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[Jintor]

We already had this argument when the game came out Ami and all we managed to conclude was that weirdly Japanese melodramatic stuff didn't run into the barrier of disbelief for everybody who enjoyed it and it did for you.

 

[Riposte]

People found Ghost Trick frustrating/hard? Wow.

Well I guess there were a few tricky parts. Wish there were more to be honest.

 

[OMG Aero]

Ghost Trick has terrible writing (

Spoiler

the reason whats-his-face was able to be convicted of the crime and continued to blame himself was the most bs, illogical garbage I've ever seen - no human being would react that way

Are you talking about

Spoiler

Jowd or Yomiel? Both of them had believable reasons to end up in prison. Jowd didn't want Kamila to take the blame for his wife's murder so he took the blame for the crime and says that he did things to make crime look like he did it like replacing the actual murder weapon with his own police pistol and did "other things" to make it look legit, implying that he used the gun on his dead wife to make his pistol match the crime scene. He wanted to be executed to save Kamila from punishment for the murder and also because he felt like he had already committed a murder in the past when he was about to fire on Yomiel, it wasn't until Sissel made him realise that his death would just hurt Kamila more and presented the possibility that a ghost trick is what killed his wife that he realised getting executed was the wrong thing to do.
In the case of Yomiel, even after his redemption he still held a little girl hostage and was threatening to shoot her so that's why he ended up in jail. By this point he realised all the bad things he had done and wanted penance for his wrongdoings so he presumably didn't oppose his charges and probably pushed for the strongest punishment.

 

[Amir0x]

Are you talking about

Spoiler

Jowd or Yomiel? Both of them had believable reasons to end up in prison. Jowd didn't want Kamila to take the blame for his wife's murder so he took the blame for the crime and says that he did things to make crime look like he did it like replacing the actual murder weapon with his own police pistol and did "other things" to make it look legit, implying that he used the gun on his dead wife to make his pistol match the crime scene. He wanted to be executed to save Kamila from punishment for the murder and also because he felt like he had already committed a murder in the past when he was about to fire on Yomiel, it wasn't until Sissel made him realise that his death would just hurt Kamila more and presented the possibility that a ghost trick is what killed his wife that he realised getting executed was the wrong thing to do.
In the case of Yomiel, even after his redemption he still held a little girl hostage and was threatening to shoot her so that's why he ended up in jail. By this point he realised all the bad things he had done and wanted penance for his wrongdoings so he presumably didn't oppose his charges and probably pushed for the strongest punishment.

Even your explanation, if we accept it, sounds ridiculous and inhuman. People on the general do not act this way. I'm not talking about the actual idea that a ghost is manipulating objects - obviously, this is a fantasy type game in regards to the concepts involved - but I'm talking the motivations people are doing what they do, PARTICULARLY with Jowd.

Spoiler

It would have been clear by even the most mentally handicapped observer that at worst it would have been an accident. No competent investigative team would have found this man guilty. No human being with half a brain would have felt guilty for what happened. Sad, yes. Depressed, yes. Guilty? What? There was so much demonstrably clear evidence about what the girl was trying to do as a present for her mother that it was comically absurd that this went further than anything. You don't even need a ghost to be involved for this conclusion to be drawn by someone with the mental capacity of a three year old or above. It was laughable that the police would have even listened to Jowd's story given what was there. Did they even have an investigation? What type of incompetents would have done this?

In my view, this is the perfect example of a writer trying to stretch believability to the breaking point simply to try to accommodate potentially high quality gameplay scenarios. Wouldn't a

Spoiler

ghost trick level in jail break level be rad?

Sure. Strain yourself to integrate it into the story. It doesn't make sense. This is why writing in gaming never improves. People accept this stuff because they might like a game, and find it difficult to disconnect it from their enjoyment. But even if I liked the gameplay, I'd be unwilling to accept the scenarios as written. Humans don't act this way. They may act this way in really terribly written television shows or literature - or, in this case, awfully written games - but it just makes me roll my eyes.

People found Ghost Trick frustrating/hard? Wow.

Well I guess there were a few tricky parts. Wish there were more to be honest.

Not frustrating or hard. It was just repetitious and tedious. Simply because the puzzles were a series of illogical rubbish that was basically guess work instead of actually well designed rational events, the end result was "click this and see how item reacts. Oh well I see it reacted that way. *restart* Ok now I click this, oh apparently it does this when that happens. *sigh, restart*. There was little to no rhyme or reason, no real way for a player to determine precisely how an object would actually impact objects in the game. No consistency. So what you were doing was simply figuring the exact order the game wanted you to unload its ghostly Rube Goldberg machines, and as far as I'm concerned the fun of Rube Goldberg machines is building them. In a point and click adventure game, the primary qualities need to be stellar writing and rational, high-quality puzzle design. In Ghost Trick, the puzzles are mind numbing exercises in guess work - albeit when you slot the puzzles in the right order, occasionally fun to watch - and the writing is embarrassingly awful.

