Board 8 > Anagram plays Ghost Trick. (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

• You're a ghost who saves people.
• It's made by the Phoenix Wright guy, and has the same tone and humor, but it isn't about lawyers.
• The main character looks like a thinner Johnny Bravo.
• I watched part of a Steamed Hams video that was Ghost Trick-style, but I don't remember any of the details.

• Our protagonist wakes up to find a hot lady with red hair and a miniskirt and a pasty-skinned gangster with a golden gun. Man, I hate Tuesdays.
• Camera reveals that he's dead, and is using the exact same 'ass up in the air while I'm on the ground' death animation as Ann from Persona 5.
• A voice is like "here's the ghost world, the blue flame is your soul." Am I crazy for wondering how you can see your own soul from third person? Like, I was okay with a ghost seeing his own corpse, that's fine, but aren't you the soul itself? It's like seeing your own eye from third person.
• "That was one of your powers at work, a ghost trick." Man, title drop one minute in.
• Wow, I didn't expect us to possess our corpse so quickly, that seemed like something you'd think of for the climax.
• You can only possess non-living objects, and corpses don't count? Okay, game, I demand a later scene where I either do or do not possess like a piece of meat or something. I expect closure on this major plot hook. And that's leaving out the question of materials made from plants or animals, like cotton or wool shirts.
• lol he just shoots her and she falls off the screen Mario-style. There's no way that sticks, her design is way too co-protagonist-y, there is a 1000% chance she's the Maya of this game.
• No one with red hair is ever unimportant. I can't think of any unimportant redheads in any story except if the story just has a million redheads because it's in Ireland or Scotland. Even every single member of Ron Weasley's family ends up being at least mildly important.
• Man, this voice is being super cagey about its identity. This will either be revealed just after we rescue her, or it'll be a major endgame twist.
• You've been a ghost for three minutes and are already trying to possess a hot woman's corpse, huh? Okay, I see, I see.
• The idea of being unconscious while dead is really funny to me.
• "Come to think of it, the desk lamp is right!"
• "Heh heh. You'll see, you'll see." 90% chance that we're going to meet someone who says this, and it'll be a "subtle" clue as to desk lamp's true identity.
• Yeah, this girl looks like she's seventeen, she's totally the Maya.
• The animation for this game is much better than I expected. Very stylish, I like it a lot.
• I love how this hitman conspicuously looks up to the wrecking ball and says "UNLESS THE WRECKING BALL STOPS ME, I'LL TOTALLY SHOOT YOU."
• I am extremely suspicious of the fact that when I go back four minutes in time, the desk lamp voice is also there. By the way he explained things, he wouldn't come with me. Either he came with me, or he's in the desk lamp in the past pretending to have come back in time with me.
• Wait a second, that folding cot was definitely folded four minutes ago, I had to unfold it after she died. This is a gaping plot hole.
• I'm already imagining a version of this game that takes place before there were lots of items that move around and do things. In like Victorian days, when all you'd have to manipulate is a player piano and a wheelbarrow, and you have to save James A Garfield from being shot.
• I kind of expected her to get on the bicycle and roll away, but I guess we have to integrate the wrecking ball in some way before this is over.
• "Nearsighted Jeego never misses, as long as the target is within point-blank range!"
• I spent this entire sequence wondering if the wrecking ball was actually going to kill him or not, because the game clearly has AA's atmosphere, and Phoenix Wright wouldn't just kill someone even to save the day. The sequence is now over, and I think Jeego lived, but that was unexpectedly cartoony after the bluntness of a shotgun just killing you.
• And now we're just in the present, and she's not dead anymore. I hope there's a sequence later where the hero is trying to save someone dying of cancer and he's like IF I JUST POSSESS THE HEART MONITOR and the voice is like dude stop.
• Oh he has amnesiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa okay. I would say that amnesia is the most tired trope ever, but I'm not gonna lie, I love amnesia. It's the best trope.
• Ray is like "you'll disappear when the sun rises." There'd better be a good explanation as to how he knows that, since no previous ghost could impart that information. Also, I guess it must rule to die in like Antarctica at the start of the sixth months of darkness. That was the plot to a vampire movie I watched in like 2006, and it's stuck with me ever since.
• Anyway, we introduced a mentor character who's cagey about who he really is, the protagonist has amnesia, and time travel exists. I'm giving it 80% odds that Ray is you. 50% odds that he's from the future using ghost powers to guide his past self, 30% odds that you're from the future and lost your memories, and Ray is the 'current' version of you who's guiding yourself as part of some convoluted plan that involved temporarily killing yourself (because that's just insane enough to be an Ace Attorney final plot twist), and 20% odds that it's something else.
• Is this game canon to the Phoenix Wright games? I hate to ask, but when you introduce ghost magic, wacky anime characters, and the DS, you kind of have to.
• More later.

