Ghost Trick

I read about this puzzle game a few years ago in a magazine and was extremely interested, but couldn't find it anywhere at the time. About two months back I finally stumbled upon this gem amidst Zhu-Zhu Pets -games and the like. I was delighted, especially as the price was very low. After trying it for the first time, I knew I  had spent my money well.

Ghost Trick was developed by Capcom and released in Japan in June 2010, and released in Europe and the States in January 2011. It was developed for the Nintendo DS and iOS systems.  I myself played the game on my DS, so I can't give any comments on the iOS version. The puzzle game was developed by Shu Takumi, the creator of the Ace Attorney series.

As the title suggests, Ghost Trick has a lot to do with spirits. Most importantly, you're a spirit yourself. It didn't come off as a surprise, since it states so on the back of the game box, but it was a tad weird to start the game with a dead character. You wake up as spirit and you remember nothing, not even your name. You find a corpse nearby, and assume it is yours, taking it's appearance. Before the game really begins, a shady lamp guides you through the controls. As a spirit, you can possess anything that has a core and move through areas utilising this skill. Some objects can also be manipulated in certain ways.

Right away you get to save a life, which is what you'll be doing for the majority of the game. A policewoman, Lynne, gets shot, and you can save her with another of your skills. When encountering a dead body, you are able to turn back time and return to 4 minutes before the person's demise. In that time you can manipulate objects and attempt to change the person's fate. 

During the game your ultimate objective is to regain your memories and find out who you truly are and how you died. In the process you end up saving a lot of people, especially Lynne, who seems to keep dying. Even though it may feel repetitive to save lives over and over, the ways to do it vary. In several cases you really need to use your noodle or you'll never come up with the right solution. That's what, in my opinion, keeps the game fresh despite the repetition. 

The plot in itself is very intriguing, and it's difficult to know what the next twist will bring along. Every now and then a new tidbit of information is revealed, which pretty much turns everything upside down. My only critique on it is that everything is unfurled right at the end instead of the plot beginning to unravel itself on its own accord. I felt like the latter would have been more interesting, but I still enjoyed the story greatly, despite some poor execution at the end.

Gameplay, being on the DS, was pretty much poking things. The actual methods weren't groundbreaking, but I guess most of the interesting tricks have already been used. The DS after all isn't endlessly versatile. Though a bit monotonous, the controls still worked well. My only real complaint was that sometimes the game didn't register my taps, but that may have been my old console and it's battered touch-screen.

Before I wrap this up, I just want to point out that the characters are wonderfully wacky, and the animation in the game is mindbogglingly smooth. The game just looks fantastic, contributing further to how much I actually enjoyed it.

Ghost Trick has an interesting plot, a good concept, basic controls that are easy to learn and the game looks terrific. However some puzzles are insanely difficult and the plot unravels to slow, dumping all out at the end and the game doesn't always respond to the touch-screen. That's why I'd give this one a 9/10.