Review: Ghost Trick is a welcome resurrection but fans shouldn’t expect changes
When it was originally released on the DS back in 2010, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was destined to be one of those games cursed with ‘cult’ status.
Written and directed by Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi, the game’s combination of point-and-click puzzling and narrative-driven gameplay meant it only sold modestly despite being critically acclaimed in the east and west alike.
Rather fittingly though, the game (much like its protagonist) has been given one more chance to make a difference, even though those who haven’t played it before – which is almost everyone, to be fair – will get more out of it than long-time fans.
For the uninitiated, Ghost Trick opens with a shot of the corpse of Sissel, a man who’s just been freshly killed. Sissel’s spirit is then brought to life, and it’s up to the player to help him figure out what’s happened.
Sissel is armed with two special abilities. The first is the ability to perform ‘ghost tricks’, phantom powers that enable him to possess and interact with inanimate objects. His other ability is rewinding time – specifically, he can rewind back to four minutes before someone else dies.
The main aim throughout the game’s 18 chapters, then, is to move from object to object and manipulate them in certain ways to prevent these other characters’ deaths, continually rewinding time and reliving their last minutes until the solution is found.
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It’s a fun premise and one that plays well, despite the fact that the original game took place over two displays and had a touchscreen-based control system. The change to an analogue stick system works perfectly fine, meaning DS purists won’t have much to complain
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