The animation for this game is much better than I expected. Very stylish, I like it a lot.

• I've decided to just call the main character SG (Sunglasses) until his name is revealed.
• So, I really hope this game answers the most obvious question of all: what about robots? Could SG possess Data or the T-1000? Inquiring minds want to know.
• Girl notes that "it started raining all by itself," which, yes, that is how rain works.
• Girl picks up SG in umbrella form, holding it in a way that would not protect her from the rain, and stumbles on his body even though he was kicked off of the second story after she died? Did I totally misremember that?
• She picks up a note, then doesn't read it because a payphone rings. This game is from 2010, even back then, no one used payphones.
• So, we're led to believe that Bushy Eyebrows Giant Nose Man ordered SG's death, but the evidence for this is sketchy, they don't directly say it.
• "The dead can move from point A to point B by through phone lines!" The invention of cell phones must have been disastrous for ghosts. They really only had a sweet spot of like 1920-2004 to enjoy this ability. 1860-2004 if we count telegraph lines, but even those were much more limited. Imagine having to go to the local telegraph office and possess a letter addressed to the person you want to see.
• I really like how the ability to tell the caller's number is presented as a magical ghost power, when my cell phone does the same automatically. Actually, it mostly calls them SPAM RISK, but it's around the same, really.
• So, if you possess an airplane that's traveling at the same speed as the movement of night into day and keep traveling along with the time zones...
• I've got to say, I see "elegant Edwardian-era European mansion" aesthetics in Japanese works way more than I ever do in Western works. I think this is related to butlers and maids being more common in anime than Western stuff. It's probably also a function of me playing a bunch of RE games during covid.
• Oh no, I examined a file instead of listening to a speech bubble, and now the chance is lost. This is going to be another Ace Attorney, where you don't know what progresses the story and constantly miss bits of dialogue you wanted to see.
• Eyebrows and Butler are like "let's use the name Sissel in reference to SG, but be very evasive about if that's his name or not for the audience's sake."
• Are all of the villains going to be blue? If so, I might be forced to make a lame racism joke.
• The blunt realness of the guns in this wacky game is really offputting.
• I can see that level 2 will be rescuing the dog. Fair enough, I expected an animal at some point, though not this soon.
• Hold on a second, I've seen this dog sprite before in memes. I didn't know it was from this game!
• Missile the dog, eh? I recognize that reference. I actually don't remember what the PW Missile looked like, for all I know, this is the same dog after he retired from the police force, the timing actually does work out.
• Room 701? "How to tell a game is not set in Los Angeles."
• Hm, suspicious that Missile regained consciousness and came with me to the past when Girl didn't.
• Ah, introducing a little girl character, of course. Is this going to be the Pearl? I bet it is.
• I have never seen donuts in my life that have holes this wide, is this a Japanese thing? Every donut I've ever seen in my entire life had the ring portion be much thicker and the hole section be relatively small, these look more like giant onion rings.
• Missile refers to Kamila's headphones as "red things." I just googled it, and dogs cannot see red or green. Plot hole: found. This game is ruined.
• Oh my god, the hitman stole a donut.
• Missile's growing on me.
• "You're the one who lead her under the sofa, right?" Game, get better editors.
• I have had many dogs in my life, and I don't think a single one would be capable of hiding under a sofa while an intruder is in the house. Every single one would have flipped out and barked.
• I refuse to believe this hitman doesn't have a cell phone in 2010. My freaking 90-something year-old grandfather had a cell phone in 2010.
• Hmph, game, if you think I missed how that portrait you can rock didn't come up, you're sorely mistaken. Are there alternate solutions to the puzzles, or is there just one way to progress every time?
• I have to say this again: I'm completely shocked by the quality of the sprite work, this is like the best-looking sprite-based game I've ever seen.

and dogs cannot see red or green.

