This knowing absurdity made me invested in death after death without it ever feeling macabre-it's supposed to be silly and besides, if you can work out how to save them then every casualty of this long, dark night will be perfectly fine.Įven when I was struggling and I'd exhausted every scrap of dialogue I could find, the gorgeous, artistically exaggerated animations of the stylishly textured cast kept me going. Your spectral activity always has a strong dash of ACME-like logic to it, and before you know it you're rolling donuts around and possessing Christmas ornaments like you're the star of an old Looney Tunes cartoon. This chipper attitude would normally feel out of place in a game that can't seem to go five minutes without someone being murdered, but Ghost Trick knows how to keep things light. Sissel's ability to rewind time means screw-ups and retries are literally baked into the plot, and there's a good chance I'll learn exactly what went wrong in the process anyway. And if I make a big mistake in those final moments? Ghost Trick doesn't mind. And whenever I've got ghostly company I can almost guarantee they'll enthusiastically pipe up with something positive when I'm on the cusp of solving another problem, transforming the otherwise straightforward placement of the final piece of each puzzle into an exciting climax. Sissel knows exactly as much about his current situation as I do, so it always feels like we're working this whole 'suddenly being dead' thing out together. Ghost Trick not only wants me to solve its layered onion of a mystery, it makes a real effort to cheer me on too. It's one of those small details that makes a huge difference, because no matter how strange Ghost Trick gets-and oh boy is this a deliciously odd game-I'm never left grouchily hopping from one ridiculous object to another, wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do with a fridge and a blender. Another truly elegant bit of puzzle design in Ghost Trick: I can't examine or manipulate anything that isn't going to be useful.

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