How would you solve the mystery of your own death? What would your first step be, and how would you go about gathering clues? Most importantly, how could you get around or interact with the environment in meaningful ways without a body?
These are some of the questions proposed by Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, one of Capcom’s most original and interesting titles in years. Mixing elements from semi-recent adventure favorites like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Hotel Dusk: Room 215, this port of last year's sleeper Nintendo DS title is perfectly suited for iOS’ touch display, and I couldn’t be happier to see it come to the App Store as a universal offering.
The game opens in media res with you crumpled in a dead heap in the middle of a junkyard. There’s a blue man in a black suit pointing a shotgun at a redheaded woman; clearly things aren’t going to end well here. “This is just business,” the blue man remarks, seemingly following your own murder. What is going on?
The next 20 minutes are illuminating: for some reason you’ve been bestowed titular “ghost tricks” that allow the dead to possess inanimate objects by moving to their cores; Ghost Trick’s puzzles involve moving between cores and interacting with objects to solve problems. Aside from spectral phone tapping (among other abilities), you can also go back in time to prevent characters’ deaths. There’s a catch, though: you’re limited to a window of four minutes before someone dies. In the case of the blue man, you must manipulate random junkyard items within your reach to distract and ultimately subdue the assassin. Timing is crucial, and the mood is tense.
That’s the gist of Ghost Trick, which is essentially a well-written whodunit hybrid between a graphic adventure and visual novel. To be clear, this isn’t one for the less literate, but Ghost Trick sure is an entertaining yarn. It's also worth noting that the game is a free download, which allows you to play the first two chapters; the rest of the game can be downloaded for $9.99 -- a fraction of the original DS version's price -- or in three multi-chapter chunks for $4.99 apiece.
The bottom line. If you like your detective stories mixed with Haruki Murakami-esque magic realism, don’t miss Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Actually just play it regardless.
iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 4.3 or later
Wonderful world and conceit. Slick, stylized visuals. Engrossing mystery narrative has loads of sharp dialogue and memorable characters. Moody-yet-driving soundtrack.
Visual novel style may not appeal to some less inclined to exposition. Not a game you can realistically play on your morning commute. Failure can mean repeating several minutes of gameplay.
