Board 8 > Anagram plays Ghost Trick. (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

• Argh I did not expect Missile to be the other ghost. Wow, he gets taken out like a total punk by the short gangster, guy doesn't even slow down.
• Wait, so is this Missile in the past, or Missile currently? The time travel mechanics in this game have never made much sense.
• Missile gets different ghost tricks than SG, interestingggggg. I was wondering when we'd get new ghost powers, that seemed so obvious, and yet it's been hours and all we have are the default ones.
• Yeah, I'm saying this is set in vaguely-defined Europe. I had the feeling before, but calling that football a rugby ball confirms it.
• I like how no one really addresses the fact that Missile was totally willing to let the hippie die for Kamila, even if he tried to find another way.
• This game makes such a HUGE DEAL of how you can swap ANYTHING ROUND, then doesn't let you swap the globe chamber with any of the other round things.
• I just realized who this hippie reminds me: Lotta Hart. Same color scheme, you meet them both in a park, both are high-energy idiots.
• Pretty good puzzle, good integration of the seesaw. Probably my favorite so far.
• I bet people will complain about this, but I am not a fan of Missile's theme.
• Goodbye, Missile. Literally being blown out of the scene because we can't have you in the next puzzle sequence.
• The criminal was killed by a meteorite, huh? That... that's probably the most improbable thing in any of these mystery games, actually. I happen to already know that in all of history, only one person has ever been hit by a meteorite, and it was a woman who sued the government for the meteorite when they confiscated it, saying it was rightfully hers, then when she got it, realized she had no use for it and donated it to a museum.
• They're playing it really cagily with that music box, there's totally going to be no gun inside.
• Oh my god there actually is a gun inside, I can't ****ing believe it, that was the Phoenix Wrightest twist ever and they botched it.
• Oh god, what is this Jedi Truth garbage from Jowd about how he stole the guy's life because he totally would have shot him if not for the meteorite. As if any cop would even feel guilt about this in the first place.
• So, because they're playing cagey with the face of the guy whom Jowd shot, I assume this is the real SG, right?
• Oh, I didn't expect that to be confirmed immediately.
• Inspector Canabela who could have guessed you would be doing shady things except for everyone

heeere we go please fuck this part up to see the best sequence in ghost trick

Hmm, don't remember what this is referring to

This morning, I have to go to a funeral. Afterwards, I'll play some more Ghost Trick. Is there an irony there?

• SG leaps through the phone lines, and is greeted by HIMSELF shooting Canabela. See, this is the level of twist I expected from this game.
• Living SG, whose name apparently really is Sissel, calls up Eyebrows from earlier, whose name is Commander Sith, because that name just sounds evil thanks to Star Wars.
• It's revealed that Eyebrows and Muscles are actually in a submarine, dun dun dun. Wait a second, SG knows they're in a submarine now? Because the submarine reveal came after thoh forget it. And this is presented as a huge twist, but does it actually change anything? It better turn out that they were investigating or retrieving something important, because I've played MANY mystery games where the plot twist is basically meaningless.
• Sissel is like "I must have revenge" and Canabela is like "bro it was the meteorite." They make a point to show his hand not getting burned by touching a stove. Canabela pulls out a gun and shoots Sissel, who survives, and he has the powers of the dead, tooooooooo.
• I rock a helmet, and Sissel immediately figures out I'm here (unlike dumbass Lynne), looks directly at the screen because this genre loves fourth wall breaks, and pastes Canabela without delay. Funny.
• Oh booooy, it's time for another death-within-a-death sequence, this time starring Professor Birdheadguy, who still has the bird on his head in death despite them taking pains to show that the bird is still alive.
• In the further past, Professor Birdhead examines Sissel's body with a Ghostbusters device, and determines that it's the "SOURCE of HIS powers." Thank god for pronouns, they make writing mystery plots so much easier.
• Here's my hilarious prediction that is definitely wrong: that Sissel remains a ghost past the sunrise limit because the meteorite that hit him is from a planet rotates so slowly that it's still the same night there as it was when he was hit. However, I would find it MUCH funnier if it turns out that Ray just lied about the limit, and told the truth about everything else.
• I mean, this death is like 70% Canabala's fault for not trying to stop Sissel from blowing up the basement until it was too late.
• The medical examiner is a fake, of course. I knew he was evil because he was blue. My horrific blue racism proves right again. I spent a few seconds trying to think of a good enough slur against blue people before deciding against it.

