If it isn’t already evident from the screens, Ghost Trick is another labour of love from Shu Takumi, creator of Ace Attorney and current development legend-in-waiting. Visual comparisons to previous titles aside, this is an adventure quite unlike any other to grace the DS, blending investigation, lengthy dialogue, and a penchant for Rube Goldberg-inspired single-screen set pieces that require both planning and skill. It’s a bit like Mousetrap blended with an HBO sitcom, filtered through a low-resolution Anime lens and drizzled with Braid, if that makes any sense.
The hook is of course that the main protagonist is already dead. Our hands-on demo begins in a junkyard, with a slightly befuddled hero narrating as we see a young woman gunned down to meet our own crumpled body on the floor. A short amount of exposition later and after an introduction to a talking lamp, we’ve rewound time to start the sequence again, but this time with the ability to alter the outcome.
The manner in which you perform such feats is rather ham-fistedly encapsulated in the title; you are a ghost after all, and it’s your job to pull tricks. Most of the storytelling takes place in the physical world, but by possessing inanimate objects in a selectable ethereal realm, you’re then able to manipulate them in the scene, building an image as to which events are most valuable in sequence. You can only jump to objects within a short distance, so to reach the controls of a crane you might have to manipulate the pedals of a bike to move underneath, then switch to a nearby ladder and extend it to be able to climb, and so on.
If anybody dies you can rewind each event a set number of times to have another go, and some objects remain in their ‘manipulated’ position after doing so. Whilst the tutorial sequences and source level didn’t contain anything too strenuous, it isn’t difficult to elaborate on the potential that such a mechanic will introduce later in the game. Some of the events that happen in the narrative occur in real time, so there is a certain ‘burning fuse’ element to some of the setups.
If this short demo is anything to go by, Ghost Trick also continues the Ace Attorney legacy of sharp scriptwriting and translation, lending dialogue a cheeky wit that stands up well against almost any other videogame you could recommend. It’s hard to know whether to take that as a positive or simply lambast the apparent failings of the rest of the industry, but whatever your feelings on the subject, the team at Capcom responsible for handheld localisations continues to shine.
On finishing our session it was the story that left an overwhelming feeling of intrigue and desire to continue, and that can be no bad thing. It’s difficult not to want to figure out who you are, who the girl is, how you got where you were, and exactly whom the god-like presence is that guides you through those initial transformations. If the rest of the game continues to the quality on offer here, we’re in for another special title from the stable of Phoenix Wright.
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