Ghost Trick Review — The Fastest Visual Novel In the West » 30ninjas

Ghost Trick Review — The Fastest Visual Novel In the West

Share on Facebook posted 01-13-11 by Angelo D'Argenio

With the DS quickly approaching the end of its lifespan, publishers are scrambling to release their last hurrah for the most popular handheld of this generation. Ghost Trick is Capcom’s last hurrah, and it sums up much of what the DS did for portable gaming. The DS introduced touch-based gameplay, showed how effective simple mechanics and complex stories can be, and paved the way for the visual novel and point and click style adventure to make a comeback with games such as Phoenix Wright and 999. Ghost Trick does all of this, and it does it all well.

In Ghost Trick you take on the role of a detective that is investigating a series of assassinations. The only problem is you are already dead, and you’ve lost your memories to boot. So, as a ghost, you need to use your ghostly abilities to help the living and unravel the mystery behind your own death. This generally involves playing poltergeist via possessing inanimate objects, but also includes a hefty dose of time-travel, teleporting, and psychic communication.

Ghost Trick inhabits a strange ghost world between the realm of the puzzle game and the visual novel. In my opinion it can best be described as a “rapid fire visual novel. “ As is the case with most visual novels, the focus is primarily on the story. You will be spending a lot of time listening to characters talk, and watching scenes unfold. As always, listening to the plot gives you clues as to what to do next, and as you progress from scene to scene, the mostly linear plot unfolds before you.

However, Ghost Trick differs from other visual novels in that you aren’t simply sitting back and watching the scenes as they unfold. Instead, the scenes unfold around you in real time, and it’s up to you, the phantom detective, to interfere with the scene in some way that alters fate. For example, in the very beginning of the game, a young woman is about to get shot by an assassin, but you can distract this assassin by possessing a guitar, and later kill this assassin by dropping a wrecking ball on him. However, if you simply sit back and do nothing, the woman will get shot plain and simple. So it’s your job to alter her fate before the visual novel progresses to the point of her death.

The protagonist has a limited range of possession, so a lot of the game is altering the scene to get possessed items closer to each other. You’ll be possessing cots and unfolding them, extending ladders, piloting remote controlled planes, and more. The rest of the game is using your possession powers to either A, figure out clues behind the mystery, or B, alter fate in some way. Figuring out clues is as simple as possessing a book to read it or being in the right place at the right time to overhear a conversation. Altering fate is a bit harder and generally involve Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions between many possessed items.

Remember, the events of the game are unfolding as you play, so if you don’t act fast enough, people will die. The game even adds to this dramatic tension by showing you a countdown clock till death, displaying the last three seconds with huge numbers accompanying a booming sound effect for an extra bit of gravitas. Not to worry though, time stops when you choose what object to posses, but starts again if you perform any action with your possessed object. Many times you have to let time move forward in order to posses a certain object at just the right time, so you can’t use the time freeze as a crutch. If you fail you can always go back in time four minutes and try the whole thing all over again, and each time you fail the game gives you a bit of a hint as to what to do next.

The puzzle gameplay in Ghost Trick is fun, but really it’s the story and characters and even graphics that make the game worth playing. The animations are so fluid that I can’t really tell if they are sprites or flat polygonal models. They look good enough to be in a professional cartoon, well, Japanese cartoon. The movements of each character are exaggerated as much as their hairstyles, and every one of them has some sort of weird personality quirk that makes them more of a stereotype than a believable human being. It’s the type of characterization you normally see in a Japanese anime, so if you aren’t in to that sort of thing, then Ghost Trick probably isn’t for you.

However, if you are into that sort of thing, then Ghost Trick is an awesome game. It’s probably the first example of a visual novel style puzzle game that actually has a sense of urgency. The puzzles are thoughtful and watching your ghostly machinations play out on screen is enjoyable. The story is fun, and the characters are amusing, and really the whole mystery behind your death becomes pretty immersive after a while. The game never gets boring. You are constantly meeting new people and possessing new things as the game progresses. This is one of those games that you’ll want to play “just a bit longer” before going to bed, and soon you’ll have stayed up all night.

Final verdict? Well, I’m a sucker for a good visual novel, so obviously I’d say get the game. I think you should probably judge whether or not you should get the game on the same criteria. If you like games like Phoenix Wright, 999, Time Hollow, Professor Layton, so on so forth, then Ghost Trick is right up your alley. If not, well, you probably should have stopped reading this review when you first read the words “visual” and “novel.”