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Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is $1 on iOS in the name of holiday cheer
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, the ghostly puzzler from Capcom, is available in full for just $1 on iOS. We're not telling you that you have to get it, but you have to get it. We played the DS version in 2011 and gave it a our highest marks, comparing it to the Phoenix Wright games in storyline and character style. The iOS version is free to try, with all of the chapters normally under in-app purchases totaling $15. In celebration of the holidays, you can grab all of the chapters and have yourself a grand old ghost-detective time for $1. You don't want to disappoint the holidays, now do you?
Ghost Trick comes through the phone lines to iOS tomorrow
The iOS version of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, which came out in Japan in December 2010, is finally coming out worldwide. Capcom gave the DS version a year to sell (or not), but the English-language version of the game has already appeared on the New Zealand App Store, typically the first sign of a worldwide release over the course of the next day.Like the Japanese release, this version of Ghost Trick is somewhat episodic. The first two chapters of the supernatural mystery puzzle adventure game (phew) are free, with the rest of the game available as in-app purchases. We had no problem recommending a purchase of the full game on DS; it's even easier for us to command you to try it for free.
Best of the Rest: JC's picks of 2011
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective If you were interested in this game, but didn't buy it on DS because of faith that an iOS version would follow, I'm holding you personally responsible for the foundering sales of my favorite game of 2011. Live with that. This came out in January, and I still have yet to experience anything so fresh, so unique, as Shu Takumi's side-scrolling adventure/puzzle game. Its comically unpredictable (but predictably comical) storyline cascades toward a twist that shouldn't work, its gameplay turns everyday objects like ceiling fans and globes into methods of both traversal and interaction, as you observe and influence the lives of a cast of bizarre characters from within their phone lines, headphones and wrecking balls. I can't mention this game without mentioning its beyond perfect animation, which gave a jazzy flourish to every movement of every character. The act of serving chicken never seemed so stylish.
Ghost Trick jumps to iPad in Japan
A free update to the currently Japan-only iPhone version of the wonderful Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective adds native iPad support, allowing those lucky people in possession of an iPad -- connected to the Japan's iTunes Store -- to see the beautiful animations on the biggest screen yet. The new update also includes "Ghost Puzzle," a minigame in which players solve slide puzzles to unlock iPhone wallpapers, and "Missile Omikuji," a minigame that dispenses fortunes in the style of Missile, an enthusiastic Pomeranian encountered in Ghost Trick.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective review: Dead and loving it
A pill bottle is knocked off of a table, and you have to get it back within the reach of the man in the throes of what appears to be the thrashing precursor to a heart attack. It would be easy to pick it up and walk it over to his desk, except you don't have any legs. Or hands. Because you're dead. Luckily, you've been given the mysterious power to inhabit and manipulate inanimate objects. And so what would be easy for a living person, but impossible for, you know, a corpse, becomes merely ridiculous, as you jump from decorative armor to curtain rod to urn, tweaking every variable to create the perfect chain reaction in order to get that pill bottle where it needs to be. That's Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. It turns fetching a bottle into just as heroic an effort as preventing a hitman from reaching his target. And I don't think I've had a better time doing either elsewhere.%Gallery-109469%
When worlds collide: A Ghost Trick/Dr. McNinja crossover comic
What happens when a character from one of our most anticipated games of this year gets involved with the greatest assassin/physician of all time? Magic happens, that's what. Check out a special Dr. McNinja comic strip featuring Ghost Trick's intangible protagonist posted after the jump.
Ghost Trick demo now downloadable through Nintendo Channel
We aren't sure why Capcom waited until last night to announce the availability of a Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective demo on the Nintendo Channel in North America -- maybe they, and we, missed the release because it was just too spectral. As the book says, "the living usually won't see the dead." In any case, it's been there since Monday, and all you have to do to play this trial scenario is load up the Nintendo Channel on your Wii, turn on Download Play on your DS, and beam the demo over like a dead person jumping from your TV into your DS. It's new content, exclusive to the DS demo -- not the same thing you played in that Flash demo.
Ghost Trick inhabits iPhone in Japan
1UP reports that Capcom is releasing a portion of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective to the iPhone App Store in Japan. The initial download will be free, containing two chapters of the formerly DS-exclusive puzzle adventure. Additional chapters will be available for ¥600 ($7) each, or ¥1,500 ($18) as a bundle. The DS version was released in Japan in June, six months before the announcement of this iPhone port. Capcom has yet to announce this for the West, and likely won't until after the January 11 release of the DS version. Another well-known game by creator Shu Takumi, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, has also been ported to the iPhone.
Ghost Trick media is as serious as a heart attack
One of the most impressive elements of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is its fluid, expressive animation -- even when the movements taking place aren't the most naturally graceful things. For example, the trailer after the break features a man having a heart attack or some other kind of medical emergency, and it's about as balletic as a heart attack could be. Even better, after seeing this impressive display in the game, you'll be able to turn back time and swing your ghostly self from flag to sword across his room to retrieve his pills. So, for now, you can delight in his Fred Sanford-style gesticulations guilt-free.%Gallery-109469%
Treat yourself to a Ghost Trick demo
Back in March, we linked a Japanese-language demo for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Now, you can play that Flash demo in English, not only allowing you to experience the introduction to the DS puzzle adventure, but to know what the hell you're experiencing!
Ghost Trick trailer and screens serenade some chicken
This new trailer for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective returns us to the distinctive chicken restaurant seen previously. This time, we can see the restaurant as it was before the cops so rudely barged in (through the wall). And we meet the chef, who possibly instigates said intrusion ... by singing.
