Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective



"Now, I'm not the kind of guy who can just stand back and watch a poor woman get shot... But I have just one little problem... I'm already dead myself."

- Sissel (opening monologue)

An adventure game from the minds behind the Ace Attorney series for the Nintendo DS.

In an abandoned junkyard, a ghost wakes up to see a blue-faced assassin training a gun on a young woman. Between them is a red-clad corpse which he identifies as himself. Realizing he can still manipulate the environment even as a ghost, he stops the assassin and teams up with the woman to try and recover his memories and find out why he was killed. However, he only has until the next sunrise to solve this mystery, or else he will completely cease to exist.

The game is focused on solving a variety of puzzles in order to prevent events from happening and save the people around Sissel (the ghost), while working to uncover the truth behind his death. It was released on January 11th, 2011 in the U.S. and on January 14th, 2011 in Europe under the name Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.

It is also now available for iOS on the iTunes Store; the free download includes the first two chapters, with the rest of the story locked behind purchases (either divided into three batches of chapters for $5 apiece, or the entire game for $10).

A word of warning: after a certain point, this game can be described as a pile of plot twists, so if you're reading this page but want to remain unspoiled, please step lightly.

Here's the English demo if anybody's interested (click the "Demo" button near the top).

"Sissel: Uh, I'm dead, though...
 * Aborted Arc: Beauty is introduced as someone who can sense Sissel's presence, and in her second scene she actually . But that's the last time she, or her ability, are ever mentioned.
 * The Alcatraz: The "Special Prison" for suspected criminals.
 * Alternate Timeline:
 * In a small way, what happens whenever Sissel goes back in time and averts someone's fate.
 * In the storyline at large: The first one is what happens when the important characters die because lacks the needed ghost tricks and  refuses to assist him, too preoccupied with his own quest for identity. The second one occurs when the first timeline's  goes back 10 years via 's body and takes The Slow Path to the present, then, under the guise of Ray, . The third one happens when Sissel,, and Detective Jowd save  in Temsik Park 10 years ago, preventing his Start of Darkness and the chain of events that lead to people dying.
 * Always Close: Completing some puzzles long before your time runs out still has you averting fate in this way despite the cause of death not arriving for another minute or so. The earliest this happens is . Many other puzzles can only be solved in the final seconds "until death". It gets pretty ridiculous, considering that the way to prevent quite a few deaths is to wait until the absolute final milliseconds before a person's death, usually to . Fortunately, the player doesn't have to time these, as the game does it for you.
 * Always Murder: Subverted. Although the first few deaths are murders, there's a fair share of accidents as well, including one case where the deceased.
 * Amazing Technicolor Population: The "foreigners" are identifiable by their blue skin, including, though you don't get confirmation until later in the game.
 * Ambidextrous Sprite:
 * When Lynne's portrait is facing left, her badge is on the left side of her shirt. When she's facing right, it magically migrates to the right side. Emma also switches which hand she holds her glass in when she turns around.
 * It gets especially obvious with Jowd. The blue and red paint-stains on his shirt switch places!
 * Characters holding items (like the night-visions guards or the minister's wife) always have their items facing the viewer. Oddly, however, there are animations that show them changing hands whenever they turn around.
 * Beauty, interestingly, is a subversion, as her hair is always in the correct place regardless of which direction she's facing.
 * Analogy Backfire: Sissel being instructed to possess a water nozzle and to "spray like your life depended on it!"
 * In that case... Make it spray as though your death depended on it!"

"Minister: Maybe if you he'll feel a little better. Sissel: (Wait, did he just say something constructive?)"
 * Angst Aversion: In-universe example. While the justice minister doesn't become important until halfway through the game, Sissel can visit him at any point starting with the second chapter. Doing so results in Sissel listening to the man's self-loathing rants. At least twice, Sissel immediately desires to leave.
 * Animate Inanimate Object: Ghosts can become these by manipulating inanimate objects.
 * Anime Hair: This is a creation of the same guy behind the Ace Attorney series, after all, though special mention must go to Emma, whose rosebud-shaped hair blooms whenever she gets mad. Also how the HELL does Beauty's hair even work?! Seriously, just look at it.
 * Anyone Can Die: Considering Sissel starts off dead and most of the game play involves changing fate to save lives... yeah. A few even end up dying multiple times in the same evening, and one in particular dies five times over the course of one night, to the point the characters actually make jokes about it.
 * Arbitrary Skepticism: Lynne doesn't believe in Beauty having a supernatural sixth sense, despite being a ghost at the time.
 * Arms and Armor Theme Naming: In Japanese, Kamila's name is Kanon, while her dog is named Missile. Ironic, since they're two of the sweetest and weakest people in the game.
 * Aside Glance: Those talking directly (usually Lynne) to Sissel may look toward the player in order to speak to him..
 * The Atoner: A handful of them:
 * becomes one of these after he gives up his quest for revenge.
 * Cabanela is one because his recklessness gave a gun, which he used to escape custody.
 * Jowd because he forced.
 * Kamila has a few shades of this since she built a device that ultimately.
 * Back for the Dead: Although it seems like will simply be a minor character, he comes back... just to die. Of course, this serves an important purpose, as.
 * Badass Adorable: Missile..
 * Badass Boast: "I'm a top Pomeranian, you know!"
 * Bad Future: What happens if Sissel doesn't save anyone. hails from this timeline.
 * Batman Gambit: The ending reveals that.
 * Be as Unhelpful as Possible:
 * Jowd, when Sissel tries to erase his death. Granted, the guy wanted to die, but he doesn't have to be such a smartass about it.
 * also has shades of this. Sissel even lampshades the latter.

