Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a great updated gem | Hands-on preview
There you are, slumped over in a junkyard, with no air left in your lungs and no life left in your body. You’re dead, yet there’s still a spark within you that clings to the forgotten memories of who you were and why you were killed in cold blood. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was a little gem on the Nintendo DS that was praised for its creativity and animation, and it’s now getting a HD remaster. We got to play a demo of it, and by all accounts it’s as bizarre as it ever was, but everyone loves a bit of crazy every now and again, right?
From what I’ve seen so far, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective has a vastly improved resolution, and what took place across two screens on the DS is now comfortably viewable on one screen. Even now over ten years later, it’s a wonderful puzzler that requires a bit of thinking in order to solve the challenges put before you. As Sissel, you have to find out why you were killed, who you were, and what is going on in the city. The thing is, you only have one night to do so.
Before you even start to begin working all of that out, you must save a young red-headed woman from the same fate you suffered. A hitman named Jeego is intent on gunning her down, and by using the environment, you must possess a whole manner of objects to stop that from happening. While there’s only one way to solve each puzzle, there’s still plenty of creativity in how you do it. I possessed a bicycle, a bowl of donuts, a projector, and Christmas-themed mobile with a flying Santa Claus in my time with it, all in the efforts to stop more people from dying.
It’s bonkers and shouldn’t work, but it does. As you play through, you’ll start to unravel some of the smaller mysteries within the demo, but it’s clear there’s a much bigger conspiracy at hand. Gameplay consists of moving around certain objects by activating ‘Trick Time,’ switching between the real world and the ghost world, and as long as you’re close enough to the next item, you’re able to switch into it. Certain actions can move objects to allow this to happen, all playing into the greater puzzle. Once possessed, you can switch back to the real world to activate it.
This can cause a distraction or reveal a new item to possess, offering various ways to move about and keep the puzzles from remaining repetitive. In certain circumstances, you can replay previous events in a ‘4 Minutes Before Death’ scenario that has you trying to beat the clock in order to change the fates of previously murdered characters, such as a fluffy little Pomeranian called Missile. These sections push you to think on your feet and are also more layered than I previously expected.
There’s also the ability to travel through phone lines to reach new areas, but at present these are scripted and don’t necessarily allow you to deviate, at least in the demo I played. If you’re stuck trying to work out who all the characters are and how they fit into the narrative, you can check out your journal to read excerpts about them, giving you the opportunity to catch your breath and remind you what the hell is going on. It’s a crazy story, but one that kept me interested.
The characters are interesting and the dialogue is occasionally funny, if a little silly. Coming from Shu Takumi, the creator of the Ace Attorney series, dialogue is expected to be a touch choppy and unintentionally humorous, but I loved it in its own quirky way. Bringing that pedigree of puzzle and game design over from the series is clear and present in every facet of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, and by the time the demo was over, I desperately wanted to keep on playing, which is a testament to how fun this game is, even now. It’s a bit heavy on dialogue, but the music is wonderful, and with a lot more to look forward to, I’ll be back and ready to play come final release.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox, and Switch on June 30th.
