Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a Nintendo DS video game developed by Shu Takumi in 2010. Like Takumi's other works, Ghost Trick has a strong emphasis on characters, while the plot's central theme is death and mystery. It stars Sissel, a ghost who is attempting to recover his memories. Other major characters include Lynne, who acts as a sidekick to Sissel and seeks to uncover a mystery of 10 years ago; Jowd, a detective accused of murdering his wife; Kamila, the daughter of Jowd; Missile, a Pomeranian who, after dying, chooses to stay dead so that he can protect his owner Kamila; Ray, a ghost who inhabits a desk lamp and initiates Sissel's journey; Cabanela, a detective and friend of Jowd who enjoys dancing; the Pigeon Man, the superintendent of the junkyard where the game begins; the Justice Minister, a man who the protagonists beseech to stay Jowd's execution; Yomiel, a ghost who seeks revenge for the events of 10 years ago; and the antagonists, an unidentified organization from a foreign country who seek to kill anyone involved in the events of 10 years ago.
Ghost Tricks main character Sissel was originally designed to be a spy, and was designed to be a ghost so he could better interact with the other characters. Ghost Trick features a number of tropes that are found in other video games by Takumi; one such trope is the sidekick to bounce jokes off of each other, namely Lynne. He compared her role to that of Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes novels. Takumi explains that he was growing tired of 3D animation; as such, he created the style used in the game by creating 3D models and rendering them in 2D afterward, creating what Video Gamer's Martin Gaston describes as "buttery smooth" animation; this was as opposed to using motion capture technology, which Takumi feels would not allow characters to have their own quirks to their design.
The cast of Ghost Trick has received largely positive reception since appearing in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, both for their dialogue and design. In particular, Missile was called the most popular character in the game among fans by Takumi. The characters also received praise for most of them not being shoehorned into the plot, and for their unique personalities and attire. The characters have been compared to the cast from the Ace Attorney series, with 1UP.com'''s Justin Haywald calling them "over-the-top". The animation has been described as resembling that of a cartoon, and has been praised as having "some of the most impressive presentation work in the whole graphic adventure genre" by PALGNs Jarrod Mawson, "some of the most brilliant and unique visuals the DS has seen" by GameZone's Brian Rowe, and for being good enough to still be impressive if the animation was done on the technologically superior Wii and Nintendo 3DS by NGamer UK.
Concept and creation
The characters in large part were created by Shu Takumi, who also created the game itself. The protagonist, Sissel, was originally conceived as a spy. The idea of making him a ghost came from unfulfilled ideas that the team could not accomplish in the Ace Attorney series; namely, the difficulty in delving into peoples' personal lives due to the format of the series being episodic. As such, he designed Ghost Trick to be one continuous story with a focus on characters, designing Sissel as a ghost to make it easier for him to interact with a large number of characters, arguing that a living character would have difficulty accomplishing this. One point made is the difficulty in entering a person's house as a living person, whereas as a ghost he can both interact and observe other characters. When asked of the creation of the game's characters, Takumi explains that he made them "weird and quirky" because he is curious, him giving examples of him wondering what a certain character he is writing will turn out like. He also used the ghost gimmick to allow him to go deeper into the characters, as opposed to his original plan to write back stories for every one of them. Takumi designed the writing to combine a serious story with humorous elements, specifically citing Lynne as a character he enjoys in the game due to how many times she dies yet still finds humour in her situation.
In an interview with Gamasutra, Takumi noted that when designing his games, he writes the stories before writing the characters. After the basic story is created, he creates characters to fill roles in the story. He adds that once he begins to write the scenarios for the game, the characters begin to take shape. When writing characters, he describes himself as writing a bit of himself into them, using this to accomplish his goal of making characters who fit the situation they are in but also feeling realistic. When designing the main character, Takumi desires to make said character identifiable to players, commenting that they can often act as the player, while the sidekick can drive the main character and by proxy the players to do something else. In particular, he likes to include sidekicks in his games to give the main character someone to talk to, explaining that in Japan, humour is often derived from dialogue. Specifically, such dialogue between the two characters is often jokes going back and forth to each other. He also attributes his interest in sidekicks to his love of mystery novels, specifically citing the character Dr. Watson, who acts as a sidekick to the character Sherlock Holmes in the series of mystery novels of the same name.
