New game from the Ace Attorney folks.  Looks sweet:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-0 … 7?type=wmv

This one's got intrigue written all over it.  It's hard to tell what it's all about from the trailer alone, but Kohler's got a pretty good write-up about it in his TGS report:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/ghost-trick/

I love the trailer and the description sounds pretty cool as well.  I'm probably the only one on this board who thought Geist was cool, mostly for all the cool possession tricks you could do (the FPS parts sucked), so I'm pretty pumped about this one.

I'll stick with Juusei to Diamond instead.  You should look into it too.

Really excited for this game! It looks like it could be a lot of fun. If it's even half as enjoyable the the Ace Attorney games then I'll be quite pleased.

The trailer for Juusei to Diamond looked pretty cool too, but alas I don't have a PSP nor the desire to invest in one. I am curious about the music though. The piece in the trailer was quite nice!

Where are the ghosts?

There's Detectives.  And detectives make for cooler intrigue than ghosts.

Does this even have plans for a localized release?

Not yet, unfortunately.

Capcom's released an English version of the playable flash demo.  It's pretty dope:

http://www.gamespot.com/misc/presentati … index.html

How awesome is that rotoscope animation?  Brings me back to the days of Blackthorne, Flashback, and Out of This World.

DS demo is up on the Nintendo Channel.  It's short, but enjoyable.

And just to be clear, this one is entirely different from the aforementioned flash demo.

Apparently, it's a special holiday scenario that's not going to be available in the final game.  Rather time-appropriate to release this now.  Well played, Capcom.

About three chapters into the game, and it's been a blast so far.  I freely admit that Chapter 2 had me stumped for a good while.

I love how the dossiers for characters and locations alike are constantly updated with each new fact that you learn about them.  And it's gotta be said again: how awesome is that rotoscope animation?  The mannerisms of these colorful, over-the-top characters are such a joy to watch.  I could view the Masked Muscleman's computer thwomp all day long.

EDIT: Well, how about that?  According to this interview with Takumi, no motion capturing for the animation was involved, and was instead all done by hand.  That's truly impressive.

The great thing about having such a colorful premise are the potential web comics that could be borne from the idea -- most of them of the playful, naughty nature.    Like these:

-Mr. Desk Lamp
-Lady's Bike
-Death By Soap
-Street Fighter Sissel
-BUY ME
-Locker Room Hijinks
-Dr. McNinja
-Sissel Fey

I would have had my copy yesterday, but my local GameStop no longer thinks they need to actually hold customer reserves (and by that I mean that their asshole District Manager won't allow them to since he doesn't want to miss walk-in sales), so now I'll have to wait until next week for a copy to arrive from Amazon.  I have filed a complaint about GameStop with the Better Business Bureau.  We'll see if anything comes of it.

Wrote following over at neogaf:

I just finished the game in German.

Such a great, excellent, magnificent, throughly enjoyable game. I'm in awe.

I rather liked the three Phoenix Wright games Shu Takumi worked on, but while they had absolutely great moments, they also got dragged down by some ridiculous story parts, some characters I simply couldn't like at all and some archaic game design decisions. Though knowing of the greatness of their high points I was still expecting great things from this game.

And this game managed to exceed all expectations. Both the story as well as the whole gameplay feel like solving all the issues I had with the PW games, while not giving up the specific atmosphere they had. Music is both varied and great (loving all the different bass instruments used). The story is still a rollercoast of twists making it hard to put down, just now a tad more serious with plenty less ridiculous comedy moments. I can't recall any game I had so much fun playing through as a whole in the last couple years. I think it's no question that this is Shu Takumi's best game yet. (He got exact the same credits as the three original PW games btw., showing again how little he was involved with all the ports and newer AA games. So this really makes this his first new game after PW3 GBA in 2004. Unless there is some unknown game everyone missed so far?)

The only real nitpicks I have are that unlike the "xxx" hint and "..." speech bubbles the foreground talks need to be tapped through each time again, and that in chapter 14 (spoiler removed =P).

Anyway will make use of the power of word of mouth now. This game definitely deserves it.
May replay it in English soon. Anybody know what difference "continuing" from the start after having finished the game makes, if any?

This is an AMAZING piece by DA artist Sii-SEN.  Game box cover worthy, even.