Missile the dog, eh? I recognize that reference. I actually don't remember what the PW Missile looked like, for all I know, this is the same dog after he retired from the police force, the timing actually does work out.

Also you should definitely try to play Hotel Dusk and Last Window if that's not on your list of less popular VNs you've already played

• Oh hey, the rocking portrait came up, after all.
• "There are paths only the dead can see." "Oh, those kinds of paths." Missile has pretty quickly established himself as the best character in the game.
• No one used typewriters in 2010, not even GRR Martin.
• ANOTHER little girl, we're going full-on anime.
• I just realized that this lady must be like seven feet tall.
• "I'm curious about this woman's husband" for literally no reason.
• They were really showing off with that umbrella folding animation.
• So, is Lynne her first or last name? Because Kamila calls her Lynne, but the detectives call her Detective Lynne.
• A mysterious gunshot rings out from the office where Lynne is being held, and I stop playing because I'm a little tired. More later.

Clearly her name is Lynne Lynne

• Wow, birdman is super blaise about a girl being shot in his office. To be fair, so is Canabela or whatever his name is.
• I'm really going to enjoy it if this game is just Lynne being killed over and over again in ridiculous ways, and SG has to keep saving her while getting increasingly frustrated. That is all I want out of this game now, and I'll be disappointed if this is the last time she dies.
• By the way, it did not escape me that the doctor is the only non-evil blue person so far.
• Wow, I sure did not expect the ghost to be Canabela.
• Oh man, jeez. For a second, I thought this was going to be a huge twist where Lynne is still alive and the Canabela cradling her body is actually the assassin in a disguise, and somehow eh you get it already.
• Oh, they acknowledged that the guys are blue, I thought that was just a stylistic thing.
• "I was hungry, so I was trying to get something delivered." Don't do that, Lynne, I promise you that the doordash fees will add up faster than you expect.
• "Is *it* tonight? Is that when it's happening?" Lynne, you are not allowed to speak this vaguely just for the audience's sake, I'm sorry.
• I stopped for now. I should say that I sort of expected this game to have like dedicated 'cases' or something like that, where everything leads up to a puzzle sequence where you have to save someone, and those sequences are coming in way more frequently than I expected. Admittedly, this is only the third one.

• SG, we already established in the last event that you can't use the phone while in the past, why are you trying again? I also appreciate how no explanation is offered for this, but the reason is obviously just to keep things focused on what's happening during the death sequences.
• Cabanela, that's it.
• Ray tells us that ghosts can look like anything we want. Yeah, okay, I'm changing my predictions. 85% chance SG is not SG, and SG is someone else. Who else could it be? Not sure, we haven't met any other corpses besides Lynne and Missile. If SG turns out to be a teenage detective girl or a dog, I'll be a little surprised.
• As for Ray, Lynne says he sounds like a grandpa. That makes me think he might not be the real SG, but if he's not, I have no idea. I'm still leaning toward him being the real one, though.
• You know, I didn't think about this before, but I just realized that there's a Hitman Division, as if this was a boring corporation.
• I was hoping you'd foil the hitman by lifting the car's backdoor in front of his shot, but that sadly was not the solution despite being funnier than what actually happens.
• This game is so inconsistent about what you can and cannot possess. I had been going this whole time assuming that you can't possess objects held by a person, because you never could before, but suddenly I can possess a cop's nightstick.
• "She couldn't possibly fit in that tiny elevator!" "I don't know sir, Lynne is is pretty slim." "Fool! Don't you know that women can make themselves appear slim through fashion?! To this day, I still don't know how much my wife actually weighs!"
• Imagine someone under the age of 60 writing down phone numbers in a book.
• Stopped for now.

