Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

A mysterious death occurs in a junkyard on the outskirts of town. The recently murdered quickly awakens to see the death of a red head and decides to try and save the woman with his new found spirit powers. Thus begins the quest to try and regain his lost memories and why he was killed.
 
Ghost Trick Phantom Detective is an adventure style game released for the Nintendo DS on January 2011 for North America. Developed by Capcom under the helm of Shu Takumi of Ace Attorney fame, there are many similarities between Ace Attorney and this game. Just as Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick is a rather linear game yet it does have a bit more openness in traveling around. While it could be considered a visual novel, Ghost Trick is more of a puzzle game where you interact with objects to make certain things happen. Ghost Trick is a continual set of Rube Goldberg machines, where doing one thing causes an action to make another thing happen.

Main Plot:
You witness the death of yourself and are revived as a ghost trying to figure out who you were and why you were killed. Of course though your journey, mysteries will unfold and you will have to witness other deaths and prevent them from happening. 

Game-play:
A touch based game where you control your spirit and move between objects. Upon reaching some objects you can interact with them to change the world. Generally the main point is to reach from one end to the other.

Why it's special: 
This game is something fresh and new from Shu Takumi, who has spent so much time on working on the Ace Attorney series. It reflects that this game is something new for Takumi because the writing and characters are all memorable.

 Plus One:
Writing: As with the Ace Attorney series, Ghost Trick is a very text heavy game. With so much reading, the writing had better be quality. The writing does not disappoint, continually interesting with twists and turns.  

The puzzles: The puzzles are actually quite interesting yet the difficulty does ramp up in the later part of the game. There are some openness to some of the puzzles which is great to see because it does not force a player to solve a puzzle in an exact manner, which can easily cause frustration if one small thing is off.

The art: The art in this game is rather unique. It took me awhile to warm up to the art of this game because it is rather different. Yet after getting used to it I could appreciate how much detail was put into every scene. Every location is packed with unique objects that make it memorable and feel fresh.

Animations: While Ghost Trick is a 2D game all the characters have a unique animation that makes them special. From different dances to different styles of walking, each character has some sort of quirk to make them stand out.

Details: Details, details, details, this game is really packed with so many details. Sometimes it feels like you are drowning in information because the game gives you so many details.

Minus One:
Background characters: At any given location there are a multitude of characters doing their own thing. While good to see so much put into the game to make it seem populated, it does sometimes get a bit hectic. These background characters are sometimes given what seems like more importance yet serve not much in the long run.

Difficulty: Towards the later part of the game the puzzles become difficult because many are time based. Having time based events increases the difficulty requiring some puzzles to be repeated an excruciating amount of times.

The story: The story is interesting and keeps the player interested in seeing how it all ends. Yet the one gripe that I do have is that the writers have written it in a way that makes it hard for a sequel. Some games are meant to be a stand alone game, but this is not one of them because there are some plot points not resolved.

The twist: There is one major twist that comes at the end of the game. I won't spoil the twist for anyone wanting to play the game but it does feel a bit forced.

One for all:
Overall Ghost Trick is a very good game. Ghost Trick is great because how fresh it feels. There are some problems but they are not big enough to ruin the overall game. The story for Ghost Trick is interesting throughout and make for a very enjoyable experience. Ghost Trick is a game that seemed more like an experiment but after playing through it, it left me wanting more.