The Nintendo DS was a treasure trove of puzzle games, producing perhaps the greatest era the genre will ever see. The system’s touchscreen and dual-screen format allowed developers to get wildly inventive, and there are two dozen games I could name off the top of my head that are unlike anything else I’ve ever played. But the game that feels most emblematic of this special moment in gaming history is the little masterpiece called Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Overlooked at the time, Ghost Trick has aged into one of the best puzzle games ever made.
Arriving Stateside 15 years ago, Ghost Trick is a fascinating one-off from Capcom, a company that’s since proven to be wonderfully experimental in the face of a largely homogenous AAA industry. Ghost Trick is particularly interesting because it comes from the mind of Shu Takumi. Takumi is best known as the creator and longtime director of the Ace Attorney franchise, and you can see that same quirky, abrasive sense of humor in Ghost Trick.
