Cute Chronicles – Ghost Trick

Su-per mystery hunting ghost time!

I’ve been ghost hunting with Luigi’s Mansion 2 for a little while now. Playing it in the dark on the 3DS feels a lot like being younger and reading Goosebumps – pretend scary. But it’s not my favourite portable ghost story – that honour goes to Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, a game which is sadly often overlooked. It won Gamespot’s ‘Best Game No One Played’ award in 2011.

Shu Takami, creator of the Ace Attorney series, was lead developer for this game, which probably explains why I like it so much. In the first few moments of the game, there’s a murder. Sissel has been killed, and when he wakes up he has no idea who he is or why he was killed, only that there’s a female detective who may be his only lead. Unfortunately, this female is killed by an assassin – you watch the scene play out and can do nothing about it. Luckily, it turns out that Sissel can perform Ghost Tricks, meaning that he can travel back in time a few minutes before a death and possess inanimate objects in an effort to change the outcome. He does this to save the detective, Lynne, and then embarks on an adventure to find out who wanted him dead before he disappears to the afterlife at dawn.

Manipulating things and then watching the scenario play out to your advantage is really satisfying, especially when you beat the time limit

The game presents you with an intriguing mystery, and an equally interesting way of solving it. Sissel can possess objects within a certain range, and make certain objects do certain things. By manipulating the environment, Sissel can change the outcome and save a life. To use some general examples: maybe making a phone ring will cause a person to move to answer it, which means they aren’t where they were when everything went to hell; maybe a fan can be spun to catch an object which can be moved to activate something else; maybe a series of spotlights can be lit to push an assassin to a certain spot, where a heavy and droppable object can defeat them.

There’s a large element of trial and error to solving the puzzles, but manipulating things and then watching the scenario play out to your advantage is really satisfying, especially when you beat the time limit. The game’s story is also excellent – there’s a lot going on and the mystery deepens several levels before it is spectacularly resolved. Add to that an eye-catching art style, a little bit of humour and some lovely animations and you have a whole adventure puzzle package that’s worth playing. Plus it has lovely and funny animations just like this one:

As with most games of its kind, there are the devoted fans and then the people who don’t even know it exists; now you know it does, and there’s no excuse! It’s a few years old, but it’s definitely worth a look if you own a DS. And by now, it’s probably the same price as one of those Imagine games, and this one is way more worthy of your pennies.