• So, I guess I'll mention this here: I have no idea where this game is supposed to be set. It doesn't feel like Japan, it doesn't feel like the United States, I have no idea what the phone numbers are about, and we saw a prime minister earlier and a Buckingham Palace-esque guard, so I'm assuming somewhere in Europe, maybe? But that doesn't feel quite right, either.
• Wow, Lynne's off-screen for literally twenty seconds and dies again, I'm actually getting my wish, I didn't expect this. She truly is the Maya of this game.
• Given how blunt and semi-realistic the previous deaths were, this one comes off as a bit cheap and bad.
• You know, if you can talk to people who've died before, and Lynne has died (twice) before, why can't you just tell past Lynne "hey do this" directly instead of doing all of this Rube Goldberg crap? I'm just saying.
• "I've always liked small, cramped spaces."
• You know, I just realized the oddness of a guy in the modern world using a lantern.
• Lynne: saved. Gonna say this is the lamest one so far. Is there an actual name for these 'four minutes in the past' sequences?
• "Something" is going on tonight. Is it the execution of the guy she thinks is innocent of the murder? And characters have used the word "special" to refer to both SG and the night in general.
• Is no one going to address the superintendent having a Rube Goldberg trap in his basement? Okay.
• I just realized that this is another 'detective teams up with a supernatural creature' story. Was the Robots series by Isaac Asimov the first example of that? I can't think of an earlier one. And how many vampire detective series have there been?

So, I guess I'll mention this here: I have no idea where this game is supposed to be set. It doesn't feel like Japan, it doesn't feel like the United States, I have no idea what the phone numbers are about, and we saw a prime minister earlier and a Buckingham Palace-esque guard, so I'm assuming somewhere in Europe, maybe? But that doesn't feel quite right, either.

It takes place in a fictional country without many cell phones.

• The two guards talking about prisoners reminds me a little of Zero Escape, where characters will be like "we have to escape or we'll die" and then other characters will be like "did you ever hear about the Titanic's sister ship?"
• This prisoner has no work schedule, yeah, he's totally scheduled for execution.
• I knew he'd be a detective. 90% chance of him being Lynne's father. Should've called those earlier, just believe me when I say I guessed the second she brought it up.
• Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn he's painted SG, "the last person I want to forget."
• A VHS tape in 2010, ****ing get out of here.
• Is no one going to ask why there's a security camera in the junkyard at human-head level? I'm just asking.
• So, Lynne is seemingly the murderer. How will we Phoenix Wright ourselves out of this to show how it was actually someone else? Or will it be a thing where SG told her to shoot him as part of a convoluted ghost plan that she no longer remembers? I guess neither thing makes sense, since Lynne asked Jeego at the start of the game if he shot SG.
• Oh, so they're acknowledging that Jeego kicking SG to the lower level didn't happen in this reality, I thought I was going nuts. But will they ever give me closure on that folding chair that stayed the same in both timelines?
• Hey, it's the black cat again. This cat will be important somehow later, I can tell.
• I really like this misdirection at the restaurant, where you see a cab driver's corpse, but instead you can't reach it, and you just have to help Lynne again, who's been crushed by a giant prop chicken. I'm actually getting my wish, I'm shocked, I really thought I was just talking out of my ass. I don't know how much more absurd the deaths can get from here, but I'm hoping for some good ones.
• Wow, I expected SG to play around with the "Lynne shot me" plot point some more, for it to be some kind of thing he keeps secret and dances around until like 70% of the way through the game, instead he just immediately confronts her about it.
• I would've enjoyed it if you could get a bad ending by just choosing not to save Lynne for revenge. These types of games don't have enough bad endings.
• I hope it turns out that Lynne really did just shoot you in cold blood and her chipper personality is just a fake, and she's somehow the final boss. Phoenix Wright spoilers: that's like the one twist they've never done, is having your assistant actually be guilty of something or be the evil one.
• I just realized that I've never seen a roller-skating waitress, despite that being a trope.
• Chicken-specialty restaurants, gross. I once went to a Zankou Chicken, ordered a chicken breast, and there was a piece of cold, uncooked intestine inside. Never been back to a Zankou Chicken in 21 years.