"Sissel: You mean--?
 * Benevolent Architecture: The key to success is to make sure that inanimate objects come within three feet of each other. They often do. And sometimes other people help you with it, typically without knowing.
 * Big Good: It's technically Ray/. A very effective one in the end.
 * Big Ol' Eyebrows: The leader of the foreigners, aptly nicknamed "Eyebrowed Villain" by Sissel.
 * Blond Guys Are Evil: . Also, Beauty and her sidekick, Dandy. Averted with Sissel, though.
 * Bloodless Carnage: Every death in the game, except the heart attack.
 * Book Ends:
 * Sissel trying to hurl his body around the junkyard, with no results. tries it in the climax, and succeeds.
 * The very first AND very last thing is seen to do with his ghost powers is.
 * Break the Cutie: Averted when.
 * Broken Pedestal: Cabanela for Lynne . Logically, Jowd would fit this, except that Lynne doesn't believe that he murdered Alma, and rightfully so.
 * Burger Fool: The Chicken Kitchen. The uniforms are Camp, yet the restaurant seems unusually expensive.
 * Butterfly of Doom: In some levels, you need to track down one of these and neutralize it to prevent MAJOR disasters..
 * Butt Monkey: Lynne, who dies a total of times! Also the rat, who can't seem to catch a break.
 * Cassandra Truth: Bailey's worries are always right on the money, but never listened to.
 * Cats Are Mean:.
 * Cats Are Snarkers:.
 * Cats Are Superior: As a spirit, is a lot smarter than Missile, who often strolls over into Ditz territory..
 * Caught on Tape: The end of Chapter 5 shows . By Chapter 15, we learn that.
 * Central Theme: Theater. The levels are set up like they're being viewed from the Fourth Wall, the props, character designs and animation are all supposed to be clearly "readable" from a distance (or on the DS's screen), the characters act campy and theatrical, spotlights appear during cutscenes when the game wants to draw attention to things, and the ability to rewind time is equivalent to rehearsals, which you keep doing until you get it "right".
 * Flashbacks and the previews before 4 minutes before death puzzles look like film strips relating to the fact that it's been "recorded" into the past.
 * Check Point: Whenever you alter the situation to give you more time, you get a new place to fall back to if you screw up (which you inevitably will).
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * The music box is the most obvious example. However, several "minor" things you see and run into near the beginning take on much more significant meaning as more is revealed. Particularly the Robinson-Goldberg device, Sissel's bag, and "the rock of the gods."
 * Two innocuous-seeming examples: Cabanela's pocket watch, and Sith's grape-peeling machine.
 * The van in the park has shades of this, given that it's possible to see it very early and not recognize its significance. For that matter, the mural/graffiti on Jowd's cell wall probably counts too.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Nearly everyone. If a person is given any focus, you can bet they will have plot impact.
 * In the order you first see them: Ray, the (which gets vignetted in Chapter 1, but is not commented on), and Pigeon Man.
 * reveals that armed government agents constantly patrol Temsik Park. Sissel flashes back to the "Guardian of the Park".
 * No. He's just a plain old odd person."

"Servant: I am a, detective. Jowd: What?! Jowd: Your country's use of technology... is just plain "off"! Servant: We get that a lot, detective."
 * The Chessmaster:.
 * City with No Name: The city the story takes place in isn't named, and the two countries that play into it are simply referred to as "this country" and "that country". See Where the Hell Is Springfield? below.
 * Cloudcuckooland: In some aspects, the country the blue people are from. In any case, they have rather odd applications of technology, like robot arms for feeding one Grapes of Luxury, flipping tables that have phones and fruit on different sides, and . Even lampshaded by, Jowd, and even Sith himself very early in the game.
 * beat*

"Sissel: So this is an execution, huh? It seems to me there's gotta be a safer way to do it..."
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Bailey, especially when doing the "Panic Dance", which he performs during emergencies but refuses to stop doing after the crisis has passed. Also, the "Guardian of the Park". Oddly, Bailey's outlandish fears almost always turn out right.
 * Color-Coded Timestop: The above mentioned powers of the dead stop time when active, with the world being tinted in their respective colours. Plus if you fail to save someone, time stops and a grayscale variation comes up.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience:
 * When Sissel uses the powers of the dead, the world of the dead is red. When uses them, it's green, and when  uses them, it's blue.
 * In-game example: Cabanela asks if the detective he's talking to over the phone is "the green one or the blue one", based on the suits they were wearing.
 * Comically Missing the Point: After watching a death row officer throw the switch to test a faulty electric chair, causing it to explode before the condemned is even in it.
 * Comically Missing the Point: After watching a death row officer throw the switch to test a faulty electric chair, causing it to explode before the condemned is even in it.

"Sissel: Well, it seems you've escaped your fate of being hammered by a horrible hen!"
 * Cool Shades: Sissel, of course..
 * Covers Always Lie: You'd know after the ending that . Though if you pay attention to what's actually written, . Nevertheless, the fact that the is not behind the body is misleading. In the game itself, it's there (even if hard to see) and this is an important part.
 * Cruelty Is the Only Option:
 * Sissel is forced to do some pretty unfair things to a rat in Chapter 13. In fact, barring one case, you are pretty mean to rats in general. Then again, ...
 * You're also forced to kill the two hitmen to stop them from killing Lynne early on. Of course, it's in defense of an innocent, and hitmen are Acceptable Targets.
 * Cutscene Incompetence: In the apartment, Sissel helps Kamila find a music box she must bring to Lynne by possessing a musical Christmas ornament nearby. She leaves the apartment with it, and Sissel needs to follow her but remains stuck in the apartment. He could have possessed the box... but because of his Laser-Guided Amnesia, he didn't know what it was. You could easily see this coming by noticing the lack of a core to move to on the item.
 * Da Chief: Cabanela's boss, The Chief.
 * Dancing Is Serious Business: Inspector Cabanela, full stop. Done to comic effect with Bailey's conga-drum "Panic Dance".
 * Darkest Hour: All the principal characters trapped on the sinking submarine.
 * Deadfoot Leadfoot: The cause of Lynne's fourth death.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Sissel, Jowd and the Pigeon Man. Also Bailey's partner.
 * Dead to Begin With: The game starts with Sissel, the player character, stating that he died recently. He doesn't go to the afterlife though: he can and will stick around the world of the living to investigate the circumstances of his death. Ray, the first character Sissel meets, is dead too, and is currently possessing a desk lamp. He will be the one who teaches Sissel the powers of the dead that will help him uncover the truth about himself.
 * Death by Irony: Lynne asks a waitress to hurry it up with her chicken dinner, and is crushed by a giant chicken wing.