Not really. He did Scenario & Direction for Rise From the Ashes AND Apollo, as well as songwriter for Lamiroir's ballad (at least the original Japanese). The only AA game he wasn't involved with was Edgeworth, but even that was helmed by his right-hand man for JFA and T&T. So the idea that the AA team didn't do anything since 2004 doesn't hold up.

Anyway, finally got a chance to try this out tonight, up to the start of Chapter 4. Holy hotsteppin' damn, is this my kind of game. Parsing out how to do stuff has awakened memories of the very first time I got my hands on Maniac Mansion, and it's immensely satisfying. And that animation, good grief. A certain character's dynamic entrance in Chapter 3 ALONE made me glad I'm using an XL. I have no idea why Capcom held this back until January; it would've made my year-end list EASILY back in November.

Not really. This has been discussed on neogaf as well, in AJ his credit only said "Original Creator & Series Director" with noone being credited for scenario. Some posters then pointed out how on his blog and pre-release interview Takumi was distancing himself from the game somewhat which making it possible that those additions that killed AJ (the major cameo and the inane ending) were forced on him at the end to have a known character be in there. Anyway don't really want to talk about AJ, it killed the whole series for me and the farther away Takumi was from it the better. =P

Like Sissel's strive to complete his quest before dawn's break, so too did I spend an all-nighter finishing up the game.  Looking out my window, it seemed befitting that the credits rolled just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.

"Such a great, excellent, magnificent, throughly enjoyable game."  Datschge took the words right out of my mouth.  Though I still hold Trials and Tribulations as Takumi's magnum opus, Ghost Trick spins just about one of the greatest yarns I've ever had the pleasure to experience in a video game.  The sundry of characters, every single one of them, bursts with personality; not a throwaway in the entire bunch, and it's amazing how they all crucially fit into the overarching narrative.  Like Tribulations, the story builds up unstoppable momentum, and it all comes to ahead by the very end.  And mad props to the English localization team; this is Capcom's finest non Alex Smith effort to date.

The gameplay served to aggravate and exhilarate in equal measures.  Perhaps I took Amazingu's heed from this thread too seriously (or maybe my mental faculties weren't as up to snuff as I thought), but I had a devil of a time with the majority of these puzzles.  Trial and error becomes a big necessity, especially during the later chapters where manipulations become more diverse, and yes, the foreground talks and scenarios do have to be played over and over again.  At least there's a quick text scroll option like the Ace Attorney games.  (Just hold down the B button.)  But successful solving is its own reward, and almost as enriching as getting to push along the compelling story.

And I've grown a fonder appreciation for Masakazu Sugimori's music score as well.  The main theme GHOST TRICK, despite its repetition, remains infectious, and songs like TRAUMA and The Last Desperate Struggle are terrific highlights.  But it's one character's theme that really made me take notice.  (For the sake of potential spoilers, I'd advise folks not to click the link until you've at least finished Chapter 8.)  This particular theme feels like something akin to Front Mission or Gun Hazard, and I absolutely love it.

Man, I was loving this game with all my heart and then that sonuvbitch jailbreak section got me stuck and ruined my fun. Game's great besides, though. Every game needs to have the Panic Dance from this point forward. It would be especially welcome in the next Silent Hill.

Yeah, that section had me for a while.  It is deceptively simple in hindsight, but who knew you were supposed to..... travel all along the corridor between the two floors, instead of taking the top level from the get go?

No other game has made chicken look so appetizing.

No other game makes me want a Pomeranian as much. 

Anybody else find it cool that that some of the characters design resemble some of PW characters such as Prosecutor Payne, PW and Lotta Heart, and even the MJ-wannabee Cabenela looks like Gant..

I find the character designs reminiscent to the Mega Man Battle Network and Star Force series - especially when I see Lynne and Kamila.  I think I spotted Manami Yoshino as one of the artists in the credits, who I believe worked on a few of those titles.

It's a shame there aren't any Phoenix Wright easter eggs in the game.  Seems that a premise that exclusively deals with spirits and ghosts would have been a perfect opportunity to sneak a Fey somewhere in there.   Ah well.

Am I the only one who immediately thinks of..... Bust A Groove's Hiro when I see Cabanela?  He's sure got the swagger of The Natural Playboy.  Also, the bartender's hairdo is undeniably modeled after Guile's.  ^_^

Or a martini glass.
For my part, I see a lot of Ema in Lynne's* outfit, but I could be alone. And as far as Easter Eggs go (Chapter 8+ character spoiler), Jowd seems to be wearing Terry Fawles' prison outfit, and while it could just be generic prisoner garb, considering he's the only prisoner wearing it I suspect it was deliberate.

