Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Switch)

In Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective the game kicks off right as the character you’re playing as has died, but in doing so, he’s gained an ability many detectives would kill for. While the hero Sissel finds himself a spirit, if he finds someone else who has recently perished, he can travel back in time to four minutes before they passed and not only see how it happened, but even work to actively prevent it. In trying to find out how he died, Sissel ends up following a string of deaths as he learns more and more about the conspiracy he was close to, this mix of puzzle game and narrative mystery definitely giving you a unique perspective on how a crime narrative can be approached.

 

While Sissel’s death is the instigating incident that gets the ball rolling, he’s actually in the dark about plenty of the details surrounding his murder and quite a lot else. The trauma of death can leave people disoriented, but Sissel doesn’t even seem to know what words like “execution” and “kidnapping” mean, although thankfully there are some true detectives tied to the case quickly and he’s a fast learner. Sissel’s amnesia doesn’t prevent the player from keeping up with the plot thankfully, his perspective a bit more interesting as he tries to follow along and starts dipping his toes into the conspiracy surrounding his murder. Right away the person most likely to give him answers, an up-and-coming investigator named Lynne, is targeted by a hitman herself, but Sissel can’t directly interact with people unless they’ve died. What this means is quite a bit of time is spent as a witness, your ghostly self observing events but not able to start communicating with characters until they’ve met an unfortunate end. However, once you’ve made that connection, they can at least still speak with Sissel after you save from their death, allowing you to gradually become more involved in guiding present events rather than always picking up the pieces after the fact.

 

The characters you encounter in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective are a wonderfully eccentric bunch, the seriousness of a string of murders not precluding them from being upbeat and full of personality, especially since you keep removing points of tragedy from their tales. Lynn already has a slightly odd perspective on things before the new impermanence of death leads to her approaching this murder investigation far more casually, and the game has a strong sense for how to space out the true jokes made about her mindset so they can hit you by surprise when they pop up. Then you have characters like Inspector Cabanela who groovily dances his way through crime scene investigations and draws out words as if he was singing them, but the definitely highlight is the energetic Pomeranian Missile who ends up being one of the first characters Sissel can chat with. Since the minds of the dead are able to freely share thoughts, the happy pup is able to speak with Sissel after he ends up collateral in his master’s kidnapping and his unflappable optimistic energy and unique thoughts on situations makes him a joy whenever the story can find ways for him to pop back up.

While the events of the night will take you all across town, from apartment buildings and junkyards to a strange diner where people happily eat whole chickens and a high security prison, the cast ends up being rather tight and frequently interconnected. One reason that makes sense is how you move about, Sissel having to rely on telephone lines to go from one location to another and only when they’re actively in use. Sissel’s main form of interaction with the world will be his ability to posses and manipulate objects, his ghostly form only able to leap so far between items and often needing to make paths even in a small area to effectively get to useful items. Some parts of the experience do just involve finagling your way from one end of a room to another without much problem solving involved, but there are definitely more intricate traversal puzzles to be found, especially when it comes time to undo a murder. An object will only have one possible use, things like a desk lamp swiveling, a ceiling fan picking up speed, or a ball rolling off a shelf small but crucial in setting up a chain of events you can utilize to save the day.

 

The four minute stretch before a death and working to prevent it is definitely the core of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective’s gameplay and it manages to build some pretty effective spaces without straining to shove objects into unusual places. It will pick reasonable places like a junkyard to provide a lot of options to work with or even utilize a character’s eccentricities to increase your available tools, the prison for example quite accommodating to the likes of a rock and roll musician so his instruments are all in play. In fact, the item mix can sometimes be a bit lean to the point it won’t be too hard to figure out the right sequence of events to save the day, but there are definitely some headscratchers as well, especially as certain actions can prove time sensitive. You interact with the scene partially in real time, entering the “Ghost World” allowing you to move between objects when time is frozen but actually activating them must be done while things are in motion. This can sometimes be a bit uneasy as the timing gets tight and restarting the full four minute stretch can be a bit of a drag just to wait for that singular moment, but it can also up the tension as the clock is ticking down and you have to be ready to act. The music definitely emphasizes this, the game’s soundtrack on the whole a good mix of catchy and appropriate tracks and ones that sell the moment or setting very well.