"Missile: !"
 * Death From Above:
 * Wrecking balls, crates, chickens, statues, vaults, meteors, footballs...
 * ZigZagged with is struck by a fragment of the . The subversion is in that to Set Right What Once Went Wrong,  has to be saved from, and when it's deflected towards Detective Jowd, it shoots through his leg. Then it's Double Subverted when Sissel is shown to have been hit by.
 * Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: If you run out of time while averting someone's fate, you can just restart from the beginning of that segment or a checkpoint. Amusingly, in-game the characters close to Sissel start to feel this way because they know he can just save them. This also applies in the few cases where you're trying to stop someone from dying in the first place (eg. you're still in the present) since if they do die, Sissel just jumps back four minutes anyways. In fact, there's no such thing as a "permanent" game over you'll need to reload from.
 * Death's Hourglass: A spinning hourglass forestalls death -- by 5 minutes, anyhow.
 * Disproportionate Retribution:
 * While the assassins may deserve what they get, it may seem excessive that the hard-nosed (if Affably Evil) kidnappers are after being falsely accused.
 * tries to get convicted of murder simply because she was in his path at the park 10 years ago, which gave him the idea him to take her hostage. Cabanela even calls him out on it.
 * Being mean to little girls is punished most severely in this universe!
 * Diving Save:
 * Lynne shoves a waitress out of the path of a speeding van.
 * Cabanela does this in an attempt to save from getting blown up by TNT.
 * Lynne's last 'death' comes as the result of pushing Kamila out of the path of falling rubble.
 * possesses his own unconscious body to uproot itself from a spike, scoop up Lynne, and pitch her out of the path of the tumbling Mino statue.
 * Does Not Like Shoes:
 * The Police Chief, of all people. Apparently he has itchy toes.
 * Also the park's guardian. Which is more believable since he's a hippie and all...
 * The Dog Was the Mastermind:.
 * Down in the Dumps: Where Sissel's story begins, literally and figuratively.
 * Dude Magnet: Lynne, and how!
 * Dummied Out: Several music tracks in the game's files are never used. Most are variations on the songs that are used, but an arrangement of "Tifa's Theme" from Final Fantasy VII is also inexplicably included.
 * Enemy Mine:.
 * Escort Mission: Chapters 9 (rescuing Jowd from jail) and 16 (helping Lynne and Kamila escape the submarine).
 * Eureka Moment: On the sinking Yonoa, Kamila wishes her father was there to save them. Lynne is inspired to strap Sissel into a torpedo and send him to find Jowd.
 * Everybody Lives: What Sissel is trying to make happen—besides himself, natch. . Except and . They get blown up in the credits. Though it isn't confirmed if they really did die from the explosion.
 * Everyone Is Related: Jowd believes that he, Lynne, and Sissel all met . He's more right than he knows: The man, but Sissel was indeed present --.
 * Extremely Short Timespan: Maybe about twelve or so hours, give or take, but a ridiculous number of shocking twists occur during them.
 * Failsafe Failure:
 * The cell doors inside the Special Prison automatically open during a power outage.
 * The torpedo that sinks the Yonoa. A rat somehow got inside, and was happily perched right in the middle of the failsafe system, stopping it from activating.
 * Falling Chandelier of Doom: In the game, Sissel can turn a switch that drops a chandelier inside the Elegant Lady's room. He has to do this when the Elegant Lady herself is underneath it so she'll be trapped and, though unless you get the timing just right she dodges it like a pro.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: How do you dispose of a ghost who has outlived his usefulness? Leave him stranded alone at the bottom of the ocean forever.
 * A Fete Worse Than Death: A birthday party that resulted in the death of.
 * Firing One-Handed: Nobody ever aims a gun with both hands.
 * Except for the prison guards.
 * And the second assassin.
 * And Lynne.
 * And Jowd in the event ten years ago.
 * Foil/Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sissel and Missile. . Also reversed with Ray and Sissel. Sissel is impulsive and is constantly try to do things, while Ray is more level-headed and intelligent and explains to Sissel that these things are impossible. Later on,.
 * The Foreign Subtitle: International versions appended "Phantom Detective" to the game's title.
 * Foreshadowing:
 * There is lots of this regarding Sissel's past.
 * Sissel can't read or recall what objects do or what certain terms mean while dead, yet every other dead character can. He figures his memory is fuzzy due to dying..
 * When you first meet Lynne, she messes up and mistakes herself to look like Inspector Cabanela. Later, it turns out that this is what happened to.
 * After Lynne hides in the small elevator, she says she likes to crawl in small and dark places..
 * Cabanela mentions at one point that his coat is white, to show that there are no stains on it. Sissel remarks that a black coat would be more practical..
 * Inside one apartment Sissel can let a rodent be spotted before it lands next to the dictionary, and he notes that the boisterous writer treats it as something to be hunted instead of feared..
 * Very subtly, in the same location: when trying to get the phone over to Amelie, Sissel winds up inflicting all kinds of horrible injury on a rat without killing it..
 * Another subtle example. During the prison blackout, one of the guards states that he wishes he could see in the dark, . Sissel quickly points out the similarity between night-vision and one of his ghost powers, ...
 * When rescuing Jowd from the prison, who painted a portrait of Sissel, Jowd doesn't recognise the name when Sissel says he somehow knows him..
 * Sissel notes a couple times that he's developing a compulsion to knock down anything he can, which he attributes to his ghost powers becoming addictive. Actually,.
 * At one point, to mean "out of danger", Sissel says "out of the water". A strange turn of phrase; shouldn't it be more like "out of the fire"?.
 * In the Special Prison, one of the prisoners is rocking out on his guitar, making a terrible noise. Sissel has absolutely no idea what he's doing, and guesses that he's making noise to get attention . Now, ?
 * The titles given to the people in the records are never replaced with their real names. It's strange at first, but makes sense, given that a lot of . Not to mention sometimes the descriptions seem to imply that Sissel thinks that their job titles are part of their names (e.g. "His name is "Detective Jowd.").
 * On a more general note, Sissel's personality is, once you know the twist, . Likewise, it's the reason Sissel considers Missile a little off due to.
 * In Chapter 14, Missile's choice of words at one point is apt.

