Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Review (PS4) | Push Square

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If you like Ace Attorney, you should play Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. It's as simple as that. You may already have done so, since the point-n'-click visual novel hybrid originally launched over a decade ago. However, this remaster is the perfect opportunity to either revisit the cult hit on modern hardware, or discover it for the very first time — and we'd suggest you do so. Ghost Trick is every bit as compelling and charming as its better-known stablemate, and thanks to its supernatural premise, its story goes to even weirder and wilder places.

The game begins as the hero of the tale is shot dead in a dingy junkyard. Learning your name to be Sissel, you awaken as a spirit with no memory of your life, or even who you are. All you know is what's onscreen: a dead body, a woman, and an assassin who's about to kill her. Fortunately, in your ghostly form, you have access to supernatural abilities, which you can use to affect the land of the living in small but meaningful ways.

You can possess objects within reach, and many of those can be «tricked» — minor interactions or movements that can have surprisingly major results. Often, you'll need to create a path through a stage for yourself, like flipping open a folding cot, or moving a trolley along the floor. Other tricks are smaller — wobbling a bowl, opening a bin — which can be used to distract characters or cause various chained effects. Swapping between the ghost world and the living world can get a bit tedious towards the end, but overall it's a fine system. Anyway, it's these interactions you'll need to toy with in each level to progress the story.

But that isn't all you can do. You can also travel through phone lines to any discovered locations, but most