There's no way Ghost Trick could be considered 'hard', since the entire game is based around the premise that you simply keep restarting the ghost order with your powers so you can once again try to predict the exact order the game developers wanted you to select items from the list. It's just tedious, since you have to rewatch scenes over and over and rewatch animations and just slightly tinker your order of actions progressively each go. I can understand why people like certain things, but I definitely do not get the appeal of the gameplay in Ghost Trick.

 

[Fuu]

I like GT but I agree with Ami on the Jowd thing, it took me out of the game when it was explained because of how little sense it made and it's easily the weakest part of the entire package for me.

 

[Magicpaint]

Even your explanation, if we accept it, sounds ridiculous and inhuman. People on the general do not act this way. I'm not talking about the actual idea that a ghost is manipulating objects - obviously, this is a fantasy type game in regards to the concepts involved - but I'm talking the motivations people are doing what they do, PARTICULARLY with Jowd.

Spoiler

It would have been clear by even the most mentally handicapped observer that at worst it would have been an accident. No competent investigative team would have found this man guilty. No human being with half a brain would have felt guilty for what happened. Sad, yes. Depressed, yes. Guilty? What? There was so much demonstrably clear evidence about what the girl was trying to do as a present for her mother that it was comically absurd that this went further than anything. You don't even need a ghost to be involved for this conclusion to be drawn by someone with the mental capacity of a three year old or above. It was laughable that the police would have even listened to Jowd's story given what was there. Did they even have an investigation? What type of incompetents would have done this?

In my view, this is the perfect example of a writer trying to stretch believability to the breaking point simply to try to accommodate potentially high quality gameplay scenarios. Wouldn't a

Spoiler

ghost trick level in jail break level be rad?

Sure. Strain yourself to integrate it into the story. It doesn't make sense. This is why writing in gaming never improves. People accept this stuff because they might like a game, and find it difficult to disconnect it from their enjoyment. But even if I liked the gameplay, I'd be unwilling to accept the scenarios as written. Humans don't act this way. They may act this way in really terribly written television shows or literature - or, in this case, awfully written games - but it just makes me roll my eyes.



Not frustrating or hard. It was just repetitious and tedious. Simply because the puzzles were a series of illogical rubbish that was basically guess work instead of actually well designed rational events, the end result was "click this and see how item reacts. Oh well I see it reacted that way. *restart* Ok now I click this, oh apparently it does this when that happens. *sigh, restart*. There was little to no rhyme or reason, no real way for a player to determine precisely how an object would actually impact objects in the game. No consistency. So what you were doing was simply figuring the exact order the game wanted you to unload its ghostly Rube Goldberg machines, and as far as I'm concerned the fun of Rube Goldberg machines is building them. In a point and click adventure game, the primary qualities need to be stellar writing and rational, high-quality puzzle design. In Ghost Trick, the puzzles are mind numbing exercises in guess work - albeit when you slot the puzzles in the right order, occasionally fun to watch - and the writing is embarrassingly awful.

There's no way Ghost Trick could be considered 'hard', since the entire game is based around the premise that you simply keep restarting the ghost order with your powers so you can once again try to predict the exact order the game developers wanted you to select items from the list. It's just tedious, since you have to rewatch scenes over and over and rewatch animations and just slightly tinker your order of actions progressively each go. I can understand why people like certain things, but I definitely do not get the appeal of the gameplay in Ghost Trick.

Yeah I have to agree with just about everything you're saying. I finished this game recently and felt cheated by the ending, but that wasn't the only thing...even leading up to the ending, something was always rubbing me the wrong way, and reading this explains partly why. The characters all didn't feel real at all. There was this huuuuge disconnect between how the acted and what they were actually supposed to be and the twist(s) at the end further exacerbates what I was feeling throughout the story. I guess this has to be one of those dearly loved games that didn't sit right with me, but I'm glad I'm not alone on this.

 

[Amir0x]

Yeah I have to agree with just about everything you're saying. I finished this game recently and felt cheated by the ending, but that wasn't the only thing...even leading up to the ending, something was always rubbing me the wrong way, and reading this explains partly why. The characters all didn't feel real at all. There was this huuuuge disconnect between how the acted and what they were actually supposed to be and the twist(s) at the end further exacerbates what I was feeling throughout the story. I guess this has to be one of those dearly loved games that didn't sit right with me, but I'm glad I'm not alone on this.

I like GT but I agree with Ami on the Jowd thing, it took me out of the game when it was explained because of how little sense it made and it's easily the weakest part of the entire package for me.

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I think the concept itself has potential. I loved the music and loved the artistic style and animation. I just feel what they built off the foundation ended up being rather disappointing.

