I just finished replaying Ghost Trick, for the first time since my first playthrough three years ago, and spent the entire final chapter sobbing my heart out. I remembered it as a cute, fun game filled with great characters; I'd forgotten that it's actually a cute, fun game filled with great characters and also heartbreak. I went into the bathroom afterwards and saw myself in the mirror and had a moment of 'wait, why are there bits of tissue all over my face?' before remembering I'd spent the last twenty minutes mopping up my tears.
I don't remember crying this much at the ending the first time around, possibly because the ending hits you with fifty ridiculous plot twists (I do remember shouting 'WHAT' at the screen a lot). I suppose knowing about the plot twists in advance meant I was better able to take in what was actually happening, rather than spending all my time going '????????????'
(A bizarre realisation on this replay: the ridiculous plot twists are extremely thoroughly foreshadowed! I thought at first that the biggest revelation sort of came out of nowhere, but it's clear now that the entire game was written with it in mind.)
If you're curious about Ghost Trick and you can't play it on DS or iOS, there's a screenshot Let's Play over here which looks nice and in-depth! It's one of the most charming games I've ever played. It makes me cry, yes, but it also fills my heart with warmth. I love Sissel. I love Lynne. I love Missile. I love everyone. And the graphics, and the music, and the dialogue! And all the stupid plot twists! (Please don't spoil yourself, because becoming increasingly bewildered as everything gets weirder is an absolutely essential part of the experience.)
Something I really like about Shu Takumi games - Ghost Trick, Ace Attorney - is the number of central, meaningful, completely platonic relationships between male and female characters. The female characters in question all tend to fall into the same category ('energetic, quirky teenage girls'), but they're all well-drawn and likeable (Lynne is so great!), and I'll happily accept 'endless friendships with eccentric teenagers' as a temporary alternative to 'endless romance'.
In news that is inexplicably not about Ghost Trick, my Harry Potter reread continues!
I think Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a better book in the series than I gave it credit for. The Ron/Lavender subplot could be cut out with absolutely no loss, and the question 'why is Voldemort evil?' gets the rather uninspiring answer 'because he's evil!', but I liked the Harry/Ginny relationship a lot more this time around. Slughorn's a much-needed addition to Slytherin, and I really like what the book does for Draco; it doesn't redeem him, but it shows that he's redeemable. Dumbledore is fantastic throughout. And the tone of the ending is perfect. There's a strangely detached, melancholy beauty to the entire final chapter.
I've always thought of Neville/Luna as quite a cute potential pairing, but in my head they didn't actually have much canonical interaction. I was surprised and pleased to realise that they actually seem to be quite close in Half-Blood Prince. They're with each other when they meet up with Harry on the Hogwarts Express; they fight together; Luna is helping Neville into a chair at the end. Presumably they bonded during the Ministry escapade in Order of the Phoenix.
However, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince can be rightly criticised for not containing enough adorable ghosts. Yes, there are ghosts, but none of them are Sissel, are they? Rubbish.
I don't remember crying this much at the ending the first time around, possibly because the ending hits you with fifty ridiculous plot twists (I do remember shouting 'WHAT' at the screen a lot). I suppose knowing about the plot twists in advance meant I was better able to take in what was actually happening, rather than spending all my time going '????????????'
(A bizarre realisation on this replay: the ridiculous plot twists are extremely thoroughly foreshadowed! I thought at first that the biggest revelation sort of came out of nowhere, but it's clear now that the entire game was written with it in mind.)
If you're curious about Ghost Trick and you can't play it on DS or iOS, there's a screenshot Let's Play over here which looks nice and in-depth! It's one of the most charming games I've ever played. It makes me cry, yes, but it also fills my heart with warmth. I love Sissel. I love Lynne. I love Missile. I love everyone. And the graphics, and the music, and the dialogue! And all the stupid plot twists! (Please don't spoil yourself, because becoming increasingly bewildered as everything gets weirder is an absolutely essential part of the experience.)
Something I really like about Shu Takumi games - Ghost Trick, Ace Attorney - is the number of central, meaningful, completely platonic relationships between male and female characters. The female characters in question all tend to fall into the same category ('energetic, quirky teenage girls'), but they're all well-drawn and likeable (Lynne is so great!), and I'll happily accept 'endless friendships with eccentric teenagers' as a temporary alternative to 'endless romance'.
In news that is inexplicably not about Ghost Trick, my Harry Potter reread continues!
I think Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a better book in the series than I gave it credit for. The Ron/Lavender subplot could be cut out with absolutely no loss, and the question 'why is Voldemort evil?' gets the rather uninspiring answer 'because he's evil!', but I liked the Harry/Ginny relationship a lot more this time around. Slughorn's a much-needed addition to Slytherin, and I really like what the book does for Draco; it doesn't redeem him, but it shows that he's redeemable. Dumbledore is fantastic throughout. And the tone of the ending is perfect. There's a strangely detached, melancholy beauty to the entire final chapter.
I've always thought of Neville/Luna as quite a cute potential pairing, but in my head they didn't actually have much canonical interaction. I was surprised and pleased to realise that they actually seem to be quite close in Half-Blood Prince. They're with each other when they meet up with Harry on the Hogwarts Express; they fight together; Luna is helping Neville into a chair at the end. Presumably they bonded during the Ministry escapade in Order of the Phoenix.
However, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince can be rightly criticised for not containing enough adorable ghosts. Yes, there are ghosts, but none of them are Sissel, are they? Rubbish.
