Ghost Trick

I finished the game recently. It's a marvelous experience, and I even cried a little for Yomiel and "Ray"-Missile. But ... I haven't figured out for sure what we, as the players, are supposed to take away from the story when all is said and done. Any thoughts?

Also, is anyone else a little upset that Lynne will never remember the time she went through with Sissel at her side? I mean, sure, she won't remember all those times she died either, but still.

edited 11th Apr '11 12:00:15 PM by Strife89

Thanks to , I gave the full version a shot about two or three days ago, especially since I found that Web demo interesting. I finished it over last night.

I was hoping it would last longer, but for the amount of time it did last, I was gripped. Couldn't think of anything but Ghost Trick's plot for those few days, mostly because of the Holy Shit Quotient that becomes noticeable at Chapter 5 (what I consider the first Wham Episode) and KEEPS GOING UP. Chapter 11? "Holy shit." Chapter 13? "Holy shit!" Chapter 14? "HOLY SHIT!" Chapter 15? "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Chapter 17? Tear Jerker. Final Chapter (18)? "My body wasn't ready."

As I was going through, I thought back to some subtle details that looked like Foreshadowing, like that black cat that only showed up in the first two chapters and was in a bag Sissel was carrying around, especially after Chapter 5 shows that it knocks the body down in Jeego's place as the cat leaves, so that the body's down at the bottom in a sort of junk throne, and when Lynne's spirit originally takes Cabanela's appearance due to confusion over the death scene in Chapter 2.

Cue Chapter 15, where "Sissel" is not only clearly alive, but is the manipulator everyone's talking about and just killed Cabanela and the pigeon man, and the possibility of Player Character Sissel being that black cat became very likely, although I didn't figure out how the black cat appeared to be alive when Sissel was clearly already dead and a spirit in the first two chapters.

Then I thought back to when Detective Jowd painted an image of Sissel, and Sissel confronts Jowd after his botched execution, only for Jowd to mention that he didn't call that man Sissel and became all but certain of it...just needed to see for myself how it worked out. Then comes Chapter 17, when the other Sissel's real name is revealed to be Yomiel, and he gave the foreigners the alias of "Sissel", explaining the confusion...was the Player Character's name really Sissel?

And then there's the Final Chapter, where it's the Yomiel/Jowd confrontation in the park ten years ago, replayed with one extra detail that was overlooked before...the black cat, which meowed at Jowd for attention and was disregarded given the circumstances. I was certain of it by now, without having to avert Yomiel's fate first, but still didn't understand how Yomiel could manipulate the black cat's body to leave the bag if it was already dead, since he was shown to only manipulate living creatures and inanimate objects, aside from his own body with the Temsik shard keeping it from being a total lifeless corpse; I figured that Sissel left of his own accord and died off-screen, though the Temsik radiation needed for ghost tricks would make that highly unlikely. Whatever the case, I would find my hunch proven correct in the lengthy credits.

But what I didn't get even come close to expecting, even with all the foreshadowing hints, was Ray's true identity, revealed in the ending. I thought it may have been Sissel before Chapter 15, perhaps a Stealth Mentor in some sort of time loop, but after Chapter 15, I got the impression that it may have been Yomiel instead, possessing the lamp after manipulating Lynne to shoot his body and frame her for murder and then mentoring Sissel. Neither were even close...it was Missile from an alternate timeline where the murders all went as planned, with Missile being unable to use his ghost tricks to save anyone directly...but somehow making it to Yomiel's body, going back 10 years, and waiting that whole time to manipulate Sissel into thinking he's Yomiel so that he'll save everyone with his ghost tricks along the way in his quest for identity instead of just searching for his own identity without regard for anyone else like the first time around. HOLY SHIT.

Then I watched the new timeline, and everything turned out much, much better...though there's a slight Tear Jerker in that Lynne won't remember all the time she spent with Sissel's spirit and didn't know before the torpedo launch that Sissel was Yomiel's cat. At least Jowd, Yomiel, and maybe even Missile remember all of what happened to get to that point. After all this, the potential Sequel Hook of Sissel taking the Temsik shard meant for Yomiel and thus retaining his ghost tricks, not to mention being quasi-immortal and a literal Schrodinger's cat would be difficult to follow up on without spoiling the first game HARD.

And while I probably shouldn't have made most of this post spoilers, this is what was mostly on my mind as I was playing through...at least I have the courtesy to indicate which spoiled lines correspond to a rough point in the storyline.