I rock a helmet, and Sissel immediately figures out I'm here (unlike dumbass Lynne), looks directly at the screen because this genre loves fourth wall breaks, and pastes Canabela without delay. Funny.

• Ah yes, "Temsik radiation," all meteorites have their own type of radiation. This is standard science.
• I'm just going to say, once again, that the time travel mechanics in this game make absolutely zero sense. I'm enjoying the game, but I don't think there's any way to make sense of the specifics if you think about them for more than a second.
• I mean, look. We rescued Professor Birdguy, and Canabela is still in danger, but now Birdguy is still alive, so you'd presume that he could now help us in the real world, but he doesn't beyond having the bird fly SG up, so it's like, he must be able to act in the past-but-not-as-past, and yet can hear the conversation you have in the room several floors above him.
• Hold on a second, that hook is now back where it was before I went back in time and broke it, which makes sense, but the folding chair from befoh forget it.
• Notable that Missile knows what a missile is, but not what a bullet is or how guns work.
• I've noticed MANY times in this game that SG has failed to know something basic, beyond just his illiteracy. At first, they just said he had amnesia or whatever, but it's come up WAY too many times, this is clearly foreshadowing something, I can tell a big ol' foreshadowy twist when I see it. I'm still angry that I didn't see a certain Zero Escape twist coming, but I'll defend myself by saying that it was too stupid for a human to predict. I know something's up with SG's "amnesia" that will explain why he doesn't know what a wrench is, what a microscope is, how guns work, his illiteracy, and so on, that is beyond simple amnesia. It's going to have to be that he didn't know any of those things in the first place, that's the only thing that makes sense. I assume it'll have something to do with his identity, which will also be connected to what makes him "special" so that he gets ghost powers. Missile also gets ghost powers, so he's obviously also special in the same way, so there needs to be some kind of commonality between Missile and SG, but I don't know what it'll be. Sissel may also have a common link, but in his case, there's obviously also the meteorite element.
• I'm calling shenanigans on everyone saying "Sissel turned away from Canabela, now you can use ghost tricks," I distinctly remember trying this before, and the game went into cutscene mode where I couldn't access the ghost tricks while his back was turned.
• Man, Missile sure can pause the game during a literal millisecond as the bullet flies through the air.
• Firing the hard hat into Canabela's face made me literally laugh out loud.
• You know, it just occurred to me that if SG and Missile can see each other in the ghost world, it's strange that Sissel doesn't see them instantly. And don't say that Sissel isn't looking into the ghost world, because we clearly see him using his powers multiple times while SG and Missile are present.
• I refuse to believe that that knit hat would have fallen off of the bookshelf to land on the hook like that.
• This "same shape and direction as the bullet" thing, I'm just saying, no one ever mentioned direction before now.
• I refuse to believe Sissel didn't notice the knit hat smashing into Canabela's face.
• I wonder how much damage a knit hat traveling at the speed of a bullet would actually do to a human face.
• Leaving behind your gun in the interrogation room with a criminal? Possibly the biggest cop mistake since that guy brought OJ Simpson's evidence with him to his house in his personal car's trunk.
• Oh, I see, the blue people are from "a certain foreign nation." Those ****ing blues entering our goddamned borders illegally and stealing our ghosts.
• In this flashback, I thought the blue detective was Phoenix Wright for a second, they looked exactly the same, that's obviously a reference, but it was SO similar that I almost think it enters a level above a normal reference.
• I just remembered that I went to Northern Germany this summer, where it was only dark for like four hours a day. Even in summer, LA's nights last longer than that. I'm just saying that SG is lucky this game doesn't take place in, say, Oslo or Copenhagen or something.