At any rate, I finished it myself tonight (this morning, technically). I was playing in measured chunks over the last few days, but after I came to the conclusion of Chapter 14 at around 9:30, I sure as hell wasn't going to stop. I mean, good grief.

Aside from the roadblock Angela helped me past, my biggest stumbling block came in Chapter 15. Specifically (whiteout time), mimicking the shape of the bullet. I had parsed out the entire solution with using the felt cap, except I had been anticipating that the bullet was long and slender, as the cap appears when it lies flat, when instead they wanted it round and angled, like it appears when it's hanging. If they would have let me see the bullet even once instead of whiting out after Missile says there's nothing to match the bullet (and how did HE know what shape he was looking for?), I'd probably have gotten it legitimately a good half-hour earlier, rather than stumble backwards into it just because I lost track of what I was doing on my umpteenth try. But that's really the only part that felt unfair.

It's probably the most satisfied I've been with an adventure game since I put Justice For All to bed after a six-hour marathon nearly (geez) 4 years ago. But I'll admit I was overwhelmed at times by the sheer density of the plot, and especially the ending. It all makes sense in the end, but man, it does my head in just thinking about some of it. It's also quite a bit darker than his other works, which was refreshing in a way, but I'll probably replay the funnier chapters more than the full game proper as time goes by.

As much as I hunger for more Ace Attorney, kudos to Takumi and crew for trying something vividly and undeniably new, and working it to the fullest on the first try. If the scuttlebutt is true that he plans on ending the series with GS5, we now have definitive proof that he is not a one-trick pony, and is in fact probably the most creative guy in games today.

* P.S. (Chapter 7 spoiler) Who, I have to say, easily out-unluckies Maggey Byrde in the course of this game. Death by two-ton chicken leg is completely awesome.

Good point.  Didn't even think of that one.

Hmm, but I'm pretty sure that...... Sausage Head and Rocker Boy were also wearing the same outfit.  Yet again the design choice brings me back to Street Fighter -- specifically Cody from Alpha.  Maybe that's just the Japanese's general perception of typical prison garb attire. 

Yeah, with.... three concurrent timelines, it got pretty heavy toward the finish there.  Devilot109 from GameFAQs posted a fairly reasonable summary, which you can find here.  The thread eventually evolves into an argument as to whether..... Sissel is either male or female.  What do you think?

Which was also accompanied by one of my most favorite lines in the game: ..... "You're just getting bigger and better with each new death, aren't you?"

One can easily rebuke this comment by stating that the game's full title is "Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective".  So there's ghosts *and* detectives, which makes for the COOLEST intrigue. 

Just sayin'.

And yes, I was completely serious:

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/pp15 … hicken.jpg

Call it a lark.  Call it rabid fandom.  I call it good eatin' tonight.

I'm leaning toward female, because mine - who was also a black stray, come to think of it - is much smarter and clingier than my two sweet-but-dumb-as-rocks males. Also, being named after the fiance seems to lean toward the 'she' argument more. That said, I usually see red bandanas only on male pets. Is there a gender tendency there, or just coincidence?

A woman after my own palate. I suspect I could eat anyone here under the table in regards to this particular meal. For me, the game made me more interested in trying sweet potatoes.

You have no idea how delighted I was when they used that particular food as a plot point.  It's been a mainstay in my diet for the last several months, and it is DELECTABLE.  Super healthy for you, too -- it ranks among the top ranking foods around.

Finally got to put some time in to my copy last night.  I'm somewhere in Chapter 4 and loving it so far.

Made some real progress.  I'm now at the start of Chapter 14.  I really like how this game captures all of the charm of the Ace Attorney series but does away with all the bullsh!t (no need to save and reset every 10 seconds).

What she said.  I finished the game today and, well, I can't remember that last time I smiled so much when playing a game.  What a fantastic production.  Ghost Trick is one of those rare games that has excellent everything: graphics, music, art, animation, story, gameplay, production values, and most importantly, FUN.  Loved it.

Late to the party as usual, but I finally picked this up and started playing (life's been a real pain in the ass lately). Made it through the first 7 or so chapters in one sitting and had a fantastic time! So good!

I'll post my thoughts when I've gotten a little bit further. Can't wait to keep playing! Almost tempted to just blow off work and stay home playing. That wouldn't go over too well though. ^_^;