a 4 hour train trip to the Netherlands. A perfect opportunity to work on my game-commitment.
You see, I've been having single-game commitment issues lately. Between great titles such as Skyrim and Xenoblade and beloved indies like Cave Story+ and Jamestown, I've had a hard time being loyal to any one game for an extended period. Because of this, nothing ever gets finished and I feel kinda bad about that. So being stuck on a train with my DS for four hours (and another four hours traveling back) was the perfect time to play one game and one game only, this time to the end. The game I chose was Ghost Trick. And it was on!
A race against time
I never realized what an appropriate choice Ghost Trick was for my train-trip gaming odyssey. With the countryside speeding away and clocks in every station, Ghost trick offers exactly that; a story about time. As the game opens, the main character, with the somewhat unfortunate name of Sissel, has just died. Sissel (who is cool enough to wear shades even after his death) has until dawn before his spirit disappears. Before that happens he wants to find the answer to the biggest question on his mind: How did his hair come to take on such a gravity-defying shape? Or... I mean: Who killed him and why?
A friendly desk lamp (I’m not making this up!) explains to him that even though he is dead, he has some nifty powers that he can use on his mission. In a way he’s like a ghost super-hero! He can move between objects and manipulate them, poltergeist style. And if he finds the body of a recently diseased person (not being his own) he can go back in time to four minutes before they died and try to change history. This comes in handy as the key to his mystery seems to be a perky red-head with a penchant for dying in increasingly over-the-top ways.
Dead, but never dull
Now adventure-game puzzles (and Ghost Trick certainly is an adventure game) come in two categories for me. There’s the "Aha! That makes sense!" moments and the "What on earth was the designer thinking?" ones. I’m happy to report that almost all the puzzles in Ghost Trick fall in the first category. Simply moving around is often a puzzle. Sissel can only possess certain objects and sometimes the place you’ll want to go to is juuuust out of his reach, requiring some clever thinking to get ahead. Fortunately our ghostly protagonist soon learns that he can move over phone lines. Telephone calls serve as both plot- and waypoints in the game, opening up new locations for Sissel to explore.
On occasion Sissel will find himself retroactively wanting to save someone from death. To do this, he can change the last four minutes of the unfortunate victim’s life. These are the main puzzles of the game. First you’ll watch a short cut-scene, demonstrating what happened during those fateful four minutes. Then you get to play them, trying to change the outcome. Sissel can repeat this as often as it takes to save the person, creating an excuse for trial-and-error gameplay, while remaining consistent with the story. And there’s a lot of trial-and-error. Sometimes you’ll find yourself wanting to fail, since a bad outcome can give a critical hint that will help fix the situation. This can get a bit annoying, and in fact was getting a bit much annoying, until I found out that there’s a way to fast-forward through the dialogue. In a game this full of conversations - often the same one several times- that’s a very good option to have!
If the above made the game sound a bit repetitive and boring, that’s far from the truth. The story is full of twists, the characters are creative and interesting and the puzzles, though often requiring repetition, never took me so long as to grow bored. The difficulty is pretty well balanced and the game gives you just enough hints not to get stuck too long, but still feel quite satisfied at figuring out the solution.
Dancing through life - or death, as the case may be
While I’m at it, I must say something about the animation. It’s been widely praised and for good reason. The colours are vibrant and there’s a lot of energy in the smooth way the characters move across the screen. From an eccentric detective who literally dances through life, to a rollerskating waitress, the animation looks gorgeous. You really get the sense that the art-team had a good time working on creating these characters, many of whom would be prime candidates for the ministry of silly walks. There's an attention to small details that makes the characters come to live, even more than the pretty, but static portraits that are used for most conversations.
The music doesn't quite stand out as much, but serves its purpose in supporting the animation and creating a tense atmosphere during the four-minute sequences or certain conversations. The game also makes good use of silence, cutting out the music entirely during some of the biggest plot twists, putting emphasis on what's happening on the screen.
I hear that Shu Takumi, the creator of the Ace Attorney series is also responsible for this game and that there are some similarities. Unfortunately I can’t say how it compares, as I’ve yet to play those games. But if they’re as refreshing and vibrant as Ghost Trick, you can bet that I’ll be checking them out soon. My DS isn't going back into the closet just yet!
Four minutes
So did I reach my goal? Did I manage to stick with a game until the end? I am happy to report that yes, yes I did. It seems that my curse of not-finishing games, is finally over. And I can recommend the experience to everyone out there with a love for adventure games. Should you find yourself going on a long trip with nothing but a DS to keep you company? Go pick up this game and you’ll have enough fun to make four hours feel like four minutes. Not a bad way to travel!
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Железный комиссар
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
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Re: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Haunting furniture and saving redheads
Great review. I started playing this with my fiancee sometime last May, but since we both enjoyed it we wanted to play it together and that became kind of cumbersome on the DS. I plan to circle back around to it this year.
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James Fung
United States
Berkeley
California
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Re: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Haunting furniture and saving redheads
Your review got me to start a new playthrough of Ghost Trick.
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Re: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Haunting furniture and saving redheads
JohnRayJr wrote: Great review. I started playing this with my fiancee sometime last May, but since we both enjoyed it we wanted to play it together and that became kind of cumbersome on the DS. I plan to circle back around to it this year.
Yeah, the DS isn't the best system to play games together on (small screen/viewing angles and all that). My boyfriend and I usually rotate if we both want to play a DS game at the same time. You could try taking turns playing the chapters? Ghost Trick has a very useful chapter-select system that lets you play any chapter that's already been finished once.
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Re: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Haunting furniture and saving redheads
fusag wrote: Your review got me to start a new playthrough of Ghost Trick.
Glad to hear it! IMO the game is well worth it. Hope you have fun! And if you've already finished it once, knowing how everything fits together might give you a different view on the story during a re-play. 
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Posted Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:51 am