In other games, I could ignore the story being bad or something because the gameplay focus is such that it ends up being relatively unimportant. But in an essentially point-and-click adventure game, these elements become increasingly important: you have to stick the landing, or else you have less and less to fall back on to keep a player invested.

I did like Missile and smiled thinly at the developers obsession with the loyalty of dogs, but that's where it began and ended for me.

 

[ElFly]

Eeeh, Jowd's story, while certainly melodramatic, makes sense within the context of Ghost Trick.

Spoiler

Remember that when Kamila's mother was killed, the gov already knew about the manipulator. Worst case wasn't thinking that Kamila's machine activating was an accident.

Worst case was the gov thinking that Kamila was a victim of the manipulator and putting her in prison to investigate her, like the inmates at the prison were Jowd was.

Jowd taking the blame switches the incident from accident to premeditated murder, which is believable will get a death sentence.

Of course, if something like this happened in real life, yeah, it being ruled an accident would be a reasonable result. Hell, even if ghosts existed it'd be a reasonable result. But throw in that the government suspected that someone with superpowers existed and that had manipulated Kamila, and she could have spent a good part of her life being investigated.

 

[Cartman86]

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I think the concept itself has potential. I loved the music and loved the artistic style and animation. I just feel what they built off the foundation ended up being rather disappointing.

In other games, I could ignore the story being bad or something because the gameplay focus is such that it ends up being relatively unimportant. But in an essentially point-and-click adventure game, these elements become increasingly important: you have to stick the landing, or else you have less and less to fall back on to keep a player invested.

I did like Missile and smiled thinly at the developers obsession with the loyalty of dogs, but that's where it began and ended for me.

I probably liked it a little more, but yeah some of that story shit in games like this is amazingly stupid. Professor Layton I think is the biggest offender. Same with Ace Attorney though I'm not sure if I'm just missing something with how the "world" in those games is supposed to be. Is the law supposed to be so corrupt and illogical? Spectral evidence? WTF. How can this judge still be on the bench? Do I need to accept these things from the get go? I can probably adapt with that, but i'll never be able to accept the left turns the Layton games take. PROFESSOR LAYTON 1-3 SPOILERS

Spoiler

Robots?? body suits?? Entire recreation of London filled with actors playing every citizen UNDER the real london?

Holy shit are those terrible.

 

[Haunted]

And while I'm posting screenshots, I guess Sissel gets a new ghost power in this version that wasn't in the DS version:

He has the ability to go on Twitter whenever he wants despite being dead.

what the hell is this shit

 

[LiK]

what the hell is this shit

Pointless Twitter integration. It announces what level you're on.

 

[heringer]

. A series of ever increasingly illogical guess me puzzles in which you can rarely figure out the solution by logical means, as half the time it's impossible to truly guess the way something will react to one of your interactions, and so you sit there experimenting, failing, and then tediously replaying segments you already replayed ten times before until you fit your circle into the square hole and eventually get the exact sequence the game wants you to have.

I don't find this to be true. Obviously, some puzzles suffer from typical trial and error of games in the genre, but I find that quite a few sequences have logical solutions. I'm frequently thinking "oh, I know!", and it turns out the solution I had in mind was the solution the game wanted.

I can get behind the complaint about replaying sections you already cleared though.

 

[Pagusas]

I think I should add to my statement that I really enjoyed the game, a lot. Yes there were plot holes or leaps in regards to normal logic but I can fully understand that given the type of game and suspend some disblief.

My comment was only about the "dance" scene. WTF was so great about it? It was just a guy doing some stupid moves and at one point the dance sped up by like 5x's its normal speed. It looks silly and stupid, and there was nothing "wow" about it.

again I'm assuming people are talking about this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcHWh2JUIOs Its not even a lot of moves or animation, it repeats very quickly!

What is so great about that? It looks stupid. Is the idea how "fluid" it is? Then whats the big deal, there are tons of better animations and scenes in the game. Not to mention the whole scene felt forced into the game.

 

[StarCreator]

My comment was only about the "dance" scene. WTF was so great about it? It was just a guy doing some stupid moves and at one point the dance sped up by like 5x's its normal speed. It looks silly and stupid, and there was nothing "wow" about it.

again I'm assuming people are talking about this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcHWh2JUIOs Its not even a lot of moves or animation, it repeats very quickly!

What is so great about that? It looks stupid. Is the idea how "fluid" it is? Then whats the big deal, there are tons of better animations and scenes in the game. Not to mention the whole scene felt forced into the game.

I can't help but laugh at it simply because of how absurd it is in the context of what's actually happening.

Speaking of our dancing man - has anyone noticed that if you visit him again after he stops dancing, he's returned to his desk but the book he's writing in has somehow turned invisible? Another graphics glitch I'm going to have to go back to the DS version to check on...