This was what I spoiler blocked. This is one of my favorite moments in the game and I'm glad that you didn't miss it, I got chills when SG turns to face you and calls you out on your bullshit, it feels so violating in a game where up to this point nobody can tell you're there

• "Lynne kept her promise about getting me "hooked up.'" I want to make a blind date joke here with SG's sunglasses, but it's not coming together.
• Ahhhh Professor Birdguy is staring directly at the screen like Sissel did.
• And now we're in the submarine, which Jowd has tracked thanks to a radio transmitter in the bullet in Sissel's body. Wow, that's not information you should freely give to a guy named Commander Sith. To be fair, Commander Sith then tells Jowd a whole lot of exposition about Sissel's powers and his own plan that he should not share, so I guess this is the mutual bad idea club.
• Ah, so the Temsik meteorite fragment gives Sissel powers, which we already knew, and they remove it from him. Didn't Professor Birdguy say that cutting into him is impossible because his body heals too fast? Eh, I guess the blue country has access to better tools than some guy in a junkyard.
• Lynne died again, what a shock.
• A ghost is possessing an eight-year-old girl? I don't know if I should make a Mia Fey reference or not. The parts where she possesses Pearl are basically the weirdest things in the series.
• I dispute this "fate changed" notice after I use the phone line, I didn't actually change anything.
• Wow, Commander Sith sure does blow up his own submarine pretty nonchalantly. I have to believe that a submarine is the most expensive military asset you can possibly invest in after an aircraft carrier, right? I mean, I know that we saw Muscles and the one sailor both escape, but I have to believe that dozens of people are being left to die here, right? Because the game does not address that at all.
• Lynne and Kamila fall the length of a submarine chamber, and Lynne falls ONTO Kamila onto a metal pipe. There is no way that little girl doesn't have a billion broken bones.
• I just remembered, isn't Kamila only here by accident? Didn't they want the other little girl, Emma? Because why did they even bother bringing her onto the submarine if that's the case? Just to be dicks?
• Man, this sure got more epic in scope. Like, we started off with gangsters in a junkyard, and now we're stopping torpedoes and using our powers to control submarine equipment as the water rises. The music got appropriately epic, too, though nothing matches Allegro 2004. I'm wondering what the most "epic confrontation" vehicle is, I guess submarines have a good claim to it.
• Lynne sure is freaking out about the water rising for someone who's died like seven times.
• Sissel saves Lynne and Kamila and becomes what I find easiest to describe as a junk golem, only to deny that he's Sissel, and SG loses his image of himself and becomes a blue flame with sunglasses. Then Sissel makes a bunch of vague statements about how SG will find who he really is soon.
• So, you get powers when you're exposed to Temsik radiation while dying, okay. I'm sure we'll get an explanation for Ray later. SG notes that he must've died near the radiation, but no one questions how. Sissel admits that he manipulated Lynne into killing him, and everyone decides to escape together.
• I'm extremely suspicious of the fact that no one mentioned the cat in the box Sissel was holding when he was shot. You know what, I'm calling it: you're the cat. That explains why SG doesn't know basic information that everyone knows, like how to read and what a wrench and torpedo are, which is a trait shared only by Missile, another animal. If Sissel's body gives off Temsik radiation, that explains how SG died when exposed to it, if Lynne's bullet pierced the box and killed the cat when she shot Sissel. Although, that would raise the question of why Professor Birdguy didn't become a powerful ghost when he died next to Sissel, but I'm still feeling this. I still don't have an explanation for Ray or for when we see the cat walking around Sissel's body, but I'm feeling strongly that SG is the cat and that's going to be the final plot twist.

