Game Preview – Ghostbusters: Phantom Detectives

If you haven’t playedGhost Trick before, it starts with a fascinating introduction to the concept: you die, and a girl is about to die, so you need Use a ghostly power that possesses objects (called “Ghost Trick“, natch) to try and save her. The opening chapter is actually a tutorial on the mechanics of the game, because your The mysterious protagonist is taught how to use his powers by a more mysterious mentor, a ghost with a lamp. If you’re familiar with any of Takumi’s other work, like the aforementioned equally offbeatPhoenix Wright, this is a exposure of the weirdness of this game’s plot and progression .

In practice, this means thatGhost Trick is an adventure game rather than a pick up and use solve Various objects of the puzzle, you instead become these objects to manipulate them in the situation. Plus, a lot of the haunting-driven action has a dynamic element, since trying to save someone from a dastardly ending like yours means you’re dealing with time constraints. The scene you manipulate unfolds like a mini-movie, with characters played in a staged side-view setting, and you choose your own and their adventures by interacting with anything in your environment that happens to come within reach. The opening stage is simple and navigable as a concept communicator, but as early as the second stage, more moving parts and time-critical elements are introduced. If you played Ghost Trick back in the DS days, you know that the puzzles and plot only get more complicated from there.

being a remake and not anything close to a full remake, which means this updated ghost stunt The mechanics and processes of the game are reliably close to the original version. One issue with re-releases of games that used to be DS exclusives will always be the controls: these games tend to be built with multiple info screens and touch-based input in mind, and Ghost Trick No exception. The remastered game found some simple, clever ways to address these design challenges. The game screen keeps the same aspect ratio as the original, anyway maintaining the usual field of view built in as a mechanic, the extra space on the sides is now used to display things like timers.

This preview release is on PC via Steam, which means that the availability of mouse controls that most closely emulates the old point-and-drag touchscreen controls is appreciated. But the real surprise is the game’s support for the new controller. Even though the game wasn’t originally intended to be played this way, Ghost Trick using the analog stick to move our Phantom Detective, and the buttons to quickly possess and activate objects felt very snappy. Parts of the more reflex-based challenges feel a little easier this way than using the “intended” mouse controls. That’s great news, because it means that anyone who’s been curious about the game for a long time should finally have a great experience, whether they opt for the PC version’s mouse controls or the console version’s controller.

So overall, this feels great, and the old Ghost Trick as good as it gets You may remember not going back to the actual DS version. The merits of the remake may be more debatable visually. Keeping things as close to the original display frame as possible means that between things like text size, buttons, and other indicators, it’s clear that you’re looking at a zoomed-in portable game a lot of the time. The backgrounds (including quite a few of the belongings) don’t seem to work at the highest resolution CAPCOM Might need a full screen reissue like this, quite a lot for them Blurred and fuzzy. Perhaps this is preferable to the recent Persona 3 Portable re-release and its AI-upgraded background. It also allows character models to play against them better, although these are their sideways moves.

DS-original Ghost Trick characters feel like a stylistic marvel, tiny 3D models brimming with personality and expressive animation. Seeing the characters in their full-sized glory somewhat diminished the novelty for some, and now it’s just nice-looking cartoon character models that still animate well. While it’s nice to finally be able to recognize real faces on character models, I’ll still crave the vibe of those little movable, steerable dioramas from the original. That’s the price of platform advancement, at least I can go back to the original DS if I want that experience. Hey, the remake also offers the option to play the original version or the newly adapted Masakazu Sugmori soundtrack.

These are ultimately small qualms about style An excellent update to the game that I think everyone should play at least once. Just in the first hour or so of gameplay, we get to experience all the intricacies that the story of Ghost Trick is going to reach (it’s a lot like Phoenix Wright, conspicuously a lovely good dog named Missile). This means newbies can rest assured that they will get close to, real ghost tricks when the full remaster releases in June ) experience . If you’ve ever been curious to see what this game is about, it should be worth it, even though I also urge you to avoid looking up any stories about it until you play it yourself. Trust me: this game is a hit.