 

[chickdigger802]

lol I do really love how every police force guy has a really unique personality which is rare in all forms of media.

 

[LiK]

lol I do really love how every police force guy has a really unique personality which is rare in all forms of media.

it's pretty cool considering that their designs aren't that distinct

 

[Fuu]

Eeeh, Jowd's story, while certainly melodramatic, makes sense within the context of Ghost Trick.

Spoiler

Remember that when Kamila's mother was killed, the gov already knew about the manipulator. Worst case wasn't thinking that Kamila's machine activating was an accident.

Worst case was the gov thinking that Kamila was a victim of the manipulator and putting her in prison to investigate her, like the inmates at the prison were Jowd was.

Jowd taking the blame switches the incident from accident to premeditated murder, which is believable will get a death sentence.

Of course, if something like this happened in real life, yeah, it being ruled an accident would be a reasonable result. Hell, even if ghosts existed it'd be a reasonable result. But throw in that the government suspected that someone with superpowers existed and that had manipulated Kamila, and she could have spent a good part of her life being investigated.

It's been a while I played the DS version and I hadn't really thought of it this way back then, I have to agree it makes sense in that context.

Spoiler

I guess it was more about Jowd as a character going about things the way he did and the massive amount of guilt he felt that rubbed me the wrong way, and it ended up giving me a hard time buying into his motivations. When I first played it felt like his line of thought was "I'll go to jail, DIE and leave my daughter alone so Lynne will have to raise her. That will make everything right". Even if by doing that Jowd managed to evade Kamilla being investigated/tested, he'd have to take many leaps to assume that having her dad being jailed as a criminal and sentenced to death is a less shitty situation for the kid. I mean, I'm sure that even if the fact she was manipulated came to light they would be able to reach a less drastic and contrived solution. Jowd could even pretend he was the one who was manipulated instead.

I didn't have problems with suspending my disbelief and getting involved in the overall scenario, but his decisions felt like more of a stretch than any of the other characters in the game to me, particularly because he was built as a logical and collected sort of guy.

Granted, I still haven't replayed that part in the iOS version, maybe I'll be able to see it in a different light this time.

I think I should add to my statement that I really enjoyed the game, a lot. Yes there were plot holes or leaps in regards to normal logic but I can fully understand that given the type of game and suspend some disblief.

My comment was only about the "dance" scene. WTF was so great about it? It was just a guy doing some stupid moves and at one point the dance sped up by like 5x's its normal speed. It looks silly and stupid, and there was nothing "wow" about it.

again I'm assuming people are talking about this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcHWh2JUIOs Its not even a lot of moves or animation, it repeats very quickly!

What is so great about that? It looks stupid. Is the idea how "fluid" it is? Then whats the big deal, there are tons of better animations and scenes in the game. Not to mention the whole scene felt forced into the game.

Yeah, it's more about the absurdity of it all and how memorable it is because of that. As far as over the top goes, Cabanela's moves are way more fun.

 

[chickdigger802]

I always loved the animations of the dude with the pigeon.

Actually I just love the pigeon. The head bobbing animation is SPOT ON.

 

[vid]

So, does it drive anyone else crazy that the game is listed as "Ghost Trick : Détective Fantôme" in Game Center?

 

[StarCreator]

So, does it drive anyone else crazy that the game is listed as "Ghost Trick : Détective Fantôme" in Game Center?

Qu'est-ce que tu racontes? Semble tout à fait normal pour moi.

 

[base shagohod]

Maybe I'm the only one with this problem; this won't sync to the cloud at all.
I'm up to chapter 4 (I think) on my phone and I just got an ipad.. Trying to sync up my progress and it isn't working.

Definitely not playing through all that again.

 

[StarCreator]

Maybe I'm the only one with this problem; this won't sync to the cloud at all.
I'm up to chapter 4 (I think) on my phone and I just got an ipad.. Trying to sync up my progress and it isn't working.

Definitely not playing through all that again.

Found this to be the case when I switched to my new iPad as well. The only way I was able to migrate my save from the old iPad was to restore from the old iPad's iCloud backup. The built in iCloud feature did absolutely nothing.

IMO you might as well just finish the game on your iPhone; no real benefit to playing on iPad.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

Chapter 9 at the moment and enjoying this. Nothing extraordinarily good but it does keep me entertained when I'm on the train. I did like 999 far better though.

The writing and the story aren't particularly great but I'm looking forward to progress.

iPhone version btw.

 

[Tom_Cody]

I am loving this. I didn't go for the DS release because I had gotten burned on the Phoenix Wright series and I didn't want to gamble on $40. I didn't know it had been released on iOS until a few days ago and I couldn't say no to the free trial.

This feels so fresh and fun, plus it is perfectly suited to iOS. I am on something like the 5th chapter and I am loving it so far. The exquisitely detailed and animated sprites give this a totally unique look.

Fun stuff.