to understand what a gem ghost trick is, you should take a moment to sit back and try to come up with a gameplay mechanic thats like nothing anyones ever seen before while also being fun.

if you were to try and compare the gameplay in ghost trick to another game you would eventually liken it to a point and click adventure in the sense that the puzzle comes from the player having to discern the relationship between various objects in the world. people whove played this game though know that thats where the comparison ends. in ghost trick, you are a ghost thats physically bound to the object youre currently possessing, meaning that simply moving from one location to another becomes the puzzle itself.

theres a law in game design that says new mechanics should be introduced to the player in a safe environment in order to acclimate them to the idea of it without them getting frustrated and i was consistently impressed with how ghost trick follows up on this idea.
ghost trick is all about context sensitivity. theres only one real action button in the game, and its effect is determined by the object the players ghost is currently possessing. this means that for every single new object the player encounters, a new effect of the action button is introduced to the player. this might seem daunting at first, but ghost trick handles this brilliantly. a single word hint is always given on the secondary screen about what might happen when the object is interacted with, but even more importantly this is when the law i mentioned earlier comes into play.
the puzzles in ghost trick where its possible to reach a fail state are always about preventing the death of another character in the story. before entering the puzzle, the player is always shown a little movie of how the events leading up to that characters death play out, which often clearly display the nature of objects they will soon be interacting with. furthermore, before even that, the player is usually tasked with traversing the area the puzzle will take place in. this puts them in a situation where they cant fail and are given the space to freely interact and experiment with the objects in the area.

the gameplay is executed so well that theres no hiccups in it at all that would get in the way of enjoying the even more impressive aspect of ghost trick, the story.

ghost trick starts out with one of the most compelling introductions ive ever seen in a game and keeps that interest going all the way to the very end. theres 18 chapters and every single one introduces some kind of new twist or mystery that had me unable to put the game down until i was physically too tired to keep playing. ghost trick stacks so many mysteries on top of each other for 80% of the game that i thought there was no way they could all be resolved in time. the final few chapters however wrapped everything up so much more neatly than i couldve ever thought was possible.

the only unresolved mystery in ghost trick to me is that such a great game could somehow fly this far under the radar.

if theres one thing to take away from ico, its that it accomplishes a lot with very little.

its clear ico was designed to be as immersive as possible. this manifests as an absence of any non-diagetic elements such as an onscreen hud, button prompts, and music. to counteract the lack of a display, interactable elements are always visually consistent. boxes, levers, chains, and climbable ledges straddle the line between standing out enough to be immediately obvious while also fitting well into the overall aesthetic of the area.

the world of ico feels real in the sense that nothing about the areas looks like it was specifically designed for the player to traverse. everything about the castle looks functional and its only the degradation of it that presents the challenge of moving forward.
interiors are often large and empty, with pulled back camera angles and unsettling ambient noise. in contrast, the outside is sunlit with gentle breezes and signs of life, and its only in these areas will the player find spots to rest and save their game. this serves to align the players motivation with ico and yordas motivations of escaping the castle into the green forest thats constantly teased in the distance. this is taken even further during one of the final areas when the environment suddenly becomes metallic, harsh and unwelcoming, representing the urgency of the current situation.
ico is also a masterclass of environmental storytelling. the ending recontextualizes everything about the environment that the player has seen up until that point, eliciting a profound feeling of melancholy that other games could only ever hope to come close to.

if youve ever played either god of war 2018 or ragnarok, you would know that jumping onto a wall or into a boat causes atreus to immediately be right there behind you. its clear that your companion is teleporting all over the place for the sake of the players convenience. compare this to yorda in ico and the difference is obvious. the player has to wait for yorda to physically move between locations. she wanders off on her own sometimes. it feels like shes a real person bound by the rules of the world in the same way the player is, not only furthering the sense of immersion but also the connection the player feels between the two.
it feels as though the game was created with a distinct goal in mind: immerse the player into the world and make them feel a connection between themselves and yorda. any element or mechanic that didnt directly contribute to this goal was ultimately cut, resulting in one of the most focused and flawless experiences ever seen in gaming.

theres not much more i can say about the genius of this game without spoiling it. if youre a game developer or at all interested in game design it would be irresponsible not to play ico.

a culmination of fromsofts years of experience fine tuning their souls formula leading to a game thats both visually stunning and feels great to play mechanically but is ultimately crippled by the decision for an open world design and the arms race of difficulty versus veterans of the genre.

elden ring is a game of extreme highs and lows. this game has some of the best dungeon design ever seen in fromsoft titles with stormveil castle and leyndell being standout areas, but also the most awful dungeons coming from recycled content that sits on par with bloodbornes chalice dungeons. its a thinly veiled attempt at padding the games overall playtime, judging by the fact that on my second and third playthroughs i skipped 90% of elden rings content because i knew it was all copy pasted dungeons with rewards at the end that werent worth the effort. in this way, the open world actually hurts the replayability of the game rather than the intended effect of enhancing it.

it seems like fromsoft feels a certain pressure to maintain their reputation of creating difficult games. the combat system of souls style games is simple compared to other action games, meaning once a player has mastered the pattern of "dodge/block the enemies attack, then counterattack", there is only so far you can go with enemy design without dipping into the realm of unfairness. the only other option is to innovate significantly on the combat design, but assumedly pressures from sony to create a smash hit game with wide appeal drove fromsoft to center their gameplay on the more well known and simple style of souls combat, resulting in them also taking the former option for increasing difficulty to keep up with players whove had upwards of 11 years experience with these types of games at this point. bosses with attacks whose startup frames dip well under the benchmark of human reaction speed run rampant in elden ring, along with those whose incredibly long attack combos make the player feel like the enemy is actually the one playing the game and having fun.

i would recommend this game only for its polished visuals and mechanics along with genuinely some of the best designed areas ever seen in a fromsoft title. like i said, elden ring is a game of extreme highs and lows. the first playthrough easily hits the 4/5 mark, but as time goes on the problems in this game continuously rear their ugly heads.