#game-review #finishedgame2024 # Ghost Trick  [Console:: PC] [Status:: Beaten] [Approximate Start Date:: 2024-01-09] [Finish Date:: 2024-02-27] [Clear Time:: 19h] [Total Play Time:: 19.2h] [nReplays:: 0] ## [Rating:: 84] # Playthrough Notes - Playing on stream with Travis # My Thoughts - This is SUCH a Shu Takumi game between its two protagonists, its side characters, its quirky law enforcement. All the tropes you see in the [[Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]] trilogy are on full display but with a slightly different coat of paint. - It's literally down to every character actually being connected. This is on display in Chapter 7 (8?) in the Chicken Kitchen where every character is relevant in some capacity, down to the guy who drives through the restaurant and dies. - Every little detail is important, there are no wasted scenes. - I like how the game is going to let me make a mistake and ride it out, like yeah dude you made a mistake like three choices ago, but let's see what happens if we do continue down this route. It makes me feel cool when I actually figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do to avert death. - It's STYLE, baby. - Wow there is so much Athena Cykes [[Dual Destinies, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]] in Lynne's whole design and personality - I know that's not exactyly translatable, but there's a LOT of plotline similarities - Asteroid 10 years ago - Upbeat and energetic with orange hair and a yellow jacket. ## On The "Levels" - The puzzles are like escape room puzzles. Once you've used a key on a lock, the lock and key are both no longer necessary in the puzzle. This is really good! - The only ones that I think I really dislike are the Jowd escape sequence and the Park one in Chapter 14. The former is a waiting game and no one likes to wait while playing a video game and the latter doesn't telegraph actions very clearly - I think the "issue" with Ghost Trick is that once you solve the puzzle you'd have to give yourself a LOT of time before attempting to replay the game since the puzzles are very memorable. That's not a bad thing, but given that the puzzles have SUCH specific solutions, it's going to be hard to ever get that true, authentic, "I don't know what the hell this'll do, but let's try it" vibe in later playthroughs. - Compare against [[Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]] and the other games in the series, where the puzzles are more contextual, and as such can be fun to try and deduce even upon replays as they further the story. Ghost Trick's puzzles are more of an abstract Rube Goldberg style chain of events which aren't necessarily as uniformly integrated into the story. - This isn't a bad thing at all, in fact, it's a real strength that the puzzles and the solutions to sequences are as memorable as they are. IT means that the game has a very interesting structure and solution process that really makes you think and feel cool when you accomplish the task of the puzzle. - One small gripe I have is that sometimes you've just gotta be patient. If the solution isn't immediately clear sometimes you need to let the real world stuff play out. This is fine when you can see the scene play out in advance, but the submarine esccape part kind of stinks because we don't know what Lynne's going to do while we explore the space. ## Theories - I think Sissel is the Cat (as of 1/24/24) ==[CONGRIMED!!!]== - They showed that the dead people don't immediately know what they look like with Lynne mistaking herself as Cabanela - Sissel cannot read - Sissel remarks that he likely wasn't one for schedules - Jowd knows who the person Sissel looks like is, and Jowd honestly doesn't seem like a bad guy - and if Lynne is trying to help Jowd, and Lynne's a good person, then it means the person who we look like might be a bad dude - Also the cat pops out of the box that our character looked like - We can talk with animals too? - The Villain - Damn they really did [[AI The Somnium Files]]'s twist first here didn't they, one bad dude controlling people rather than a series of happenstances or coincidences who happens to look exactly like our protagonist / is the protagonist. - But he's just a guy having a bad day and caught under bad circumstances. # Favorite Moments / Memories - It's literally a Chekhov's gun on the wall. # What were you doing when not playing this? # Relevant Links