EDIT: Just noticed something when looking through Chapter 1 again...Yomiel's body has a core, Jeego kicks Yomiel's body down with Sissel's soul in it, and after Lynne's saved for the first time, she sees Sissel's body meow at her, jump on Yomiel's slouched body, and walk away. Then there's the fact that Ray doesn't have a flame and you can possess the desk lamp he's also inhabiting. There seems like a bit of Fridge Logic amongst all this...

edited 14th Apr '11 6:13:24 PM by NamelessFragger

Well, Yomiel's body having a core could be explained that his spirit wasn't inhabiting it at the time. And it's dead so you can possess it, but you just can't go back in time thanks to the shard. Jeego kicking down Yomiel's body makes sense because he's nearsighted. The cat could've gone back in the bag, or that was a different cat. Ray could be hiding a core that the desk lamp has. Remember, the desk lamp has two cores. The lamp itself, and the bulb (the core you actually possess) You possessed another desk lamp earlier in the game, remember?

edited 16th Apr '11 11:58:37 AM by Marioguy128

Yomiel's body having an exposed core because it's not inhabited...same for Ray and the bulb...makes sense, but in the latter case, why couldn't Sissel see Ray's spirit at all in the Ghost World?...Wait a damn minute. Neither Sissel nor Missile saw Yomiel's spirit manipulating his body or any other body, either...guess I should review Chapter 14 to see if Missile's inhabiting anything at the time.

However, Sissel being knocked down with the body does make sense. It's just that the top screen is only lying when he first enters the Ghost World to possess the crossing gate, in that it says that Sissel's soul is in Yomiel's body, obviously hiding that Sissel's body is in the bag behind Yomiel's body. After Sissel gets the idea to manipulate corpses, he grabs Yomiel's core, missing his own, and at that point, it's not lying.

When reviewing the bit where Yomiel makes his leave after Lynne's saved by possessing Sissel's now-dead body, I just realized that the bag not only opens and knocks Yomiel's body down, but that it closes afterward, seemingly by itself. Thus, if he left while we weren't looking, it clearly would not have been obvious that it had opened before to begin with. The most likely explanation is that Yomiel manipulated it shut after he left in Sissel's body.

I also realized that the first appearance of the black cat was after Lynne walks down the stairs, umbrella-possessed-by-Sissel in hand, who meowed at Lynne once and scurried off, jumping on Yomiel's body along the way. Since that black cat is actually dead by this point, Yomiel must have still been manipulating it...what I don't get is that it clearly, audibly meowed and generally looked VERY alive. I guess corpses don't need to be in a Schrodinger life/death state to be usable like that...though the one thing that bothered me about the "Sissel's the cat" possibility I thought of before the ending was that I was under the impression that Yomiel could only manipulate living things and inanimate objects that aren't corpses, sort of like how Sissel couldn't manipulate Yomiel's body at all. I thought Yomiel could move his body because it wasn't quite dead due to the Temsik shard, but Sissel's body obviously lacked the shard...

Heh, every time I think there's a bit of Fridge Logic left hanging, there are actually some plausible explanations. Shu Takumi is quite a writer...

edited 16th Apr '11 2:49:37 PM by NamelessFragger

It's coming to iOS!

While I don't own any iOS devices myself, I'm all for increased exposure to this awesome game.

And here it is on iTunes. Don't let the "FREE" price tag deceive you, though; only the first two chapters are free, and you can either buy the rest for a flat $10 or buy them in thirds at $5 each ($15 total).

edited 2nd Feb '12 4:34:36 PM by NamelessFragger

Bought it like yesterday, completed it in almost one sitting,(stopped at 4:00 AM then resumed when I woke up), I'm surprised at awesomeness of this game.

I just played it and it was pretty awesome...though was there any foreshadowing that Ray was an alternate Missile?

^ Not really? At least I didn't noticed it...

Not really. Not helped in the slightest by the fact that he lies to you about more than one thing in order to keep you on the right track.

Nope. Even if you check back with him, there's nothing really much indicating that.

Now, foreshadowing for Sissel being a cat, or at least not a human is rampant. He doesn't just not know how to read, he doesn't know what "Science" is, why guns cause people to die, etc..

Yeah, that they did better. Heck, you won't notice it too much until the reveal, which is when it all makes sense. (Which I consider to be a form of good writing.)

Though writing wise, it kind of seems like the last half of the game was a bit rushed. While it didn't really suffer from that, considering the plot twists that just kept you going, the part I'm talking about is the whole submarine portion. It kind of felt like they were writing themselves into a corner there. But the most glaring example is Yomiel. One time you see him, he's trying to have Jowd's daughter murder him. Next time you see him? He saves Lynne and is suddenly painted in a sympathetic light. Like it's really hard to believe that this guy was the guy who killed Jowd's wife, Cabenella, had Jowd executed, kidnapped Kamila, and a whole bunch of other stuff. What I'm saying is, they did not handle Yomiel's transition from an inhuman monster, to a poor ghost well. Though the rest of the game is pretty awesome.

Not to mention two villains just vanishing before you really do anything with them.

I kinda hope it doesn't get a sequel, personally both because it wrapped itself up pretty close to perfectly, and because Capcom wouldn't bring it over here as they are now. But it would be nice if Ace Attorney acknowledged it somehow, even with a cameo.

edited 4th Sep '12 9:55:31 AM by Justin_Brett

So:

Am I the only person who couldn't stop hearing the voice of Inspector Wizer Freion (from Slayers Revolution) whenever Cabanella was on screen?

edited 19th Sep '13 5:33:08 PM by TheyCallMeTomu