The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I’ve waited for the right day but, let’s face it, it’s not coming. Only one thing to do. Write about Ghost Trick.

Ghost Trick is, easily, the most fantastic game I’ve played this year, and I’ve played New Vegas this year. It is the best Adventure-style game I’ve played since I picked up the original Ace Attorney, and it is a game everyone with a DS should consider playing.

Today I’m going to talk about mechanics, and tomorrow, story spoilers. So, you know, be prepared for that.

One of the best things about this game is how it takes normal Adventure game mechanics, but both streamlines it and makes them unique. Since you’re a ghost, you don’t have an inventory, as such. At the same time, you can move between objects, and what you’re inhabiting is what you can interact with. Most objects in the world have some sort of interaction, and you have to use these interactions to both move around the world (because you can only jump between objects that you can grab with your limited reach and use phone lines to move around) and to solve the puzzles before you, which is normally preventing the death of a character. You’re never overwhelmed with options, but at the same time, the 4 minute time limit and having to wait for certain things to happen in the world make it so that these situations are extremely tense. You can start over and over again, and pause the action at any time by going into the Ghost world, but you get the music ramping up, and if you can just get over there this time you can make it happen! It really works well at splitting the difference between accessible and interestingly complex. Plus, once you start having to juggle two different spirits with different powers, the complexity of the puzzles also ramps up in a very satisfying way.

The mechanics of the story, as well, are really well done. Each chapter starts with a Noir-like text crawl to make sure you remember what’s going on. Since most of the story occurs during these 4 minute sequences, rarely do you feel like you’re taking a break for the story to ramble at you in between gameplay. It’s really well combined into what you’re actually doing and trying to accomplish. I never really felt like “here’s a puzzle because it’s time for a puzzle” was going on. It all makes sense, at least in the logic of the game world.

But seriously, the main reason you’d play the game is for the story. It’s great everything else works, but it’s the story that really makes the game shine. We’ll look at that tomorrow.