"Sissel: What do you suppose that shock was a minute ago? Missile: I have no idea, of course. I'm just a little sheltered apartment dog! Sissel: What with my loss of memory, ..."
 * In Chapter 16, we have this talk:

"Lynne: What happened now?! Sissel:."
 * Later on in the same chapter, when the submarine suddenly tips to one side just before Lynne can get to the exit hatch, Sissel's choice of metaphor is very telling:

"Sissel: "So...what? Now I'm a crossing gate...?""
 * The security footage has  leaning against a pole. After shooting him and being confronted by an assassin, Lynne backs up into the same pole, but moves away from it because it had barbed wire wrapped around it. And given what we later know about 's body....
 * Early on, while trying to get Kamilla under the couch, Sissel said that.
 * Whenever you run into Beauty, she uses a strangely familiar way of addressing you. In retrospect, it becomes apparent that.
 * Throughout most of the game, Sissel can visit the junkyard and have a short conversation with Ray to update him on the situation. Ray goes oddly silent and weak halfway through the game and soon stops moving altogether, which the player will most likely chalk up to the whole "dead tomorrow" thing. On the other hand, it seems Ray starts fading away around the time that ...
 * Speaking of conversations with Ray, if you go back to the junkyard and talk to him immediately after seeing the security footage of, Ray will tell you that "The truth is sometimes hidden in the shadow of what's being looked at."
 * Forgot I Couldn't Swim: Lynne and Kamila.
 * Four Is Death:
 * Sissel can rewind time to four minutes before a death he's trying to prevent..
 * All the GameCenter achievements in the iOS version are worth 4, 44, or 444 points, and all the "do X a certain number of times" achievements follow the same pattern.
 * Funny Spoon: Detective Jowd's cryptic clue: "Head for the spoon."
 * Gas Leak Coverup: The new housing development in Temsik park is a cover-up by the government to excavate the.
 * Genre Savvy:.
 * Ghost Amnesia: Upon death, people become "unconscious" Ghost Lights and will assume their true appearance once their memory is jogged. However, a ghost can take on someone else's form if they mistakenly believe they're that person..
 * Go Mad From the Isolation:.
 * Good All Along:
 * , but he only rose in the ranks so that he could monitor the Manipulator case. He also spends much of the game trying to keep Lynne safe and Jowd from being executed.
 * . When he was still human, he was thought to be a spy, but was innocent the entire time. Later, he reveals that he could've snuffed Sissel out a number of times, but wanted him to keep going. And then, he finally makes up for everything.
 * Good Thing You Can Heal: Or in Lynne's case, be brought back from the dead.
 * Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: The prison guards' reaction whenever you open a trapdoor beneath them.
 * Green Rocks: are a by-product of the Temsik Meteor. The same goes for any dead person in its radius.  was directly struck by it, turning him into a walking generator of Temsik radiation.
 * Hachiko:.
 * Hair Color Spoiler: . He's blue, like the other evil foreigners, but you don't find out he was until far later in the game.
 * Hand Wave: When Sissel asks Ray how ghosts can go back in time and that it doesn't even make any sense, Ray just replies: "We're talking about the powers of the dead, here. It doesn't have to make sense." Though, given how conversations between ghosts and the ghost world itself are out of time, it's not that much of a stretch to think they could go back to a previous moment.
 * Headphones Equal Isolation: Kamila.
 * Healing Factor:.
 * Heel Face Turn:.
 * He Knows Too Much: Sith and have conspired to kill everyone who knows about the.
 * Heroic Blue Screen of Death: Lynne has one after you rescue her the first time when she is just sitting in the rain, getting a little cold. Of course it only takes a small jab to snap her out of it.
 * I Let You Win: admits that he knew about Sissel's interference but chose not to stop him. For some reason, this doesn't make saving  from him any easier. That was specifically referring to . He later elaborates on the general situation.
 * Immortality:, has Complete Immortality, due to being a ghost inhabiting his original body, which is kept from aging, dying, or being wounded by lodged within it. In the ending, the past is changed so that  ends up in this state instead.
 * In Spite of a Nail:.
 * Instant Death Bullet: Anyone shot in the game dies instantly. Necessary for gameplay reasons, since Sissel's ability to go back to four minutes before their death would be useless if they died an hour later in the hospital or something.
 * It Has Been an Honor: Lynne and Sissel share a moment together before he possesses a torpedo about to launch.
 * It's Probably Nothing: Dandy's reactions to Sissel's ghost tricks? "Just my imagination." Sissel lampshades this.
 * Jacob Marley Apparel: Justified, as ghosts can't remember who they are or what they look like at first, so they'll tend to pick the shape of the first corpse they see... or, in Lynne's case once, the first detective she sees.
 * Jerkass Gods: While the "guardian of the park" doesn't seem to hate his gods, he's the one who calls them mischievous when.
 * Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The entire plot is pretty complex, and there are some wicked twists the first time you play through. But don't worry, the NPCs will fill you in on everything and connect different loose ends just in case you can't figure it out first.
 * Justified Tutorial: Sissel learns about his "powers of the dead" from another spirit..
 * Kick the Morality Pet: The real circumstances of 's death, albeit unintentional;.
 * Lampshade Hanging:
 * When Sissel possesses his first object, he actually expresses his disbelief that he's essentially that object now.

