TGS Round-up! Ghost Trick!
Capcom had a lot of sequels and well-known franchises at TGS this year, but in the middle of it all was a booth advertising a wrecking ball and a dead guy laying butt up in the air. Say what? That tickled my curiosity, so I knew I had to play that game. The title was written in English on the banner (most Japanese kids take English in school for six years, so they can usually read some) as “Ghost Trick”. Sounded good to me!
Luckily the line for Ghost Trick was only 50 minutes even though people got to play the game for a whopping 15 minutes (as opposed to the 10 minute demos everywhere else). It probably went faster than most game lines because they had a good 20 DS systems set up to play it (five tables of four systems each). Good planning!
The sequence they showed on screen while waiting in line looked to be the game opener, so I watched it to maybe get a glimpse of what I’d be playing. What I saw was a blue-skinned man pointing a golden gun at a red-haired girl, and in between then was the dead guy. The scene took place in a city dump, so there were random objects all around. All of a sudden the objects (like a radio and a bike) started moving, as if being moved by. . . ghosts! Then they go through some character intros (all of which look very interesting and exaggerated). The art is funky but really catchy, and the music is poppy with a hint of jazz. Good stuff!
Being a health-centered nation, one of the booth workers sprayed some disinfecting stuff onto all of our hands before playing. No swine flu for me! In addition to the spray, every system and headphone set was wiped down before new people picked them up as well. I’m not one who gets germaphobic, but this care was nice to see.
Okay, now to the game! The start of the game is just like the start of the trailer. A spotlight pops up on the girl, then another one pops up on the man with the gun. Then, a third spotlight pops onto what turns out to be the character you play. . . laying dead on the ground in the middle of the man and the girl. It’s not the most auspicious beginning to start the game dead, but it was surely an intriguing proposition.
A quick not on my version of the story that is about to be told. I know a little Japanese. A little. I can pick out bits and pieces of what is happening and I usually gather the rest by context. So, if what I tell you in this review is not exactly what happens in the game, you’ll have to forgive me!
So, dead guy (his name is Sissel). But perhaps not useless. Some voice from above (or below, perhaps) tells you there is still a chance to save the girl (who’s name is Linne). It gives Sissel the power to possess items. Trying it out has a straight blue line come from his body, but it’s a short blue line and can't reach too much. Being in a city dump, there were luckily enough objects within reach to take my pick of how to stop the man with the gun from shooting Linne! You have to touch the screen with the stylus to have the blue line come out from dead guy, then which ever direction you move the stylus is where the line goes. I decided to stretch that line to a nearby guitar and my spirit moved into it!
Once I had chosen something to possess, it was time to try out the “trick” part of the title. The guitar twanged and the man with a gun turned around to shoot it into pieces, giving Linne time to run away. . . though not very far. Right away the gunman turned the weapon back on her and she froze, hands in the air. The scene shifted back to me, but this time my blue spirit line wasn’t long enough to reach anything else from the ruined guitar! The only thing in range was back to my dead body, so I figured that’s what I had to do, right?
The voice that gave me the spirit power said something cryptic (I’m assuming) and then I heard a gun shot. No! How could I have failed the demo so quickly? Did I just suck that much? Was there a big hint that you can only get if you’re fluent in Japanese? Disappointed in myself, I let the game play on to see how bad the ending would be. Linne (who was now dead) had fallen off the edge of the area and landed in a heap below. A phone rang and the gunman went towards it, kicking Sissel’s dead body down to the area below as well, since I was in his way. He walked down some stairs to answer a payphone, saying “It’s done” to whoever was on the other line. Then he walked off screen.
I sat there thinking that this was a rather long end game sequence. If it was that long every time someone chose the wrong way to do things, it would make for a tedious game. And even after the gunman walked away, stuff was still happening. The camera panned back over to my dead body, but it was rather dark. For half a moment, I had no idea why the game was still waiting for me to do something. So I poked the screen. Luckily I poked a desk lamp that was near my body, and the poke turned it on! A few more stylus maneuvers had the light shining on my body, and then the lamp started to talk to me.
I’ve seen stranger in games, sure, but lamps talking to dead guys is an interesting way to start off a game! I quickly figured out there was no way to save your girl partner right off the bat and that she had to die to get things moving for the meat of the game. The lamp was positioned directly in between dead guy and the (now dead) Linne. I got the gist of what the lamp was telling me to do: possess the lamp, use the “trick” mode to turn the lamp, then shine the lamp on (now dead) Linne. I had no idea why this would help, but I went for it anyway.
Next was a rather trippy sequence where I met up with Linne’s spirit in some purgatory type place. She somehow knew about the powers I had been given after death and also mentioned something about four minutes. I couldn’t quite understand, but I think she was saying that I could use my powers to go back four minutes in time and change events by using my ghost tricks.
After that explanation, the game rewound back to the beginning. I watched as the guitar twanged again and as the gunman shot it. Then it went into gameplay mode and I could do my next move. Since my spirit started out in my body again (instead of the guitar, which couldn’t reach anything else), I could go to a new object. A tollbooth gate was the nearest choice going in the direction of the gunman, so I hopped into that and tricked it. The gate flew down and shocked the guy, but like the guitar before, it wasn’t enough to stop him from aiming at my partner. Next I chose a nearby bicycle, which I could only reach thanks to the gate lowering. There were two choices of where to possess the bicycle, and I chose the pedals instead of the handle bars. When I used my trick ability, the bicycle moved forward and bumped into the man with the gun. This freaked him out again, but still wasn’t enough. My next jump was a ladder, which, when tricked, sprang open. That gave me access to a switch that I found out controlled the giant wrecking ball. Currently the ball was on the left side of the scene (all of us were on the right), but the switch, when tricked, moved the ball to a very nice place - right on top of the gunman! With a couple more possessions, I was on top of the ball. One more trick sent the wrecking ball crashing down! BAM! Flattened man with a gun. In a cartoony fashion, the ball rolled off the side and I could see a glimpse of the squished gunman rolling with it. I had saved my partner!
Now, this was a timed sequence. Every few seconds some sort of hourglass-style timer thing flashed on the top screen. I didn’t pay too much attention to it because I was too interested on what to possess and trick next, but I’m sure the timer will put a lot of pressure in later scenes! Also, you have to manually enter and exit possess vs. trick mode. You can move through multiple items without using a trick on them (to get further, or to an item you do want to trick), and then exit possess mode and enter trick mode when you’re ready.
Ghost Trick is probably my favorite game at the Tokyo Game Show. Cool concept (dead guy possessing items). Cool execution (each item has a different effect). Cool characters (the main character had hair to make Marge Simpson proud). Just an all around cool game! After the show I found out that the same person behind the Phoenix Wright games is also behind this, which made my interest in Ghost Trick all make sense. ^_^ It comes out in Japan early next year, and I can only hope it gets brought over to the US soon after!