• You know, it's fine when regular people don't think much of weird things happening with objects around them, but Lynne should really just immediately zero in on it by this point. If a bell near me rang on its own three times to call the waitress for more water, and then she rolled away while holding a pitcher of water, my eyes would be ****ing glued to that pitcher.
• I don't think you could really make these "national secrets" if they involve a rock star and a police commissioner being held hostage with a flamethrower, Lynne.
• lol at possessing the driver's corpse during this sequence. I was wondering when he'd come up, but I didn't expect it to be during another sequence.
• lol at the reclining seat just killing him in a different way.
• Haha, I actually didn't expect the waitress to be a cop.
• "There must have been some sort of complicated set of circumstances that made you do it." SG already understands how these mystery games work.
• "It's never okay to shoot a person, no matter what the circumstances!" Lynne confirmed for anti-castle defense laws.
• A telephone book in 2010? I think the last time I saw a telephone book was in like 2002. I'm not even sure it was that recently, to be honest. The last time I clearly recall reading the yellow pages was in like 1996, when my dad told me to look something up for him, I checked the pages he had and they were out of date, I told him they were only up to 1992 and he was like "it's fine."
• The ability to go back in time once you're already back in time changes this a lot. Predicting the finale will be you somehow going back in time a bunch of times until you stop SG's death entirely.

• Uh-oh, the detective doesn't have a core. What could it meaaaan? Oh, Lynne immediately explains, and it's exactly what I thought it would be.
• "Detective Jowd is my--" Me: YES I WAS RIGHT "--hero." Dammit. I should've known he wasn't her father because he doesn't have red hair.
• "The gods, they're the ones who saved you." This game just wants to be as ambiguous as possible to where it's set, huh?
• "A nation isn't something that's easily influenced, though." *Insert joke here about any country*
• "The execution is set for eleven PM." What a specific and climatically-convenient time.
• Woah what it's already 10:55? I am certain we skipped a ton of time there.
• "This is Special Detention, calling from the death chamber." God, imagine if it was actually called the death chamber.
• If you possess a drop of water, and it falls into a bucket of water... I'm just saying, because the game has brought it up.
• lol at the electric chair short-circuiting and killing him by accident.

• Wait, so every time Jowd flushes a poop, spoony's bell rings? I think this jury-rigged prisoner communication system might just have a flaw or two!
• Finished the sequence without any real difficulty. These things are much easier than the trials in PW and DR, and waaaaay easier than the puzzles in ZE. There were multiple puzzles in ZE that I had to look up solutions to, while in PW, the only time I remember looking up a solution was armpit sweat guy. I'm not sure if I ever looked up a solution in Danganronpa.
• I actually love it when characters in a game just casually reference buttons. Jowd just creates a button with his own face on it with zero explanation, I love that stuff. Like, it was fine with Ray, because he's like a ghost, but Jowd is just a guy. I should replay MGS1.
• This stealth section was more difficult than the rest of the game combined.
• Jowd's like "see ya later" and I guess thirty seconds afterward is technically later. I can't help but notice that Cabanela is super accepting of Jowd seemingly talking to thin air.
• SG goes to the justice minister's office right after calling Lynne, and I was actually shocked that she wasn't dead again. I do appreciate SG saying "this time, Lynne isn't dead," though. Oh, I see, the minister is dead instead, fair enough. Haha, he actually did of just a heart attack. This isn't quite up to my 'dying of cancer' joke, but it's still fun. His ghost is like "man, that guy sucked."
• Stopped for now. I actually have zero idea how far I am in this game.

• The fact that they don't show the daughter during the kidnapping means it's a fake.
• And the mysterious blue people specifically want the execution to be carried out. Intriguing!
• I knew it was be a fake.
• "All women are like traps. Some are sweet traps, others are bitter..." Real philosopher we've got on our hands here.
• Oh wait, is the Justice Minister ghost going to be Lynne playing a trick on you by transforming since ghosts can do that? That would be clever.
• It took me absolutely forever to figure out this contraption where you get the globe stuck onto a specific sword so that it's long enough to swing to hit the medicine bottle. This was by far the hardest sequence in the game, I'd say it took longer than any other two combined, which I usually blasted through.
• Aw, I was wrong about fake Lynne.
• Wait, so does Lynne remember the minister being dead or not? Because she sort of acts like she does, but it seems vague.
• I mean, it's kind of infuriating that the game clearly established that SG retains his memories from going back in time, and gave me an optional sequence where I could learn that the daughter isn't actually kidnapped, but does not integrate that into the story when he talks to Lynne. Just don't include that sequence where you see the daughter's voice is just a switchboard!