"Lynne: Ha ha! I died again! Sissel: ..."
 * A lot of characters start thinking that Death Is a Slap on The Wrist since Sissel can just go back in time and prevent their deaths.

""What a dangerous bunch...""
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: Sissel lost some memories about basic concepts via Ghost Amnesia, such as science, what a kidnapping is, and reading..
 * Living Forever Is Awesome: This is.
 * Locked Room Mystery: Subverted. Immediately after one appears (and declared as such by an excited character) you go back in time and see exactly how it happened. Turns out to be a domino effect that the victim triggered.
 * Loophole Abuse: Sissel is informed very clearly that you can only revive someone who's been dead for less than one day..
 * Loyal Animal Companion: Missile, and the blue pigeon. Literally undyingly loyal, at that.
 * Luxury Prison Suite: The Special Prison houses people who committed crimes under mysterious circumstances; so mysterious, in fact, that it's believed they may have done it under Mind Control or some other influence, so as a concession, they're granted a lot of liberties, like having their own rock band equipment or personal art studio.
 * Magic Meteor:.
 * Meaningful Name: Nearly everyone.
 * A prison guard named "Bailey".
 * Lynne's name is spelled in katakana as Rinne, a word that can refer to the Buddhist cycle of death and rebirth--fairly appropriate for a girl who keeps dying and coming back to life.
 * Temsik is a Sdrawkcab Name of "kismet", the Turkish and Urdu word for "fate". Fitting for a game all about fate reversal.
 * Same for the submarine's name, "Yonoa", which reverses the syllables of the Japanese term "ano-yo": "the other world," or, specifically, the world of the dead. Theme Naming? Perhaps. But then you remember that.
 * Yomiel comes from the Japanese word "yomigaeru", which means "to be revived"..
 * Jeego's name comes from 'jigoku', and Tengo's name from 'tengoku', Japanese words meaning 'hell' and 'heaven', respectively.
 * "Sissel" is a variation of the name "Cecil", which means "without sight". Now take a look at those shades... . On top of that, . "Shiseru" also means "can die" in Japanese.
 * Jowd's name derives from Jōdo (Pure Land), a division of Buddhism.
 * Kamila is Missile's Berserk Button. Also, Kamila's Japanese name is "Kanon". Now think, "Missile and Cannon". Hmm...
 * Alma is Kamila's mother. In a Stealth Pun, this makes Alma "mater". Alma is also the Spanish word for Soul or Spirit.
 * Mino, the park's mascot, is a bagworm ("minomushi").
 * As mentioned above, Kamila's Japanese name is Kanon. Kannon is the Japanese form of "Guanyin", bodhisattva of mercy, who according to some legends wished to help all beings escape the Wheel of reincarnation. There might be a connection.
 * Sith's name in Japanese is Shisu, which means "die".
 * Detective Rindge's name derives from the term rinjū, meaning "deathbed".
 * Mexican Standoff: vs. Jowd, 10 years in the past.
 * Morality Pet: Quite literally, although it doesn't do much good until the end of the game when does his Heel Face Turn,  most likely being a major reason for this.
 * Morphic Resonance:
 * constructs a mishmash body out of scrap metal. The 'head', however, is still pointy and wearing sunglasses.
 * My Greatest Failure: 's death is this for both Jowd, who was about to shoot him, and Cabanela, who gave him the desire and means to flee questioning. Also Sissel in the original timeline.
 * Mythology Gag: The game supposedly takes place in the Ace Attorney universe, and seems to contain several references to that series.
 * Kamila's dog is named Missile. This is the same name as the police dog in case 1-4 (both are references to Shu Takumi's own Pomeranian, also named Missile).
 * When seen from a distance, the bespectacled 'green detective' vaguely resembles Winston Payne, and the black-haired 'blue detective' resembles Phoenix Wright. Fittingly, they don't get along.
 * In the sequence where Lynne flashes back to Cabanela and Jowd's friendly competition, Jowd makes his point by striking an "OBJECTION!" pose.
 * He isn't the only character to pull one of these...
 * Jowd's green trenchcoat and red tie are reminiscent of Detective Gumshoe. His pink painting smock also resembles Larry's "artist" attire from the third Ace Attorney game. And while the prison uniform he wears has the standard stripes, the colors match the one worn by Cody in his Street Fighter appearances.
 * Compare the "Four Minutes Before Death" music with the "Logic ~ The Way To The Truth" track from Ace Attorney: Investigations.
 * There are several other themes in the game which are strongly reminiscent of Ace Attorney tracks as well. For example: "TRAUMA" and Search ~ Core 2001 from the first game; "CHASE" and "The Fire Carves Scars" from Justice For All. Also,"REINCARNATION", which in places, sounds suspiciously like Maya's Theme.
 * The Chicken Kitchen uniforms resemble the uniforms Maya and Mia wear in 3-2.
 * The helmet hanging on the bookshelf in the Super's office belongs to a mettaur, this being a Capcom game.
 * Never Say "Die"/Nobody Can Die: Averted, obviously. However, when Sissel, he uses euphemisms rather than acknowledge their deaths. There may be room for doubt with the second one, but the first one is cartoonishly flattened; there's no way he could have survived. So he's either sidestepping a delicate issue, or else our hero truly doesn't kill them, despite "Mino" killing the "Guardian of the Park" in much the same way later on.
 * New Age Retro Hippie: The guardian of the park.
 * New World Tease: You gain access to many areas before there's much to do there. Notably, the second location the plot makes you visit is the villain's headquarters.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Sissel may view Missile as this.
 * Not So Harmless:.
 * Oh My Gods: Cabanela's "Ye gods!" Others can be heard saying "Gods in heaven!" or variants of it.
 * Only One Name: Nobody is given two names, leaving it unclear in many cases whether people are being referred to by their first name or last name.
 * Opposites Theme Naming: The two blue-skinned assassins are named Jeego and Tengo. Jeego's name comes from 'jigoku', and Tengo's name from 'tengoku', Japanese words meaning 'hell' and 'heaven', respectively.
 * Our Ghosts Are Different
 * Parasol Parachute: Subverted. A couple times in the junkyard, you possess an umbrella and open it to drift down to a lower level—but as a ghost, of course, you're weightless and it really doesn't matter. Of course, both times the umbrella lands exactly where you need it to.
 * Parrot Exposition: Especially in the early parts of the game when the controls are still being explained, but Sissel does it to some degree throughout the rest of it as well.
 * People Puppets:  modus operandi, achieved by Sharing a Body with their victim (though said victim never feels their presence).
 * Percussive Maintenance: Sith's masked henchman and his console.
 * Phrase Catcher:
 * Whenever the waitress of the Chicken Kitchen leaves, a character says "Odd girl", given her wacky personality. Another character always replies with "I agree", followed by "Me too" by yet another person (or the first one).
 * If the blue doctor is around, a character will say "You never know who might be listening." Sissel replies "Like me", as well as the doctor himself.
 * Regarding the blue people's country, the characters usually utter that their use of technology is just plain "off". Lampshaded by Sith's servant near the end of the game with "We get that a lot."
 * Playing the Player: See Sissel up above? The guy in the red suit with the blonde hair? See how he's all over the game's advertising, he's the player character's image in-game, the first thing the player sees in-game, and even the picture of the Player Character in the manual?.
 * Plot Armor: With the twist that you're the one providing it.
 * Plucky Girl: Lynne takes this trope to unseen levels. ...
 * Pragmatic Adaptation: A minor case, involving the title of the game and what it means in the gameplay. The term trick is used to refer to different aspects of Sissel's power in English and Japanese. In Japanese, toritsuku—literally, "cling to" and written almost the same as "trick"—is used for his ability to stop time and possess static objects' cores. Obviously, since this play on words doesn't work in English, the translators renamed the latter ability to "ghost" in English, and "trick" has been repurposed for the power to manipulate those objects, simply ayatsuru (manipulate, control) in Japanese.
 * Psycho for Hire: The hitmen..
 * Quest for Identity: Sissel's primary motivation..
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Sissel comments on this after being partnered with the ghosts of, and.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Sissel comments on this after being partnered with the ghosts of, and.

