Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

哇；终于不是和主线、能力无关的解谜副本了 膜拜

不愧是巧舟

太好玩了，谜题也不难解

Suddenly, the game begins. A strange snippet of dialogue, an absurd image, a farce shrouded in mystery—it all starts playing out of nowhere. The background music maintains an enigmatic tone. Blocks of loud red and garish yellow crowd the screen, feeling cluttered. You let out a puzzled "Huh?", trying to remember if you missed something when you blinked just now. Then you notice the character in the game is doing the exact same thing. Now, let me ask you a question. If, after one blink, you suddenly found yourself in a bewildering place, having even forgotten your own "self," could you still hold onto your belief in who you are? He awakens like that, in a junkyard. Closest to him are many discarded home appliances, then larger trash, old cars, and further still, the city skyline. The moonlight is hazy behind the clouds. As the distance stretches, the colors grow dimmer, until they become indistinguishable. Vague, ethereal nouns drift through his mind, but he can't grasp a single one. He touches these nameless objects one by one, attempting to make direct contact with his thoughts. He succeeds. This is how his brand-new self first encounters this brand-new world—with this brand-new method. So-called "experience" does not apply to him. For him, each inanimate object retains only its pure practical value. His understanding extends no further than that. Everything is disconnected from history. Everything has nothing to do with him. Touching the corpse of his "former self," he can't help but think this. And so the game begins at the moment a deceased soul first comes face to face with his own body. Back then, staring at the screen, I had no idea that I would finish this game eleven hours later, and within ten minutes of leaving my desk, I would open a document, face a blank page, and let out the same exclamation. Overall, it's an absurd pursuit. The story's beginning is its ending. And naturally, the story's ending is its beginning. Unlike the ancient Ouroboros structure, in terms of narrative development, it's more like a double helix. Tightly intertwined are the protagonist's search for his identity and the mysteries of the story's world, which are peeled back layer by layer, connecting him to a cast of characters. This structure isn't just present in the story; it achieves a harmonious unity with the gameplay and the game's expression as well. As a puzzle game, the core mechanics are engaging in themselves. You control a soul, zipping between different objects, using them to solve various puzzles and befriend different characters. Throughout the process, the player continuously experiences a certain sense of "questing" embedded within this function of external interaction. It's like a dog searching for its owner on city streets, or a cat darting up and down buildings on a hunt. On one hand, it's driven by the pressing reality of the current scene; on the other, it's a manifestation of the protagonist's inherent nature as designed in the story. I can say with certainty that games which grant players ample freedom of control while making the protagonist's actions fit their personality so seamlessly are few and far between. Ghost Trick is one of them. Takumi Shuu, of course, plays clever tricks. To maintain consistency between the protagonist's actions and the player's expectations, he first wraps the protagonist's identity in a layer of narrative deception, and then repeatedly employs similar deceptions throughout the game. The deceptions unfold, the layers pile up, and the player becomes increasingly accepting of the absurd truth behind them. By the time the big reveal of the protagonist's identity finally arrives, he uses the cleverest trick to solve the story's core problem—how to make the player like a character they can't genuinely trust. The answer is simple. Just make the character something no one could possibly dislike. In this game, for one thing, you're controlling an amnesiac soul, so you can at least maintain tolerance for him throughout your exploration. For another, the game delays the revelation of your identity until the very end, and unveils your incredibly absurd origins in an incredibly absurd way. Even if you don't accept it, you have no chance to escape. And third, you absolutely will not hate the truth of the protagonist's origins. The most likable person you meet in your daily life isn't a tenth as charming as the true protagonist. Finally, this is the cleverest thing Shu Takumi did atop all these ingenious ideas: He gave this game a beginning that starts all of a sudden.

好游戏

伟大，无需多言。很难想象这般精妙的巧思，竟然诞生于这么多年前。前期节奏略有慢热，但这也是那个时代的特性；中期剧情逐步展开，后期堪称无敌的剧情反转，更是让人完全停不下来。 要说缺点，主要还是受限于当年的时代风格和机能限制，辅助功能做得不算好用。比如重来关卡经常要从头开始，体验比较坐牢；在大后期个别关卡会有点卡，再加上无谓的重复时间，难免让人忍不住想去看攻略参考，既破坏沉浸感，又有被剧透的风险。 最后一定要记住：玩的时候千万千万别被剧透啊！！