4cr Preview – Ghost Trick

Capcom had an incredible E3 showing. It seemed like every single person on the showfloor was trying to get some hands-on time with Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 or Dead Rising 2. I can’t really fault them. Both games are incredible – I could play MvC3 for hours (I wish that I had).

Still, these games have gotten plenty of hype already, while one of the coolest little games in their booth stands ignored. I’d like to shift the spotlight over a bit and spend some time telling you about Ghost Trick, the newest adventure game from Shu Takumi, creator of the Phoenix Wright series.

Ghost Trick stars a young man named Sissel, who is having a terrible day. You see, he wakes up with no memories and, if that wasn’t bad enough, he has apparently died. Oh, and just as he is waking up, he realizes that he is about to watch another girl get shot. With a girl to rescue, his own death to investigate, and the threat of his soul disappearing by morning, you know that Sissel is going to have one crazy night.

Fortunately, Sissel has a number of tools at his disposal. Ghost Trick, like Phoenix Wright, is all about solving mysteries and preventing murders. However, that is pretty much where the similarities end. You aren’t investigating the scene of a crime; rather, Sissel takes a more proactive role. Ghost Trick is about thinking in the moment, and solving puzzles on the fly with a variety of ghost powers.

As a ghost, you have no physical presence. What can you do? Well, the most obvious thought it to grab some body and use them as your personal puppet. Alas, things are never that simple. Sissel can’t possess people, but he can possess inanimate objects. By jumping from object to object, you can drastically alter your local environment and prevent all sorts of ghastly crimes. Girl about to get shot? You could try to swing a crane into the gunman, or you could create a distraction by ringing the bell on a bicycle. Not the distraction type? You could also jump into the chain of that very same bicycle and plow the thing into the would-be killer. If none of these are the right answer, how about a combination? Distract the guy, then run him down!

These are the kind of choices that you’ll commonly have to make in Ghost Trick, and you need to make them quickly. Time stops while you decide, but as soon as you make a choice, you have to stick with it. Oh, and your soul can only travel so far. You might have to possess objects in a chain to get to your goal. For instance, you might have to leap to a bicycle, force it to ran into a ladder, jump into the ladder, extend it, then jump into a wrecking ball. Trust me, it can be a heck of a brain workout.

Sometimes, you might not make it in time. Let’s say that you arrive and somebody is already dead, or that you screwed up when trying to prevent a death? Well, your luck hasn’t necessarily run out. One of your other ghost powers is to jump to exactly four minutes before somebody’s death. I’m not sure if you can use this power every time, but this Groundhog Day-esque looping ability gives you a nice chance to save the day and find out a little more about your own murder.

The clever puzzles alone are fantastic, but the presentation aspects got me just as excited. Ghost Trick has a fantastic 2D art style – super abstract, but strangely enthralling. It definitely isn’t your standard anime look. The writing is also up there with the best in the industry. I’m not certain, but it looks like the fantastic localization team from the Ace Attorney series is on the case here too. The short demo that I played was hilarious, with frequent references to the fact that this was, in fact, just a demo. For instance, when Sissel fails to recognize a character, she reassures him that it’s fine – he’ll know who she is in the “retail version.”

Ghost Trick just hit Japanese stores last week, and will launch in America this winter. It looks like a super-intelligent, addictive, and entertaining adventure game. Given the pedigree of the team, I have every bit of faith that the final product will be even better than my short taste.