"Pigeon-Headed Man: That didn't go well."
 * Rainbow Speak: Important words are highlighted in red, while Sissel's thoughts are in blue. Bizarrely, certain letters in seemingly random places are consistently colored red as well. For example, the "Trick" button has a red letter C in the DS version (though not in the iOS version), and the "Trick Time!" prompt is always colored as such (in both versions). Even the cover art for the Original Sound Track follows suit. Is CAPCOM sending hidden messages?.
 * Reckless Gun Usage: When someone hands a gun to the Justice Minister to examine, he immediately proceeds to stare straight down the barrel. For most of the rest of the scene.
 * Redemption Equals Death: Zig Zagged to hell and back with ..
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni:
 * and, respectively.
 * Also, Lynne or Missile and Sissel.
 * Retirony: Subverted. Memry, the waitress at the Chicken Kitchen, mentions that it's her last day working there. She is almost killed by a speeding truck crashing into the restaurant, but is saved at the last minute by Lynne pushing her out of the way.
 * Retro Universe:
 * Although most technology seems to be modern (wireless headphones and plasma TVs) and a young woman is allowed on the detective force (suggesting modern social mores), everyone uses rotary telephones that still use the old station-extension phone number style. Wireless rotary phones, in some cases. Which makes for some major Schizo-Tech with the blue people, who have robotic arms, pimped-out information consoles, and . It would be tempting to write this off as an alternate universe where cell phones were never invented... except that the game shares a universe with Ace Attorney, which has cell phones aplenty.
 * Inspector Cabanela is a regular Disco Dan.
 * The Chicken Kitchen is an glitzy (?) 50's nostalgia place, complete with jukebox and roller-skating waitresses.
 * Revenge: 's stated goal.
 * Right for the Wrong Reasons: The protagonist first figures out his name is Sissel when the foreigners refer to him as such while looking at an image of him..
 * Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Every ghost, as well anyone whose death has been directly averted by ghosts, remembers everything. They even remain connected to the World of the Dead enough to communicate with said ghosts.
 * This brings up something mentioned at the ending: It's clearly stated that, because their ghosts went back to 10 years ago, only Sissel, Yomiel, Jowd, and Missile will remember all the details of what happened in the game in the new present. This is proven when Jowd knows what to name . However, it appears that everybody else who was brought back through a Ghost Trick previously doesn't remember what has happened, as shown when Lynne is shown to no longer possess the core she received after being saved for the second time.
 * This is also what inspires the final puzzle:.
 * Robotic Reveal:.
 * Rube Goldberg Device: The game may as well be called Rube Ghostberg Contraption: The Game, though a literal example is seen as well..
 * Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: ..
 * Rule of Cool: Every character has needlessly stylish movements and mannerisms.
 * Running Gag:.
 * Save the Villain: After his Heel Face Turn, anyway. The villain in question even helps save himself.
 * Schmuck Bait: In Chapter 15, you have to swap a bullet already in motion with something of the same shape that wouldn't be lethal. If you don't do any other tricks before that point, there's on the wall nearby that you can use. Ask yourself this: How would this object impact someone's face if it were traveling at bullet velocity? Ask Cabanela -- it ain't pretty. (contains spoilers).