Your Ghost Tricks will expand a touch later in the game to inject a bit more variety in the action and there are moments where you need to help people in real time, the late game in particular introducing a good deal of moving parts to the point sometimes it can be a bit of a guessing game. It doesn’t undermine the entire experience since a little experimentation can lead to things clicking in place. By then though you’ve firmly locked in emotionally to the fates of the characters you’ve come to know and love. The plot has a lot more ground to cover in tying all you’ve witnessed together into an almost perfect bow so it’s hard to begrudge a little fiddling with mechanical parts to get to the next juicy reveal.

 

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective on Switch is a remake of a 2010 DS game and makes the jump away from a two screen system without a hitch. In fact, the bump up in image quality allows the stylish art and character animations to shine even brighter, although the bonuses are a mixed bag mostly because of the Ghost Puzzles. Playing the story will gradually unlock the game’s concept art as well as music from the excellent soundtrack, but you are also given the dubious reward of a set of sliding tile puzzles. While they contain moving images of familiar characters from the story, they are still monotonous slide puzzles, although they were likely included as a sort of attempt at being a fully complete remake since the iOS release of the game added them as a bonus option called Ghost Shuffle. They’re optional and out of the way, so this was more an acknowledgement that they exist at all rather than a true mark against this video game’s quality.

THE VERDICT: A deep mystery that pulls you in with memorable and unusual characters makes Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective into the kind of narrative adventure where a character’s theme alone raises your spirits as you look forward to the upcoming interactions with them on top of more surprise reveals. The murders you’re undoing are creative puzzles where your ghostly powers work like a Rube Goldberg machine that saves lives, the game certainly stretching its legs on how this can manifest even if that sometimes leads to moments where it’s not complicated enough or involves a little guesswork. The charm of the cast keeps things lively and the unraveling conspiracy builds on itself cleverly though, so even if your ghost tricks can be a little subdued at times, the detective story never loses its luster.

 

And so, I give Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective for Nintendo Switch…

A GREAT rating. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective’s characters and situations are the star of the show to the point they could have carried a game on their own and maybe even earned a top rating for it. I actually had to come down a bit from the wonderful feeling of the game’s finale as everything locks in place, the game’s work throughout pulling me in with a lovable cast but a layered and rich mystery making even moments like a rather weak section where you help a man sneak past guards briefly disappear from memory. The moments where you’re basically just finding a path forward shouldn’t be held against it even though they’re basic gameplay, it’s not as if there are moments in most games where you’re just walking to the next moment of importance, but the moments where the puzzle solving are strained are what keeps it from fully matching the excellence that the art, writing, and music all otherwise bring in spades. The ghost trick sections aren’t write-offs though, it can still be fun to find out how to make objects interact and there are definitely comedic and clever outcomes to find that relate back to what works elsewhere. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective’s refusal to settle into just one format for the way you’re influencing scenes also keeps it from growing stale. Smooth out a bit of dubious logic at parts and maybe give the player a short term rewind so they won’t have to sit through murders a few times looking for the right moment to act and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective really wouldn’t have any other faults to pick at.

 

Hilarious, heartfelt, stylish, and inventive, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is expertly crafted to realize its supernatural twist on a murder mystery, it able to reach incredible heights thanks to the roads it can travel through its unique spiritual perspective and the fact you’re constantly undoing the crimes that make up this plot’s path. While it’s little flubs warrant mention when it comes to pinning a word on it in terms of its quality, it’s hard to imagine they’d hold back a player from enjoying this creative adventure rich with ideas to appreciate.