Pre-order Ghost Trick from Capcom Store, get Phoenix Wright on DS for only $10
Here's a deal sure to bring no objections: those who pre-order Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective from Capcom Store can bundle it with the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for an extra $10. The $40 bundle nets you the $30 Ghost Trick and a new copy of the out-of-print Phoenix Wright for cheaper than you'd get it pre-owned at the local gaming Pawn Star. Phoenix Wright is currently leaving the ace attorney work to Edgeworth, as he prepares for his next big case with Professor Layton. Ghost Trick will be released on January 11. %Gallery-93388%
Ghost Trick haunts Europe Jan. 14, Capcom and Nintendo partnering to publish
Nintendo and Capcom have made a deal wherein Nintendo will handle European marketing and distribution for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, and Capcom will publish it, with Capcom working alone in Australia and the Middle East. The most important result of this agreement, of course, is that Ghost Trick now has a European release date: January 14, just three days after the North American release. The other positive result is that if Nintendo is handling marketing duties for Capcom's postmortem mystery ... there may actually be some marketing for the game. Dragon Quest IX, for example, enjoyed increased visibility thanks to Nintendo's use of television ads in the US and UK.
Possess Ghost Trick on January 11
The dead will roam the earth starting January 11, 2011, to inhabit our donut carts and cabinet doors. Or at least one dead guy will ... in a DS game. January 11 is the newly revealed North American release date for Capcom's Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, in which an amnesiac ghost named Sissel solves his own murder and prevents the murder of others by manipulating objects (which, in turn, manipulate people). While we would have preferred a Halloween release date for the ghostly game (because it would have been sooner), at least Capcom came through with a seasonally appropriate Halloween release date announcement.
Latest Ghost Trick media includes mystery, meat
A dead amnesiac's work is never done. In the latest Ghost Trick trailer (after the break), we see a new scenario in which a police car drives through a restaurant window, dropping a gigantic piece of meat on a bystander. Naturally, the only person able to set this right will be Sissel, a dead man with the power to possess and control objects. Wait, does that mean a dead person's going to be touching the food in the restaurant? Gross. Of course, Sissel doesn't appear to be the only "free spirit" in the establishment -- it's staffed by a (literally) meatheaded, rollerskating waitress and a philosophically-minded bartender with blue Guile hair.%Gallery-104652%
Ghost Trick's Shu Takumi on finding humor in a murder-mystery
We'd happily take any opportunity to talk about Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective -- to our readers, our coworkers, our friends, people we meet in elevators, etc. So we happily jumped at the chance to talk with Capcom's Shu Takumi, the person responsible for creating the supernatural puzzle-adventure game. In a brief TGS interview, we spoke with Takumi about the unique humor in Ghost Trick and the Ace Attorney series -- and the relative uniqueness of any humor in a video game. Your games tend to have a certain tone, they tend to be funny. Most video games don't even attempt humor. Why do you think it's so rare, and how is it that you can continue doing funny games? I don't really know why people don't attempt to put humor in games. That's something I would actually love to know. I'd love to ask people why they don't try it. As for me, why I put humor in my games, and why I'm able to continue doing that: I like funny things. I like humor. I like writing mysteries, and mysteries have to be fun to read. They have to be something entertaining where you want to continue reading it. It can't be boring or dry. For me, what makes it interesting is adding a little humor here and there, using that to my advantage. Basically, I just write what is funny to me, whatever I'm interested in for other people to read. And that's how I'm able to continue in this manner that I do. It's important what I write, but what I write is in Japanese, and part of that humor and part of what makes it unique is the translation. (Note: Takumi's interpreter in this interview was Capcom's Janet Hsu, who actually works on localization for the Ace Attorney games. She reported her embarrassment about translating praise for herself.)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective bumped to January 2011
When last we heard Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Capcom's excellent spiritual (get it?) successor to the Ace Attorney series, was due in "winter 2010." With that in mind, we have bad news for would-be phantom detectives, as Capcom's TGS fact sheet for the title includes a "January 2011" North American release date. The good news: our time with the title in Tokyo this year has further convinced us that the wait will be worth it.
Come get slimed by Ghost Trick footage
We talked about it around the office and decided today's the day you have to get excited about Shu Takumi's Ghost Trick. It's all here in this Gamescom footage -- the amazing animation, the funky premise, the unique gameplay -- all you need to do is open your heart. Go ahead. Open it. We'll wait.
Shu Takumi shares wonderful Ghost Trick, Phoenix Wright sketches
Ghost Trick and Phoenix Wright cross over! ... in these sketches by Shu Takumi, creator of both series. Capcom shared a series of Ghost Trick-related drawings made by the producer, featuring Sissel as a shadow and a Christmas tree, as well as various slices of (after-) life from the other characters. The one here even features a bonus literary reference. The caption above is a quote from a haiku by Matsuo Basho, which translates to something like "I wonder how my neighbor lives?" And now that we've taken a brief detour into seventeenth-century Japanese poetry, you can find a video of Takumi drawing after the break.
More 'sluggish' sales plague Capcom financials
Capcom experienced another "sluggish" performance in its latest financial quarter -- the first of Fiscal 2010, from April 1 to June 30 -- and consequently blamed slow growth of Lost Planet 2 sales, among other things. Net sales for the quarter were down 2.4 percent year-over-year at 19 million yen ($219 million) and net income dropped a dramatic 90 percent from last year to the tune of 213 million yen ($2.5 million). Although titles like Super Street Fighter IV and Monster Hunter Frontier Online showed what Capcom calls "steady growth," LP2 and Monster Hunter Tri only sold at a "sluggish pace." The first two weeks of Ghost Trick sales were also met with disappointment, although the game premiered at number two in its first week of Japanese sales. The Japanese publisher also lamented "shrinking" US and European markets "under the stagnating economy," as well as fluctuating exchange rates. Though sales across the board were lower than expected, Capcom considers its financial forecast for this fiscal year to be unaffected.