"? !"
 * Schrödinger's Cat: We find that in the epilogue. Kamila says that after all these years, he hasn't aged a day, and a Ghost World perspective shows that he still has ghost powers, due to.
 * Screw Destiny: Sissel can go back four minutes in time to stop someone from being murdered. This is called "Avert Fate" in-game. Naturally, it's the whole point of the game.
 * Sdrawkcab Name:
 * Temsik Park - "Temsik" is "kismet" backwards, an Urdu word meaning "fate".
 * "Yonoa" is a backwards version of the Japanese syllables of "ano-yo," a term referring to the world of the dead.
 * Sequel Hook: It's a foundation for a sequel, anyway. . Good luck making a sequel that doesn't result in a massive Late Arrival Spoiler for this game...
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The purpose of most chapters, when you attempt to avert fates..
 * Shooting Superman: Poor Cabanela learns this the hard way after capping in the head. Though, as it turns out, !
 * Shoot the Dog: Both literal and figurative. First, . Next is.
 * Shout-Out:
 * Cabanela does a variety of Michael Jackson moves.
 * We've also got a Commander Sith.
 * Sissel obviously never watched Ghostbusters.
 * Quite a few to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. The words "Hold it!" and "contradiction" are thrown about heavily, as well as Lynne asking Kamila, a little sister figure, to get a music box that no longer works which contains important evidence for a cast, mirroring Mia asking Maya to go get the Thinker for her. Also, (spoilers for Ghost Trick and the last case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (the DS, American one, not the original one for the GBA)).
 * There's also the fact that Sissel repetitively says that he has to find something to "turn around" the situation, much similarly to the whole theme of the Ace Attorney games.
 * says something similar to Dracula's speech in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
 * Ray has to be a reference to Pixar's very first short film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtHSyfcSDs
 * Bailey's dance HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN IN HIS FAMILY FOR GENERATIONS!!
 * Silly Walk: Just about everyone. Cabanela is the prime example, but even the guards get in on this with their absurdly formal marches.
 * The Slow Path: was forced to take this after going back to ten years ago and then realizing that he couldn't do anything to avert 's death or any of the things resulting from it in the first timeline. Not especially long by the standards of the trope... but it's.

"Sissel: So now all we have to do is... Lynne: ...get to that door, and we're safe!"
 * Sneeze Cut: In the demo, but you'd have to play through the full game to understand why.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: It is a little jarring to see, in the ending montage, peppy music play as.
 * Spiritual Successor: To the Ace Attorney series. No pun intended.
 * Split-Screen Phone Call: Used when overhearing phone conversations. It's implied in-game that the protagonist, who has the ability to travel through phone lines, actually can see both ends of the conversation at once.
 * Start of Darkness: ...
 * Stealth-Based Mission:
 * In Chapter 15, you have to avoid gaining attention with your ghost tricks..
 * Chapter 9 has you trying to escape from a pitch-black prison with guards who wear night vision goggles. Even though ghosts can see through darkness in the "ghost world", it's harder than it sounds since.
 * Take Your Time: The game always shows the precise time, but outside of four-minutes-in-the-past timed puzzles, it will never advance unless you trigger an event that forces it to. The exception is Chapter 16, where although the time itself doesn't advance, if you wait too long to give Lynne a path up to the door,.
 * Talking Animal: Ghosts of animals can "talk" with people, as Missile demonstrates..
 * Talking Is a Free Action: Used whenever Sissel chats up the dead. Justified in that it appears to be some form of telepathy and the ghost world is explicitly stated as being outside of time. Or whenever you decide to talk to the spirit you're trying to save, no matter how pressed for time you are in-game.
 * Tap on the Head: The driver of the surveillance van is knocked out by a high-pitched whine from his headphones. Unbeknown to him, Beauty has torched his microphone with a cigarette lighter.
 * Tempting Fate:
 * Early on, Sissel tells himself that it can't be that hard to save Lynne, since how many times can she die in a single night? He later finds out....
 * In Chapter 16:

"Sissel: Lynne wasn't dead when I got there. For once."
 * Timed Mission:
 * Each time you go back into the past, you only have four (in-game) minutes to save the victim's life.
 * If Sissel ever wants to know the full truth, he has to do it before dawn, when he'll truly cease to exist..
 * Chapter 16's puzzles are unique in the fact Sissel doesn't travel back in time to save people. However, time flows "normally" when he's not in the ghost world and taking too long to solve the puzzles will end up fatally for those Sissel has to save.
 * Timey-Wimey Ball: The Ghost Trick to return four minutes into the past to prevent a death. If the spirit is awake to see this occur, they will follow along the path to try to prevent said death. When the death is prevented, the event is erased and replaced with a new present, but the memory remains for those who were along with said Trick. At the end of the game, the Ghost Trick to 10 years ago results in a mild reboot:  is killed by the Temsik fragment, thus taking  has been erased in the reboot. However, all the events in the game still technically happened in that it's how the current present exists. And of everyone who'd died and remembered, it's implied that only Sissel, Jowd,, and Missile remember the whole story, since they were amongst the final Ghost Trick.
 * Title Drop: Done heavily in the first chapter.
 * They Fight Crime: Lynne and Sissel. Later in the game, joins in on the action.
 * They Killed Kenny: Lynne.


