Bastion (2011) is cool. i like it! it's got tight controls, it looks gorgeous, and the SOUNDTRACK goes sooo hard. seriously. there are some bangers. we need more sounds of hammers hitting anvils in songs, because that is the soundbite of my dreaaams.

by far the best part of the game is the soundscape: Darren Korb's sweet sweet bangers and Logan Cunningham's sweet sweet narration. the world of this game feels so full of life and yet so utterly ruined thanks to these two facets. the narration feels so natural and is so adaptive that it is almost as though it is completely tailored to your specific experience playing the game. if you fall off a ledge, the narrator will make a little joke about your journey ending there. there's unique voice lines for every combination of weapons you leave the arsenal with. in one area, the narrator even reminded me diegetically that i could use my specific special ability if the swarms of enemies were too much. it felt insanely organic, and as though it had to be planned that i would have that specific equipment in my loadout, but no! i could've had literally anything in that slot. the narration is so frequent that you may think it'd blend into the background, but i found it to be engaging the whole playthrough and it made me feel like the lore of this world was being transmitted into my brain via osmosis.

there's a pretty great sense of progression as you both build the bastion and build up your arsenal. there's always something to check up on, upgrade, or swap out every time you finish a level, which feels nice. there's a good number of weapons, and i'm partial to a good number of them. they're not all great, but i imagine there's some i don't care for that others swear by, so your mileage may vary. however, the final portion of the game where it forces you to use a different weapon was dreadfully boring and anticlimactic. it spits on all of that building up that i just gushed over and instead gives you the most clunky, unfun piece of equipment in the entire game.

the story and gameplay aren't all that crazy, but the narration and vibes are fantastic, and i would recommend this game based on those two factors alone.

I feel like an outlier when I say I really love this game. Compared to all of the other classic games, I find myself revisiting this one the most and enjoying each playthrough I have of it. I never grew up with this game, and I only beat it during my time in middle school. I still love replaying and beating this game in one sitting to this day. There's not a lot to this game, but there's a lot to love. It's a stellar and unique art direction, paired with the amazing music from Masato Nakamura. It all adds to the unique style Sonic was exuding back in the 90s. I have the Special Stage music from this game as my ringtone because I love it that much.

A lot of people tend to have this misconception that Sonic has and always will have the gameplay mentality of "going fast" and critique this game based on that misconception. I think that Sonic, from a design standpoint, has always encouraged players to properly learn the level design throughout the game and earn the satisfaction of beating a level quickly through skill and memorization. I feel like people give too much hate to Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone because they refuse to engage with the level design and just want to hold right the whole time, like they can do in Green Hill. People forget that Sonic has always had level design that rewards exploration, and there are routes and gameplay tricks you can use to skip entire sections of levels. Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 has a shortcut that cuts the time from 2 minutes to 20 seconds. I don't think there's anything wrong with slowly but surely making your way through a level. At maximum, levels can take about 2 and a half minutes to complete with plenty of mistakes, and people overblow how long these levels actually are. I'm not going to act like the game is perfect; some of the enemy placement and level design in Labyrinth Zone and Starlight Zone are pretty annoying, and Scrap Brain can get tiring. It's got first-game syndrome, sure, but it isn't terrible. It can be pretty frustrating on first playthroughs, but I feel like that's everyone's first experience playing a Sonic game. It's a rite of passage at this point. 

In retrospect, this game can seem pretty terrible, but I have my own fun with it. I wish people shared the same sentiment. Special stages are bad, though I won't deny it; I've just gotten used to them over time.

As someone who just started playing Shu Takumi games, I gotta say the consistency and quirkiness of their writing is extremely charming to read through. They have such a natural talent of writing instantly likeable characters you can root for, even beyond just feeling basic sympathy for them after their unfortunate deaths. I often found myself rooting for characters I hardly cared for at the start of the game (like the justice minister lmao). Sissel has quickly risen up as one of my favorite vn protagonists; the cool shades, clean fit, and attitude made me instantly vibe with him (literally me)

Also, oh my god, the music and sound design of this game are fucking perfect. It's so goddamn satisfying to just hop around and fuck with various items as a ghost. Masakazu Sugimori never misses, bro.

As a puzzle game where you solve mysteries as a ghost, using the DS stylus to manipulate objects is such a creative idea; it helps that the execution and puzzles themselves are pretty excelent and satisfying to fuck around with. A minor spoiler, but my only criticism of the gameplay is that when you have two ghosts to manipulate and switch between them, it can make navigating objects a bit tedious, as instead of switching, you only get the option to talk to them. But again, that's only a minor nitpick.

I’m so glad I had the privilege of going into this blind. Not being spoiled on a 13-year-old DS game is insane bro, but I think it speaks volumes to how excellent the story on display is that the entire fanbase could collectively shut the fuck up and not ruin it for newcomers (JJK and CSM fans could learn from them).

I’m not good at writing profound stuff; thats what the reviews under me and video essays are for, but whenever I finish a Shu Takumi game, I end up feeling extremely hopeful. Like things are going to be alright, ya know? his games really hammer home the importance of loved ones, that you can always grow and be better, and I really appreciate that. It's corny, but dammit, I need a little corn in my life sometimes, and ghost trick provided that in spades. I was left feeling very warm when I finished it at 4 a.m.

Anyway, I have a good chunk of Shu Takumi games to go through and need to hop back on Ace Attorney. play Ghost Trick please☺️