70 is the number of this GBAtemp book game club. As ever is the introduction which begins with the rough overview of what we are about. There are many games worth playing and at GBAtemp we have several series dedicated to sharing titles worth having said you played, this is one of them. However where some others might be more about a single person reviewing a game we like to have this as more about those commenting in the threads than the topic opener discussing the game.
Our main sources for the suggestions are the large libraries of code for the GBA, DS and Wii. Each of those have things in the form of ROM hacks, commercial games, homebrew code and all manner of other things like leaked betas and unreleased games. We might occasionally stray onto platforms the DS can emulate, equally if there are notable entries on another platform we will try to mention those too.
The "worth having said you played" part was careful wording on our part as well for this is not intended to be a top ? games list. We hold those get quite samey very quickly, beyond that it leaves out a lot of the interesting attempts made by developers to try to forge new franchises or take interesting directions with established ones that might fall short in the attempt. What goes into the selection process is not going to be elaborated upon much more than that other than when there is a special reason for a selection or there is a running theme. Occasionally there will be a compare and contrast posed for a group of related titles or a run/challenge set as well but for the most part it is a single vanilla (give or take the ROM hack we might be selecting) game.
#70 - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (NDS)
Probably one of Capcom developer Shu Takumi's (the Ace attorney series and Dino Crisis 2, among other things) lesser known works, though one that bears all the hallmarks of such a talent. Without venturing too far into spoiler territory (nothing you will not really find out from a trailer or the first few minutes) you play as kind of time travelling ghost with abilities to move some objects in the real world, the game is then something of an investigative puzzle game as you attempt to change the future for the better and maybe solve the riddle of your own death. Fans of 2d animation will not be left wanting by this either, which is to say some of the effects and animations are top notch. There is also an IOS version which is pretty faithful to the DS original.
The game was heralded as one of the best handheld titles going when it was released, and for the most part that label has stuck around since. However there are still those that have not played it so for those, and those that might just want to replay it, we have it here today.
For all their flaws do Capcom occasionally do things right or does it fall short for you?
gbagotw should get you other links in this series