Anyone who has read my reviews or followed my account for any short period knows that I absolutely love visual novels. I’ve always been an avid gamer and an avid reader, when I found out that you could combine the two of them and that people had done so quite incredibly, I bought in hook, line, and sinker. One of my favorite visual novel creators is Shu Takumi, creator of the Ace Attorney series. So, when Capcom remade his cult classic Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective in HD and released it on major consoles, I knew that my odd decision to put off finishing the game until I had beaten Great Ace Attorney Chronicles had bumbled its way into being a solid decision. I grabbed myself a copy and dove right in.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a game the vast majority of people have never even heard of, let alone played. So, seeing this game gets its flowers and a major announcement at a Sony PlayStation Showcase was beyond cool for this fan. The game released on June 30th and I would have gotten to this sooner if I hadn’t been two months into an unintentional remodel because I flooded my house. The point I’m trying to make here is that it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to play this game, it only matters that you eventually play it. It’s that good of a game.
If you’ve never played a Shu Takumi title before, you’re in for a treat. Takumi creates worlds and characters that are as absurd as they are endearing. Every character you meet is someone you’ll invariably remember. When most games rely on a robust cast of NPCs and cookie-cutter characters, Takumi has never met a character he couldn’t make memorable to some degree. The vibrancy of these characters almost makes the background settings pointless. Almost.
But even when you think something is almost pointless, Takumi finds a way to make it one of the game’s most important elements. Takumi accomplishes this by making your setting the only way you can traverse and human beings take a back seat to the background. I’ll explain in just a moment, I just wanted to highlight how Takumi loves to take things that people usually take for granted or as throwaways and turns them into the shining aspects of his work. I hope you’ll notice this if you end up picking up this title because of my review. If I pass one thing on to you, let it be that.
I promised an explanation of what all that meant and here it is. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a puzzle-based visual novel featuring a dead detective trying to solve his own murder and several other crimes that are seemingly unrelated before he ceases to exist the next morning. The character, named Sissel, can affect objects around him and even rewind people’s deaths to save them as long as they just died, and he only has four minutes to work after rewinding time. Saving people can mean killing other assassins or just making sure someone having a heart attack has their medication and a glass of water.
While you can only interact with certain people, the true fun is in solving the various different puzzles laid before you. The puzzles aren’t too terribly difficult, but one other thing Takumi is great at is his ability to introduce timing into puzzles. Sometimes you have to enter the ghost world at just the right time or pull a lever when someone is at a certain point on the screen or you’ll mess up your entire solution. It just adds a unique element to puzzles that you don’t often see in these types of games.
When it comes to the overall length and additions in the HD release, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective comes loaded with a good amount of extras, including the soundtrack, art, and a new puzzle game that they added as a bonus for beating the entire game. It’s nothing that will blow you away, but the soundtrack and illustrations for Takumi’s games are often half the gift he gives you with every new release. This isn’t a new release per se, but here’s to hoping that a re-release on more platforms leads to Capcom giving it a sequel.
This game is up there with some of my all-time favorites and it’s a short-enough romp that you can beat it on a good weekend, but it’s also got enough meat on the bones to make you feel like you got your money’s worth. Considering Capcom is only asking $39.99 for this title, it’s exactly the right price and possesses the right amount of fun to be a gift to someone you love, if you happen to be in the market. It’s the perfect game for the Switch and a plane flight of 3 or more hours.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a must-own for any gamer. The characters will stick with you for a lifetime. The music will sound familiar enough to anyone who has played any of Takumi’s other titles. The game was originally released in Japan in 2010 and 13 years later, it’s finally getting a good amount of time in the spotlight. Don’t miss out on this one, your friends will know and they’ll be disappointed in you. Honestly, so will I.
BSO Rating: 10 out of 10 (duh)