• Wow, Muscles is really okay with being in a sinking room, huh?
• I notice that Sissel has a normal core now, presumably because the Temsik fragment was removed, but since we can't reach him, we'll go for Jowd. 100% chance we're going to go back in time ten years to save him and change the past.
• Turns out Sissel came with us, but Jowd recognizes him at once: Yomiel. Of course, Yomiel. Yomiel, the guy whose name we've totally heard before. That's a real, normal name. Yomiel.
• "By the way, I'm a top Pomeranian, you know." Yes, Missile, I know.
• Multidimensional computing theory, of course, of course.
• I didn't expect Muscles to be a robot. That's, uh, that's a plot element that's come out of nowhere. I feel that a story with fantastical elements should normally either limit or foreshadow its fantastical element usage, and throwing in robots out of nowhere is definitely a move. Phoenix Wright spoilers: it's fine in AA3, when there's a woman who might be a robot as a joke, because it's one random joke in a series of random jokes that don't matter, but this guy was actually important. Not a big deal, though.
• Haha, I was almost correct about traveling all the way back in time to stop a death, but I got the method and target wrong.
• Oho, FINAL CHAPTER, actually surprised me.
• Man, little girl Lynne just fell unconscious instantly. Yomiel didn't even do anything, he just grabbed her.
• It just occurred to me that Jowd looks exactly the same ten years ago. I guess he aged well, that's fine.
• Ah, it's the black cat. I refuse to believe Jowd would spend any time worrying about a random cat during this situation.
• You know, it's one thing to change the past of four minutes ago, but changing an important event from ten years ago has a lot of implications, and no one even hesitates on that account. Jowd just says "eh, even if you stop him from dying, I'll probably just shoot him anyway."
• Oh my god that cat is totally going to get hit by another fragment of the meteor and die and no one noticed because it's a cat and it'll totally be you.
• Oh man, Lynne's wearing headphones, it's all coming together.
• Hahahaha, I can't help but notice that the cat is juuuuuuuuuust off-screen when you go into the ghost world.
• Wait, so Lynne's NOT unconscious? Because turning up the volume of her headphones makes her drop her stuff.
• I mean, look. I appreciate that this game is Japanese and that they have a different relationship with and expectations for the police than we have in America, but absolutely no one would describe Jowd shooting Yomiel during this hostage situation as being "murder."
• Missile gonna pull the same last-second-bullet-switch trick twice, huh? Not gonna lie, that's a fine trick to do once, and only once.
• Am I insane for asking why Yomiel never uses his powers to help in this scene? Is there a rule that says you can't interfere with your own death? Wait, he literally offered right after I typed that.
• Haha, I fucking KNEW that manipulating your own corpse would be the finale to the game, even if I got every single detail about it wrong.
• I like this finale, but it's not very difficult or complicated. I think the hardest puzzle in the game by far was the Justice Minister's office. This is a fun 'everyone comes together and uses their powers for one purpose" finale, but as a puzzle, it doesn't do much.
• Yomiellllllllll
• Haha, I called it about you being the cat. I ****ing knew it. You're totally dead and kept alive by the meteor fragment like Yomiel, aren't you?
• Having this big emotional scene get interrupted by FATE AVERTED is the funniest thing in the entire game so far.
• It's time to go back to the present, and we meet Ray again. I didn't type this earlier, but I've been thinking about who Ray might be for a looooooong time. If he's not another version of SG, then I'm not sure. I almost expect him to be some kind of fourth wall player/angel avatar meant to lead you?
• Oh wait no he's just Missile.
• Hahahahahahahahaha I was hoping it would be old Missile instead of reusing the usual sprite and it actually was!
• Ha, I guessed that Ray just lied about the time limit, I'm counting that as me being right.
• Darn, I was hoping the bark sound effect would be deep and growly, but instead it's the normal high-pitched one. Missed opportunity.
• Ah, a generic happy anime mom. I will tell you the secret to telling if a generic cute-faced anime babe is meant to be a teenager or an adult: it's the earrings. Earrings means you're in your 30s. Smaller eyes also usually means older, but sometimes it just means that you're cynical.
• Wow, that is a very complicated spaghetti-eating sprite for Canabela.
• Unexpectedly brutal end to the criminal couple, who were like the least important enemies in the game. Now that I think about it, her "sixth sense" thing went nowhere. And yeah, now that I think about it, it's odd that we never really got any kind of resolution to the second assassin guy. I guess the first one also just died?
• So, Yomiel had to go to prison for ten years, huh? That seems oddly extreme given the situation. And his fiancee waited for him for a decade, eh? Okay. And isn't that prison for important prisoners who are connected to major events the government wants to keep secret? Because in this timeline, there was nothing to oh whatever.

SG is the cat and that's going to be the final plot twist.

Yeah, he had to lie to Sissel because telling the truth never worked.

Ray turning out to be old Missile was such a great twist.

Missile basically masterminded the entire plot to a good ending. Top Pomeranian, indeed.

