Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Become your own best witness

Locked rooms and murder mysteries go hand in hand. But what if, as a ghost yourself, you have a unique perspective on how a death occurred? Able to time travel to four minutes before the victim copped it, the conundrums here are less about the method and more about nudging fate ever so slightly until you can change the events of one long night.

That’s the idea that spurred Ghost Trick, an (ahem) spiritual successor to the Ace Attorney series. With the AA trilogy wrapped up, Shu Takumi wanted to explore ways to allow players to solve mysteries from a new angle. At times macabre, at others laugh-out-loud, it’s a compelling mystery that, by virtue of being focussed on puzzles rather than exchanges of dialogue, feels like one you’re really getting your hands on. Even without having them.

HANDS OFF

That’s because as the sharply dressed Sissel, you wake after your own murder with no recollection of what happened, or even much knowledge of the world at all. All you know, thanks to a helpful fellow ghoulie named Ray, is that you can use ‘ghost tricks’, but that you only have one night in which to pursue the truth behind your death before you fade away.