Takumi explains that the 2D style used in the game was used as a result of his boredom with three dimensional graphics. He adds that it was only "by chance" that he was able to succeed in creating such visuals, due to finding the right staff for the job. The first thing made as a sample with this style was "a scene of a girl eating a doughnut while a dog is running around beside her", which was what fully convinced him to use this style. When designing characters, Takumi ensures that the character presents a good silhouette, feeling that if the silhouette isn't memorable, the character's design will not leave an impression on players. He felt that this was particularly true for Ghost Trick, since it was about "small figures moving around".
While discussing the process of creating this style, Takumi noted the limitations that become apparent when trying to do this style in 3D. However, because he wanted to give it a smooth animation, he did a process wherein he made the 3D polygons and rendered them and the motions of the characters to 2D sprites. He additionally noted that instead of doing motion capture, all of the character designs were done by hand, discussing how each character is both realistic and yet features their own quirks, which could not have been accomplished as well with motion capture. Another advantage Takumi noted was having full control over the characters' actions, such as a scene mentioned by Joystiq of a girl backing into a fence and "glancing quickly" at it. He also gave criticism to some Western games' visual styles, describing them as broad versus what he describes as a level of sensitivity for nuances that Japanese people have according to Takumi.
Characters
Sissel is the protagonist of the game, and the titular character as well. He is recently deceased, and as a ghost, attempting to recover his lost memories. He is tasked by a ghost nicknamed "Ray" with protecting a girl named Lynne from being killed. Ray teaches him of his powers, which include being able to manipulate objects, travel through phone lines, and go back in time to four minutes before a person's death. After rescuing Lynne, they eventually team up, with Lynne using Sissel to help her solve a mystery of 10 years ago and Sissel using Lynne to recover his memories. He later teams up with a dog named Missile who recently died and, when revived, goes to save his owners, Lynne and Kamila. Sissel is eventually tasked by Lynne to check on the schedule of a prisoner named Jowd, a former detective, only to find that he has none, as he is scheduled to be executed. After finding Jowd dead, he rewinds time to save Jowd, and he works to save him from prison, though Jowd is later arrested by his friend Cabanela in the process. Sissel works to not only stay this execution but to rescue Kamila from her kidnappers. He succeeds in staying the execution, and over time, learns that the person he believed to be him was actually a man by the name of Yomiel, a ghost who has the ability to manipulate people.
Sissel works with Missile, Lynne, and Jowd to rescue Kamila, the group boarding the submarine owned by the antagonists that Yomiel was working with to kill Lynne and Jowd. However, when Sissel enters, he learns that the antagonists have betrayed Yomiel by stealing a meteorite fragment from his body, which was responsible not only for Yomiel's body's inability to die, but also for Sissel and Missile's ghost powers. In order to save Lynne and Kamila from a sinking submarine, Sissel, Missile, Jowd and Yomiel travel back to the event of 10 years ago in order to avert Yomiel's death, which was caused by the meteorite fragment piercing his body while he was holding up Lynne after escaping from a police questioning room. The three of them, using their powers, prevent these events, with Yomiel possessing himself to protect Lynne and being arrested instead of being killed. After this point, Yomiel reveals to Sissel that Sissel is actually the ghost of a cat who he found at the scene of his death and took care of for 10 years; however, in the process of getting his revenge on those involved in his death, he inadvertently got Sissel killed shortly before the events of the game. Averting Yomiel's death successfully undoes the events of Ghost Trick, and Sissel becomes Jowd and Kamila's pet cat; however, he retains his abilities, as he was struck by a meteorite fragment in the new timeline.
Lynne is a detective and the caregiver to Kamila and the owner to Missile, a Pomeranian. She is targeted by multiple assassins sent by an unknown foreign country, and consistently gets in trouble, either from being suspected of murder or dying several times throughout the game. In the beginning, she and Sissel form a pact together of "using each other"; Sissel to recover his lost memories, and Lynne to solve a mystery from ten years ago. She eventually asks Sissel to halt the execution of Jowd, former detective and her mentor. It is later revealed that she was involved in the incident of ten years ago, as a hostage to a man who held her at gunpoint after escaping from a police questioning room and pursued by Jowd. During the investigation, Sissel and Lynne learn that Lynne was the one who killed Sissel, though neither recollects this. However, they eventually learn that she was manipulated into this by Yomiel, the ghost of the man from 10 years ago, seeking revenge on everyone involved. While traveling ten years into the past alongside Sissel, Missile, and Jowd, Yomiel eventually saves her and helps to undo the events of ten years ago, as well as the events of the game.
Ray