Ghost Party

I've always been the kind of person who tries to inspect everything in an RPG; every closet, every weird patch of ground, every painting on every wall. I like to know if there's little bits of hidden flavor in the world I'm exploring. Ghost Party feeds that personal fire.

Ghost Party is a very tranquil game where you can inspect everything. You can look out every window and check every drawer, collecting little items with odd descriptions - and if you're like me, you'll end up with everything from tiny, unreadable books to yoga pants. Although most have no purpose outside of being amusing, I was admittedly entertained by the search. Between all the things you can explore and the bats, who muse non sequiturs such as "I wish I had learned to play the piano" and "Marry me", this game has a surprising amount of dialogue. Aimless searching is about half of the game in Ghost Party, and it's the part I enjoyed most.



The other half of the game is investigating a murder. While you're rifling through kitchen cabinets and talking to bats, the guests will start to die off. For a murder mystery, it's surprisingly calm - none of the victims are terribly upset about dying. The entire scenario comes across as cute, or maybe serene, and this is reinforced by the beautiful and elegant graphics and the music-box background tune.

However, as the story continues, the game starts to clash with itself. To continue forward, you have to trade items you've found with other characters, but what item you need and where to get it can be difficult to discern when you can investigate everything. More than once, I found myself circling the mansion, trying to figure out who to talk to or where to look, and this is the point where the background music may start to grate. Some characters' desires will never be fulfilled and some are key to the story, and figuring out which is which comes down to a lot of hustling, although the game does give you small hints. There are several endings to the story, and which ending you'll get depends on whether you deliver an item to the right person or not in time. If you're interested in seeing everything, I'd recommend a walkthrough. Overall, as the mystery unveiled itself, it never drew me in as strongly as the pointless investigating did.

If you're in a quiet mood and you've got some time to spare - I'd recommend an hour or two - you might enjoy Ghost Party. While there's little action and little fulfillment, there's simple pleasure to be had checking every corner and talking to everyone without some plot hanging over it all.