 * Those Two Guys: The Green Detective and Blue Detective. They even contrast each other, the blue detective talking big but immediately conforming to authority, while the green detective is a Deadpan Snarker.
 * Tomato Surprise: Several. In the end, it turns out that.
 * Tracking Device:.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Everyone's extremely into giant roast chicken. Extremely into it. . Then there's the curry-loving prisoner.
 * Trial and Error Gameplay:
 * Figuring out which phone calls to go through during the death aversions comes really close to this at times, as many times it's really hard to tell whether you'll be able to do something useful in the new location or you'll just get stuck (requiring starting the segment over).
 * Chapter 10 is more or less this. For starters, the guy whose life you're trying to save receives a call from a kidnapper, knocks his heart attack medicine across the room, and spills a pitcher of water before dying of a heart attack. If your first reaction was to follow the phone call, . If you jump to the medicine and get flung across the room, you find yourself without enough time to figure out what to do, much less actually perform the exact sequence of actions required to get the medicine back to the guy. The solution? You have to . That creates a Check Point. However, if you do that and, you get stuck and will need to start all over again.
 * It could be said that this is really one of the game's main mechanics, as you'll rarely know what to do right from the start. The only way to know what most of the objects will do once manipulated is to try, and a lot of them can only be used once, so trial and error is really your only option. Fortunately, the game is designed with this in mind.
 * Tricked-Out Time: At one point, you have to save someone from an explosion while making it look like they were caught in it. And then right after, you have someone shot by a gun without the shooter knowing the difference.
 * Trickster Mentor: puts  through quite an ordeal. Despite knowing the truth all along, he does not tell . However, this causes  and learn the value of helping other people besides himself.
 * Undying Loyalty: Missile, quite literally. This is very apparent when . If that's not enough, the ending reveals that.
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Characters frequently fail to notice things moving in the background, or consider them coincidences..
 * Verbal Tic: As expected of a Shu Takumi game, many characters have their own verbal tics, while others seemingly transmit from character to character.
 * Cabaneeela tends to draw out his vooowels, baby.
 * A handful of characters tend to say "Odd girl" when Memry the waitress is done talking with them. Sissel and Lynne in particular like to reply with "I agree" and "Me too" to one another after the odd girl remark.
 * Missile the Pomeranian loves to bark at everything, which translated it becomes "WELCOME!".
 * The blue-skinned doctor tends to murmur "...like me" when someone close says "You don't know who may be listening."
 * Sith has a very wide range of vocabulary, his favourite being "Confound it!".
 * Ray tends to say "Now, then" a lot.
 * Sissel says "eh?" at the end of sentences quite frequently.
 * In one of the final scenes, Sith's servant talks to Jowd and always finishes his sentences by addressing Jowd as "detective", detective.
 * Video Game Caring Potential: Lynne and Kamila are in the game to invoke this.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: There are at least two separate instances where you can alter a victim's fate so they die in an even less dignified manner than the original.
 * Weak but Skilled: The main character is much weaker than a living person and can only move by jumping between objects no more than two or three feet away, but he uses what he can do to great effect.
 * Weird Moon
 * Wham! Episode:
 * Chapter 17 and The Final Chapter.
 * Really, everything that happens after Chapter 14 can fit this trope.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?:
 * Not so much a person as a plot device, but what's the deal with ? It tries to be significant, but after, Sissel never sees the pair again and we never get an explanation for it.
 * The culprit in the case that  was never explicitly revealed.
 * Literally in Chapter 16. There was a rat happily perched inside a torpedo that, thanks to you, didn't explode. Where did it go?
 * When It All Began:.
 * Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Interspersed with the credits.
 * Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The setting is intentionally made ambiguous by including elements from several different cultures.
 * The ministries are vaguely Japanese, as are the references to gods (possibly Shinto kami).
 * There are European suits of armor in the Justice Minister's office, but the hats the guards wear don't seem to relate to those in any known country.
 * All of the characters have names from continental Europe, with the exception of the foreigners. Beauty, Dandy and Sith are English, English and Scottish; Jeego and Tengo are Japanese.
 * The prison still uses the electric chair, an execution device that has only ever been used by America.
 * Whip It Good: The thoroughly evil Beauty carries a bright red riding crop, though we never see her use it.
 * Who Dunnit to Me?
 * Who Wants to Live Forever?: certainly doesn't, having to deal with crushing loneliness after the death of his fiancée.  subverts it and doesn't appear to mind that he's immortal in the ending timeline.
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: . But wait, It Gets Worse!.
 * World of Ham
 * Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Subverted by, who was genuinely innocent but got chased and killed when he fled interrogation. Cabanela references the subversion of this trope as his reason for preventing Jowd's escape when he points out that escaping from prison is still a crime. And even in the "fixed" timeline in the ending, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to escape from custody and taking a hostage.
 * Xanatos Roulette: planned the plot, but nothing would have worked out if current-timeline  hadn't died on the meteorite's exact crash site.
 * You Gotta Have Colorful Hair
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Commander Sith strands in a sinking submarine after getting the Temsik shard from him. Tellingly, Sith was so afraid of him that it was the only way to be sure.
 * You Should Know This Already: You start off not knowing your own name. The back of the box says your name is Sissel. To be fair, you learn it in-game as early as the second chapter.
 * You Should Know This Already: You start off not knowing your own name. The back of the box says your name is Sissel. To be fair, you learn it in-game as early as the second chapter.