Yep, I got so mad at not being able to buy Blasphemous II that I wrote up a review of a completely unrelated game to punch down that bitterness. I'm not sure if it worked, but I've been wanting to talk about this one nonstop for the past two weeks, so it was a good use of my time regardless.
A murder-mystery where the victim is... You! Our hero has twelve hours to find out who he is, killed him, and why. Though the story is presented as through a visual novel, the main gameplay loop is one of puzzle-pathfinding as you posess and manipulate various objects to get around.
The game features what i'd like to call a "time gimmick." One of your character's powers as a ghost is that he can posess a corpse to replay and alter the four minutes before they died, erasing their deaths in the process. However, it isn't a particularly strict four minutes, as entering the "moving to another object" mode stops the timer until you exit, and the countdown on someone's last few seconds are counted one in-game for every five out here.
The 'change scenery' mechanic is also really fun- as exposited through the tutorial NPC, a talking lamp, Ghosts get around by travelling through the phone lines. Newly available locations you haven't visited yet are listed by their phone numbers, and information you learn about the characters and setting is stored in your phone book. It's neat!
It's really really good, with some minor greviances that don't detract from the experience all that much in the moment. It does have, ironically, the problem of being too good at what it sets out to do- the mystery is constructed so well that it's basically impossible to talk about with someone who hasn't also played the game. It's, like, an unspoken rule that you're not supposed to tell any prospective players anything about the game lest you give the whole goat away. This isn't great for acessibility, since the story features a lot of topics you'd kind of want to put a warning on.
Also Really Really Good. The animations are fantastic and dynamic enough to be readable on the tiny screens of its original platform. The character design alone is already pretty strong, but the case is very often "Oh you haven't seen anything yet- you have to see how they move." The set design is splendid, and though it occassionally gets pretty busy, is never all that difficult to visually parse.
Perfectly fitting and pretty damn good on its own, too. "Chicken Paradise" and "Cabanela, A Lanky Man in Lovely White" seem to be particualr fan favorites, But I reccommend giving the whole OST a listen.
On the original DS version, the game could be controlled entirely with the touchscreen, which works well for the core mechanics. I sadly haven't played any of its ports/remasterings, so I can't really speak for those. The gameplay feels great, and I never got frustrated with the controls. You have all of three buttons on the screen: 'Ghost', 'Trick', and the restart button.
A good game with a lot going for it. A lot of fans consider it to be Shu Takumi's best work, and I can see why. It's got heart. It's easy to get ahold of thanks to its million and a half ports, it controlls well, looks and sounds amazing, and reads exactly like how I think an interactive mystery novel should. Playing it is fun. Getting someone else to play it feels way too powerful for what amounts to going "Hey, I think you should check this out sometime." If you're on the fence about buying it, it's a decent-enough experience to just watch someone else do it. 10/10.