Sometimes I see the big twist coming (like, say, in AA6), but Sissel being a cat completely blindsided me and I loved it (his name even rhymes with Missile's!)

Also I really like the music that plays during the reveal

You were correct on the first half of that, but not correct on the second half! I love this game's one-two punch of plot twists at the end with "you're the cat/Ray is Missile." It's absolutely hilarious how well it works that Missile somehow goes from being a goofy dog you meet once, to the game's secondary protagonist, to the mastermind behind your whole situation in the game.

I think it's hilarious that you kept insisting on calling him SG the whole game. Your intuition was obviously right that "Sissel" was not as he seemed, but the joke is on you because your name ACTUALLY WAS Sissel the whole time - that's the only thing about Sissel's sense of identity that was correct! Calling him SG, on the other hand - well that's just a misnomer, because he sure ain't sunglasses guy, that's Yomiel. (It got even funnier when you started calling Yomiel "Sissel" and Sissel "SG.")

Yomiel is apparently the name of a fallen angel, by the way

• Overall, I enjoyed this game quite a bit, but I wouldn't say that it's on the same level as the best of the mystery game genre. AA3 is definitely better than it. I would call this a solid 8/10.
• Sissel was an adequate protagonist. He doesn't really have a lot of defining personality traits to set him apart? He's just very direct with what he wants, I guess. Lynne is fine, but if I'm putting her into the grand ranking of teenage girl assistants from AA, she's on the lower end. The cast is fun, but I almost feel like it was too large and unfocused? Like, Canabela is just ejected from the game 80% of the way through, and we spend a ton of time with minor characters who are just forgotten about after their moments, like the Justice Minister and the hippie and the gangster couple.
• I guess what I'm saying there is that too many elements are thrown in there in ways that leave me feeling like there were things left unexplored, as if they were introducing these things so they could expand on them in a sequel that was never made. Like, the meteor is just magic, and that's that, you just need to accept that for some reason there's space necromancy. And the fact that Commander Sith, who's built up as the grand villain, just leaves and that's it and there's no resolution at all is weird. I know that this was really about coming to terms with Yomiel and Sissel's search for his own identity, but the AA games are able to balance their main characters with their villains just fine. This is a fun game, but it's not really as polished in its presentation as I think AA games tend to be?
• I enjoyed the mystery elements of the story, but the actual gameplay, I'm not sure. The puzzles were usually very simplistic and solvable way too quickly. There were moments in Phoenix Wright games that actually taxed me (or where I had to guess), whereas this game just required me to test each object once and then it was obvious what to do. Half the time, you didn't even really need to do that! Some of the puzzle sequences are so direct that they don't even really qualify as puzzles. It's all very clever in its presentation, but I feel like more could have been done, like maybe the puzzles themselves are more complicated, or you get another helper besides Missile and have to solve things using different types of abilities for each new puzzle, etc.
• Now that I think about it, Lynne sort of isn't the Maya of the game. She's the Maya in the sense that she's a cute girl you have to constantly rescue, but Jowd is the one who gives advice and actually figures things out to help you, Lynne is just a pair of hands. And now that I think about it even more, Lynne has zero backstory beyond being rescued by Jowd as a kid. Like, the characters even say "it's weird she was in the park by herself," and then nothing is done with that, that has to be something they planned for a sequel.
• This is a weird thing to compliment, but the game's spritework is absolutely top notch. I can't even remember the last AAA sprite-based game that came out. Persona 4 Arena or something? Man, I don't even know. I was very impressed by the game's style.

• S Tier: Ace Attorney 3, 999, Danganronpa 2
• A Tier: Ace Attorney 1, Ace Attorney 6, Virtue's Last Reward, Ghost Trick, Your Turn to Die (tentative -- ending isn't out yet), Danganronpa V3
• B Tier: Ace Attorney 2, Ace Attorney 5, Ace Attorney Investigations 2, Great Ace Attorney 2, Danganronpa 1
• C Tier: Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney, Great Ace Attorney, AI: The Somnium Files, AI: The Somnium Files 2, Raging Loop, Gnosia
• D Tier: Ace Attorney 4, Ace Attorney Investigations