• Beauty and her minion make a bunch of vague statements about who's in the box as a "little lady," then don't open the box. Predicting it's the cat, because we already saw it in a box.
• Damn you Kamila
• "It was the other party in our deal who chose this location," imagine speaking this way in real life.
• Somebody else saved Kamila from a death since the apartment, dun dun dunnnnnnn
• "My father is gone," goddamn these people and their cryptic-ass replies.
• Oh man, a "contraption" that leads to death five years ago, I wonder where this is going.
• I know the question the game wants me to ask is why a similar contraption exists in the junkyard office, but I really just want to know why there's a loaded old-timey blunderbuss on the wall.
• I guess we're working on Phoenix Wright logic where a one-year-old who accidentally kills someone is a first degree murderer, okay, I'm fine with that.
• He packed her back into the trunk, but didn't take the book she was reading? What a monster.
• I was sort of expecting a surprise core on Cabanela here, but I guess two surprise cores in a row is too much, even for this game.
• It was his wife's birthday when she died. Incoming surprise ghost rule where you can revive someone five years ago if it was their birthday CONFIRMED.
• You know, I'm willing to give this game a lot of leeway in anime logic, but after Phoenix Wright spent like 11 games drilling into my head that the police can super easily tell what gun fires a bullet, having Jowd hide his old-timey blunderbuss gun and turn himself in with his modern police gun is certainly something. Did they know all along? I don't know, they did talk about how he had a "fair trial."
• Lynne discovers that a ghost might have killed Jowd's wife, and immediately shouts "So, the true perpetrator is still out there," as if it wasn't clearly established that ghosts die at sunrise. If my joke questions about time zones or traveling to the Arctic prove accurate so we can introduce an immortal evil ghost, I will retract this statement.
• Wow, everyone sure is okay with Lynne just leaving when she was supposed to be arrested. I guess this is a casual police force, as long as you aren't on death row, they don't really care that much.
• I enjoy how seemingly simple the solution to getting the little girl to call her father is, only for the mom to barge in and ruin it.
• I know it won't, but I would enjoy it if the ending of the game involves the father just getting custody of the daughter because the mother is insane. I know it's going to end with everyone making up, that's how these things always end.
• This is the second puzzle in a row that involves tipping a wall sconce.
• Jesus Christ, the abuse we're putting this rat through.
• Little girl calls her father. Problem: fixed.

• The Justice Minister reveals the existence of a "manipulator" who can control people, dun dun dunnn. I want to make reference to some other mystery games I've played, but there's no way to do it, even with spoiler tags, that wouldn't spoil things to people who haven't played the games but do read the spoiler warning, so I won't.
• Wow, for someone who already knew about a being that possesses you, this guy sure was skeptical of ghosts.
• Imagine being a cop, and the highest member of the justice department tells you that you're searching for a ghost. Even if you believe him, what're you going to do? Arrest the ghost?
• Temsik is Kismet backwards. Isn't that a demon or something? I'm scared to look it up because of the chance of spoilers, but I'm certain I've heard Kismet before. Yeah, Chrome labels Temsik with a misspelling red squiggly line, but not Kismet, I knew I was right.
• Extremely disappointed that Lynne isn't dead when we find her in the park. Oh, the hippie is dead instead.
• It would be funny if the solution to one of these death sequences was to get someone else killed during the sequence so that you have to undo the death you caused by going slightly further back in time than the current sequence allows.
• Huh, the hippie isn't unconscious while dead.
• "I don't have time to get to know your way of life, but I am interested in your way of death."
• I like how SG doesn't even bother to explain what's going on to the hippie.
• Wait, so the 1930s gangster duo thought they were kidnapping the correct little girl, but still had a soundboard with the real little girl's voice on it, and used it to contact the minister minutes before they'd (seemingly) have the right girl in the first place?
• Hahaha, I see where this is going. I was vaguely correct when I just made that joke a second ago. This is where Kamila should have died, and the other ghost saved her by getting the hippie killed instead.

The Justice Minister reveals the existence of a "manipulator" who can control people, dun dun dunnn. I want to make reference to some other mystery games I've played, but there's no way to do it, even with spoiler tags, that wouldn't spoil things to people who haven't played the games but do read the spoiler warning, so I won't.

kismet is just an unnecessarily fancy word for destiny or fate

your motives are very complex