Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a puzzle/thriller game developed and published by Capcom. However, limiting it to a puzzle game would be doing the title injustice. It offers so much more than just puzzles. Ghost Trick follows the tale of a recently deceased ‘detective’ who uses his unique abilities as a ghost to solve complicated puzzles and unfolds a compelling narrative.
However, before we begin this review, it is worth noting that the game in question is the remastered version of 2010’s Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. That said, I will review it as a game on its own and not compare it with the original title. So without any further ado, let’s start with this Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective review.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective – My initial impressions
In most new releases, the games don’t directly immerse you in the story. Instead, they slowly build up the narrative element by mid-game to excite players.
However, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective starts with a bang (literally). It hooks you right from the very second it starts, putting you in a state of intrigue and mystery, and then continues to build up the momentum with each chapter. The first few chapters of the game act as a tutorial section where you learn the basic gameplay mechanics.
But I must say that Ghost Trick does this so wonderfully that it doesn’t feel like a tutorial but behaves like a part of the story itself. It was sufficient to get me accustomed to the controls and didn’t let me think for even one second that I was in the tutorial section. It flows with the narrative, and this makes it a natural process.
That said, my first impressions of the game were amazing, to say the least. After finishing the first chapter, I was excited to see how this all unfolded and couldn’t hold my horse to play the rest.
Story and Gameplay: An enthralling narrative of unraveling enigmas
Story
The narrative in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective’s one of the significant highlights. I will refrain from any major spoilers, but I cannot proceed with this section without revealing a little. So if you don’t want to catch even a little glimpse of what you are getting in terms of story, you can stop reading now and skip to the gameplay section below.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective begins with a mysterious character dead, who is later found out to be ‘Sissel.’ However, after his death, Sissel turns into a ghost. Unfortunately, he has lost all his memories and doesn’t even recall his name. As he begins unraveling his identity, the ghost of Sissel finds himself in a web of mysteries, which are part of a bigger event that unfolds as the story progresses.
What makes it all so enticing is that Sissel is on limited time. You see, the ghost vanishes as soon as the sun rises the next day, and it never returns. This puts Sissel in a difficult position. With limited time, Sissel must find not only his truth but also the truth of every mystery his death encompasses.
Each section of the story is beautifully curated. After you finish a chapter, you can’t wait to play the next to discover what is happening in this doomed universe. Overall, the story is near perfect, with no major flaws that I could find. It is thrilling, fun, and full of mysteries. It doesn’t carry a super serious tone all the time. Instead, it perfectly blends light-hearted moments with humor and serious subjects such as death and murder.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective doesn’t feature spoken dialogues; hence, you will spend a lot of time reading the conversations between the characters. But don’t assume that the characters are boring or will have no personality. The animations that accompany them and the story behind each such character do a perfect job of giving them a bigger-than-life personality. As a result, even the characters that don’t play a significant role in the story are interesting.
But that is all I can say now. If I go any further, I will be spoiling it for you. Let’s just say you are in for an exciting ride.
Gameplay
Second to the story is the gameplay. It won’t be wrong to say these two elements carry the whole game. As mentioned in the previous section, Sissel is a ghost, and what kind of a ghost cannot haunt objects? Sissel can use his ‘Ghost Tricks’ to manipulate objects around him. He can view the world through his ghost eyes, which allows him to see the things he can possess in his range. However, he cannot take over the living or the deceased beings.
Once possessed, he can then manipulate them to alter reality. But that’s not all. Sissel, can also turn back time and talk with the dead. If someone recently died, our protagonist can speak with the dead being’s soul and also go back four minutes into the past from their death.
By now, you must wonder, what’s the point of possessing objects and returning in time? Well, that forms the entirety of gameplay. Each chapter has one significant puzzle that involves Sissel using his Ghost Tricks to manipulate objects and prevent the death of other characters. However, you only have four minutes to save them. If you don’t, you can always return and start over.
That said, the gameplay overall works brilliantly. I played using a PS4 controller on my PC, and the controls were intuitive. Each puzzle varies in difficulty; some are pretty time-sensitive, requiring you to react within seconds. If you miss, you start all over from the beginning.
Sometimes, you will be stuck with a puzzle for a long time. But once you figure it out, the satisfaction you get is equivalent to killing a difficult boss in a Souls-like game to whom you have died hundreds of times.
All in all, the gameplay of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective also gets a solid thumbs up from me, and I couldn’t find any major flaw here either. As mentioned before, the compelling narrative and gameplay can carry the entire game and deliver an experience rarely seen in most new launches.
However, a few other components worth looking into that help bring the world of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective to life – the graphics, the audio, and the performance on PC.
Graphics, audio, and performance on PC: The triad that harmoniously amplifies the game’s standout elements
Graphics
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a 2.5D game with a beautiful art style that takes off the serious tone and portrays a cartoonish appearance. Almost all of the world is created in 2D assets, with only the characters giving off a 3D look.
Characters have some animations depending on the dialogue or situation but are usually repetitive. However, it doesn’t get boring because most of these animations become a part of the character’s personality and are often portrayed in almost comical visuals.
The environment is adequately designed. It incorporates just enough elements to make it resemble a real-world setting. For instance, if you are in a park, it will portray ample objects that are generally present in a park and thus makes the environment feel real. But it doesn’t go overboard with it to bring it to life.
That said, graphics per se are okay. They aren’t the best, nor are they ugly to look at. Its unique art style is certainly worth complimenting, and a few characters’ animations can be hilarious.
Audio
Audio, too, follows the path of graphics. It is not bad, but it doesn’t stand out from others in the same genre. As mentioned previously, there are no spoken dialogues. Hence, in terms of audio, all you get are pieces of background music that change depending on the situation and audio cues such as gunshots, footsteps, and more.
When a situation becomes intense, the background music during the later chapters certainly caught my ears. This particular soundtrack is called ‘Trauma’ and is by far the only piece of music I truly like from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. But once again, that doesn’t imply that the game’s audio is terrible to listen to. Indeed, audio isn’t anything special but does enough to get by and create the necessary effects.
Performance on PC
The performance on the PC is flawless. I faced no issues while running Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. As for bugs and glitches, there are none that I encountered in my playthrough. I had no crashes or other technical issues as well. But that is to be expected from a game like this.
That said, there’s nothing to complain about here. It will run perfectly well on most modern systems, delivering sweet and consistent frames without breaking a sweat.
In Conclusion
To keep it simple, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a well-made, polished game worth your money and time. The game’s story is the major highlight that keeps you hooked for hours to see how it unfolds. Each chapter brings with it a new mystery.
The characters are appropriately written, and each brings a unique personality. From the calm Prisoner D99 to the overexcited Missile, all characters have their own tale and are knit neatly into the web of this mind-boggling mystery.
As for the gameplay, the puzzles are properly curated to give players a challenging experience. Despite the time constraints, the game gives you ample freedom to figure out a puzzle. Unlike in most other games, in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, you seek out the puzzles to solve them and not avoid them. That’s how good they are.
The audio and graphics of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective don’t particularly stand out to me, but they aren’t bad by any means. They do their job pretty well to bring about immersion and depth to the different scenarios and environments in the title.
All in all, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a brilliant puzzle-solving game for anyone who loves a good thriller that tells a good story and engages the player in unraveling the mystery themselves.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Reviewed on: Windows PC (Review Copy provided by Capcom)
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows
Developer(s): Capcom
Publisher(s): Capcom
Release Date: June 30, 2023
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