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Thursday, March 23, 2023

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Gets Some of the Worst-Designed Merchandise... Ever?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Buy Ghost Trick. But not these shirts.

Apparently, today is “National Puppy Day”, and the presence of Missile the Pomeranian in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective has gotten publisher CAPCOM to make Ghost Trick merchandise right now.

That's encouraging news. Following the CAPCOM Spotlight and the CAPCOM Publisher Sale (which is still going on, but you only have a few days left to buy the Ace Attorney games on your Nintendo 3DS for $3 each), CAPCOM put out TWO separate surveys. One asking how much you liked the Spotlight, and then one asking for feedback on their big sale. Both of these offered different wallpapers for your desktop or mobile trash device, which means their artists made a whole bunch of new artwork to accomodate all of these wallpapers. Unfortunately, BOTH wallpapers did not have any Ghost Trick characters or references, even though every other franchise from the CAPCOM Spotlight was represented. Even Exoprimal, which is a new franchise that, by definition, is less successful than Ghost Trick is due to it not coming out yet. Why omit Ghost Trick? The characters have great character designs!

Anyway, given that background, it's good that CAPCOM is putting effort to producing some Ghost Trick merchandise that you can purchase now on Amazon. They're even advertising the existence of these shirts on the Ghost Trick website. So, what does it look like? Let's see...


GHOST TRICK Phantom Detective key art pullover hoodie blue merchandise CAPCOM official
What? This is official?
And more than the price of the game itself? (Which you can pre-order / pre-pay now?)


I don't understand why that design was approved. And it's not just on the pullover hoodie, but also a sweatshirt, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and a short-sleeve t-shirt. Even the KoopaTV Store, which was a joke, used transparent artwork on the shirts. Slapping a big block of key art on the chest of the shirt and calling it a day is not appealing to anyone, as opposed to slapping transparent key art on the chest of the shirt. I wouldn't want to wear that. Would you? And CAPCOM does understand that concept. You can see it in their other merchandise designs. You can even see it in the SECOND Ghost Trick clothing line:

GHOST TRICK Phantom Detective logo T-shirt official shirt merchandise CAPCOM
The logo is transparent! You can change colours and it won't look awful.
(Except Heather Grey, because the logo's white font colour is almost unreadable on Heather Grey.)


That one is better. Which makes the existence of the first one inexcusable and embarrassing.

The Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective remaster releasing on June 30 advertises an in-game artwork Collection that the original DS release did not have, as well as high-definition graphics. With an emphasis on how great the artwork and graphics are with this remaster, WHY would half of the merchandise they're advertising along with the same be so ugly and poorly designed?! It defeats the message!

And, like, why would anyone want a shirt with, you know, Sissel on the ground like that? There's gonna be better artwork than that in the game. Something more presentable. Maybe some Missile merchandise would be a best-seller.



Ludwig himself wouldn't get a Missile the Pomeranian shirt. That would be quite out-of-character for someone who gets spooked by small dogs, and if he actually encountered Missile in life, he'd definitely try to avoid the dog and exit the situation. In any case, should Ludwig be grateful for Ghost Trick getting any merchandise whatsoever, and for CAPCOM to actually promote the game at least a little in its marketing after it skipped doing so with those wallpapers? Or does Ludwig have a point that the merchandise it gets shouldn't detract from the remaster's message? ...Or do you actually like that shirt design...?


Unlike the merch, the game is fantastic.

4 comments :

  1. Considering some of Capcom's weird choices for Ace Attorney shirts (example: https://www.zazzle.com/mia_phoenix_on_the_bench_hoodie-235751222342121006) I'm not entirely surprised.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, at least that has the Ace Attorney logo on it. This Ghost Trick art doesn't even have that.

      Delete
  2. Awful, although does the first picture look better when the shirt is all black? Conversely, does the second picture look worse if the shirt is a color other than black? Companies wonder why people don't buy more merchandise and blame it on the game.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. No, because the shade of black in the key art is different than the shade of black of the shirt.
      2. No, because the logo is transparent, though it does look worse in Heather Gray.

      Delete

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