| Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective | |
|---|---|
North American box art |
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| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Director(s) | Shu Takumi |
| Producer(s) | Hironobu Takeshita |
| Artist(s) | Koki Kinoshita |
| Writer(s) | Shu Takumi |
| Composer(s) | Masakazu Sugimori |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo DS, iOS |
| Release date(s) | Nintendo DS iOS |
| Genre(s) | Adventure, Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | |
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Japanese: ゴースト トリック Hepburn: Gōsuto Torikku) is an adventure game developed by Capcom for the Nintendo DS and iOS.[3] The lead development was handled by Shu Takumi, the creator of the Ace Attorney series. The game is published by Capcom and was released for the Nintendo DS in Japan on June 19, 2010, in North America on January 11, 2011 and in Europe on January 14, 2011. A version for iOS was released in Japan on December 16, 2010.[3]
Contents |
Players control Sissel, a ghost who has special abilities called Ghost Tricks. As a spirit, Sissel can switch between the Land of the Living, where time runs its course, and the Ghost world, where time stands still. In Ghost mode, Sissel can travel between various objects within his reach, represented by blue cores, as well as communicate with the spirits of corpses, who have yellow cores. Sissel can only travel within a certain radius from an object, meaning the player must connect through multiple objects to reach things that are farther away. When possessing certain inanimate objects, players can perform Ghost Tricks while outside of Ghost mode in order to perform actions that open new paths or invoke certain reactions from characters required to progress through the story. For example, moving a tray of donuts will prompt a character to change where he/she is currently seated, as well as giving Sissel access to new areas. Sissel can also possess phones to listen in on phone calls and travel through communication lines to other areas, although during the past, he can only travel while someone is speaking on the phone. He is also able to talk to people who he has rescued before.
By interacting with a dead body, Sissel can travel to four minutes before that character was killed. The player must use Sissel's Ghost Tricks to open up new paths so they can change the victim's fate. Some sections include moments where the player must race against a short timer in order to save the victim. If a player makes a mistake or is unable to save the victim in time, he can rewind time back to the start, or from the last point fate was altered. Later in the game, players can switch control to Missile, the ghost of a small dog. Missile's spirit has a longer reach than Sissel, and has the ability to swap the position of two objects that are the same shape.[4]
Sissel, the spirit of a recent murder victim, wakes up to realize that he is dead, and has also lost his memories. The only lead he can see is a young detective named Lynne, who is then killed by an assassin. However, upon talking to another spirit named Ray, Sissel learns he possesses the ability to perform Ghost Tricks, in which he can possess inanimate objects, and can travel to four minutes before a person's death and alter their fate. Using these tricks, Sissel manages to rescue Lynne, who is investigating something big happening this night while being under suspicion of murder. With Ray's warning that his soul will disappear come dawn, Sissel decides to team up with Lynne in order to help each other. As Sissel continues his investigation, he saves Lynne several times, along with a dog named Missile. Eventually, Sissel stumbles upon security cam footage that allegedly shows him being killed by Lynne, but he continues to help her out despite this knowledge. Meanwhile, Lynne asks Sissel to help out a former detective named Jowd, who was put on death row after an incident concerning his daughter Kamila led to the death of his wife.
After managing to delay Jowd's execution, Sissel soon learns that Kamila had been kidnapped by the organization that targeted Lynne and arranged for Jowd's execution. They also learn of the existence of a "manipulator", who allegedly caused the death of Kamila's mother. While continuing to find ways to save people and rescue Kamila, Sissel once again encounters Missile, who had died once again but has gained the Ghost Trick of swapping similarly shaped objects and decides to help Sissel rescue Kamila. Soon, they find that the body that Sissel thought was his own is walking around and has his own set of Ghost Tricks. It is revealed this man was involved in an incident ten years ago in which he took Lynne hostage while escaping from Jowd, but was killed by a strange meteorite shard with strange properties, the radiation of which gives spirits their Ghost Tricks, his being to manipulate living beings. Sissel, Missile, Jowd and Lynne go to a submarine where the mysterious man tries to possess Kamila and attack Lynne, but is betrayed by the organization leader, Sith, who steals the meteorite within his body and tries to sink the submarine with everyone in it. After getting Lynne and Kamila to safety, Sissel once again encounters the manipulator now known as Yomiel. He explains his motives for revenge, which included controlling Lynne to shoot himself and making a deal with the organization to get Jowd executed. Refusing to give up in a seemingly hopeless situation, Sissel and Missile ride a torpedo over to an escape pod where they find Jowd dead and Yomiel's lifeless body and travel back 10 years to the four minutes before his death, where the three of them use their combined Ghost Tricks to stop Yomiel from being killed by the meteorite, thus rewriting everyone's fate from that point onwards.
