Ghost Trick is a summer beach read in video game form

theverge.com:

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is 2023’s perfect summer video game.

Now, you might be wondering how I could call a Switch port of a Nintendo DS game from 2010 “perfect” (the game’s also available on PS4, Xbox One, and Steam) over any of the games actually released this year, like Diablo IV or Final Fantasy XVI. But while I enjoyed both of those games, I actually don’t think either are ideal summer games for two reasons.

Their hardware requirements force you to play them indoors. Therefore, a perfect summer game must instead:

Be portable (Yes, I know you can play Diablo IV on your Steam Deck with a bit of work, but level with me here.)

Ghost Trick was directed by Shu Takumi, the same developer who created the Ace Attorney series, which explains why Ghost Trick feels very much like Ace Attorney while also being wildly different in every way.

For starters, in Ghost Trick, you’re not solving other people’s murders but your own. Also, you’re not doing the solving in a courtroom but at the scene of the crime. In Ghost Trick, you play as a recently departed ghost who must use his newfound powers of matter manipulation to solve his murder by saving the people around him from their own untimely deaths. Each life you save (notice I said “life” not “person,” remember this) brings you that much closer to the truth of your own life and death.

You save lives via your ability to rewind time to four minutes before a death and by interacting with common objects, aka the titular “ghost tricks.” Thwart an assassin by shining a spotlight in his face or stop a death row inmate’s execution via