Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Ghost Trick is a single-player puzzle adventure video game. Players control the character Sissel, an amnesiac ghost with supernatural powers, over the course of one night. The story is divided into 18 chapters, each titled after the time of night in which they take place. At the start of the game, only the first chapter is available to play; when players complete a chapter, the next one is unlocked. Gameplay is split into two sections: gathering information by navigating through the city, and saving lives by traveling back in time.

Players can press the "Ghost" button to swap between the real world and the Ghost World—an alternate dimension in which time does not pass. In the Ghost World, Sissel takes the form of a blue flame, and can travel between nearby objects. Every interactable object contains a glowing sphere of essence called a "core". Players can swipe from core to core to explore the environment.

At 7:02 pm, an amnesiac spirit named Sissel regains consciousness in a junkyard. Seeing the corpse of a man nearby, Sissel concludes that he has just been killed. Ray, a spirit possessing a desk lamp, tells Sissel about the nature of spirits and "powers of the dead", including the power to travel back in time to four minutes before a person's death. Sissel uses these powers, called "ghost tricks", to save a young detective named Lynne from an assassination attempt.

Sissel learns that Lynne came to the junkyard at his request, and decides that she is the only lead to uncovering his identity. Ray warns Sissel that his spirit will vanish at dawn.

Ghost Trick was developed over the course of six years by a team of 20, headed by Ace Attorney director Shu Takumi. Shortly after the Game Boy Advance release of Trials and Tribulations in 2004, Takumi stepped away from Ace Attorney to create a "new type of mystery" without the restrictions of the series' conventions. He drafted a rough storyline for the project—codenamed Mansion—centered around an ensemble cast of strangers. His priorities were shifted back to Ace Attorney later that year, split between porting the series to the Nintendo DS (DS), writing a fifth episode for the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney DS port, and supervising development of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

In October 2007, following the release of the Trials and Tribulations DS port in Japan, the project became Takumi's sole focus. He rewrote his original draft, dividing the story into chapters to make it easier to understand, and full-scale development began.

Ghost Trick received "generally favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic. The 2023 remaster received "universal acclaim" on PC and "generally favorable" reviews on consoles. The game is considered to be a cult classic.

The game's story and characters were highly praised. GameSpot's Carolyn Petit said the "comic absurdity" of the plot cleverly spins its tragic themes into comedic moments, and that story beats culminate in a rewarding and memorable conclusion. She also found interacting with the game's characters entertaining, admiring their snappy and engaging dialogue. Carolyn Gudmundson of GamesRadar+ found the characters endearing and many-layered, comparing them favorably to the Ace Attorney cast.

In November 2011, Capcom released Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, an updated version of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds introducing Ace Attorney's Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey in their fighting game debut. One of the duo's alternate costume sets is themed after the color schemes of Sissel and Lynne, respectively.

In December 2017, Capcom released a free content update for Dead Rising 4 called "Capcom Heroes", giving players 17 new outfits based on the studio's video game franchises, each with their own attributes. This mode includes a Sissel costume, and allows the main character, Frank West, to possess everyday objects and use them to attack enemies.