Following this, it is revealed that Sissel's true identity is that of Yomiel's pet cat, who was accidentally killed when he manipulated Lynne to shoot at him. Ray also appears and reveals himself to be an older version of Missile from an alternate future in which he was unable to change anyone's fate, but managed to travel back in time and teach Sissel about his Ghost Tricks in order to set things right. He also reveals that he lied about "disappearing by dawn" so that Sissel would solve the mystery in one night, before Yomiel was to be trapped at the bottom of the sea, at which point it would have been impossible to reach Yomiel and stop his death. Sissel returns to a new present, in which he is a happy cat living with Jowd's family, but still is a kitten and having Ghost Tricks due to having a meteor fragment embedded in him 10 years ago, and is soon reunited with Lynne, while Yomiel finishes his prison sentence, going back to fiancee.
Development was handled by the creator of the Ace Attorney series, Shu Takumi. "I first thought of this idea about five years ago," Takumi told Famitsu magazine. "We were working on the third Ace Attorney and figured it was time to start thinking about the next thing. So I came up with a plan to make a new type of mystery, something different in style from Ace Attorney."[5] The game was originally titled as "Ghost Spy", and was later renamed as "Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective".[6]
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 84%[7] |
| Metacritic | 83 / 100[8] |
| GameStats | 9.0 / 10[9] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| 1UP.com | A[10] |
| Famitsu | 34 / 40[11] |
| Game Revolution | B[7] |
| GamesMaster | 90%[7] |
| GameSpot | 9.0 / 10[12] |
| GamesRadar | 8 / 10[13] |
| GameTrailers | 8.5 / 10[14] |
| GameZone | 8.5 / 10[7] |
| IGN | 8.5 / 10[15] |
| Nintendo Power | 9 / 10[7] |
| Nintendo World Report | 9.5 / 10[7] |
Ghost Trick was the second best-selling video game in Japan during its release week at 24,000 copies.[20] It dropped to number nine the following week with an additional 20,000 copies sold, and then to number 22 for its third week.[21][22] Capcom has listed the game as a contributor to the low sales of its first quarter of its 2010 fiscal year.[23] Results from a poll conducted by Dengeki showed that Japanese gamers found Ghost Trick to be the 13th most interesting game for the first half of 2010.[24]
Ghost Trick has received mostly positive reviews, with an average score of 9.0 out of 10 on GameStats,[9] an average score of 85% on GameRankings,[7] and a current Metascore of 83 out of 100.[8] 1UP.com editor Justin Haywald rated the game an A, praising Ghost Trick's puzzles and story. But he points out that, "The concept is novel and fun, though you might feel occasionally frustrated by the trial-and-error process to get at a solution." Ultimately, the story's quick "concise plotting and entertaining puzzles" helped elevate the overall experience.[10] Famitsu gave the game a score of 34 out of 40.[11] IGN gave the game a score of 8.5 and an Editor's Choice award, praising the game's mechanics and animation, although notes that it "gets a little wordy sometimes."[15] GamesRadar gave the game 8 out of 10, praising the gameplay and characters while criticising some trial-and-error and some frustrating puzzles.[13] GameTrailers gave the game a score of 8.5 out of 10.[14] GameSpot gave the game a score of 9.0 out of 10, praising unique gameplay and memorable characters.[12]
The game was nominated for Best DS Game of E3 2010 by GameTrailers, though lost to another Capcom game, Ōkamiden.[25] GameSpot gave Ghost Trick the awards for "Best Handheld Game"[16] and "Best Game No One Played,"[17] while also nominating it for the "Best Puzzle Game"[26] and "Game of the Year"[27] categories. The game also won the award for "Best Nintendo DS Game" of 2011 from GameTrailers.[18] Ghost Trick has also been nominated for an Annie Award in the "Best Animated Video Game" category, alongside another adventure game Catherine.[28] GameRadar included Ghost Trick in its list of the top 25 Nintendo DS games of all time.[29] GameTrailers nominated Ghost Trick for the "Best Story" award.[30] GameZone gave it the "Nintendo DS Game of the Year" award.[19]
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