Sissel

Sissel (Yomiel)

Sissel is a character from the mystery point-and-click game Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective where he is the main protagonist. He is an amnesiac ghost who is attempting to recover his memories.

Profile

Appearance

Sissel is tall and lithe, with light skin and blonde spiky hair. His attire consists of black sunglasses, red pants, a red jacket, a black undershirt, a white tie, a white belt, and a white pair of shoes.

His true form is a black cat with yellow eyes, three whiskers on each side of his face, and a red bandana tied around his neck.

Concept

Sissel was made a ghost due to Shu Takumi's desire to make a game where the protagonist could interact more and have control over other characters. Unlike a human, Takumi says, a ghost can interact with everything around him. Takumi specifically designed Sissel to not have the ability to possess humans because it would be "uninteresting"; instead, he gave Sissel the ability to control objects, since it would be too simple to be able to control humans directly. He adds that with this ability, Sissel could see the "mysteries, lives, puzzles, and challenges" of characters. Because Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective focuses on attempting to recover Sissel's memory, every aspect of the character is designed to be a secret to players.

He shares a similarity in design and to an extent personality to Phoenix Wright. Takumi cites this as being due to his belief that a character is more interesting if they can make a good silhouette. Takumi designed Sissel with the intention of having a "lasting impact", citing the striking colours of his design. Sissel, like other protagonists designed by Takumi, is designed to be identifiable, which is accomplished by having him think what the player is thinking. He adds that when designing characters, he likes to put a bit of himself in them. Sissel was given sunglasses in order to make him seem mysterious, and signifying his amnesia.

Personality

Despite waking up as a "blank slate" at the beginning of the game with no memory of who he is, Sissel still exhibits a cool-headed, easy-going personality. His smooth-talking demeanor belies a snarky sense of humor, often teasing Lynne about her multiple deaths or Missile about his hospitality toward intruders.

While Sissel's top priority is to uncover the truth of his own identity, he is "not the type of guy" who would abandon people in need. He has a strong moral code and an innate sense of chivalry that allows him to save people's lives unconditionally. He tells Lynne, someone he saves multiple times, that he would never use her life as a "bargaining chip" in exchange for information that Sissel needs. As a result, he develops a lasting bond with many of the characters.

Ghost Tricks

Ghost tricks (also known as the "powers of the dead") are special abilities that comes from the Temsik meteorite. On the rare occasion, a person will die but then gain special powers. Sometimes the powers of the dead can be sensed, as shown by Beauty. Only Sissel, Missile and Yomiel are known to have these powers in the game.

Possession

Possession is the most simple ability in the game, the most used, and one of the abilities that all three ghosts with Ghost Tricks can use. The usage is simple, the player just drag a soul from the core of one object to another while in the Ghost World. The range of what one can do with it changes from ghost to ghost. Sissel can manipulate small inanimate objects, Yomiel can manipulate any object, and Missile can swap objects. They can also move from one core to another, each with a different range.

Telephone Lines

This allows the user to travel along the telephone lines to reach another destination. Only Ray is known to be unable to use this ability.

Time Travel

This is a power Sissel gained. In order to discover what happened that night, he used it to travel 4 minutes before various deaths and helped correct them. This ability can also be used by Missile with the same advantages and limitations. The time limit is 4 minutes likely because the Japanese word for four (四, "shi" or "yon") can be pronounced the same as the word for death (死, "shi").

Manipulating Objects

This is a power Sissel gained. It allows him to move from object to object, and then manipulate them into doing something, such as opening or closing.

Swapping Objects

This is the power that Missile gained. It allows him to switch two objects of the same shape. He first used his power in Temsik Park to help Kamila.

Manipulating Human Beings

This is the power Yomiel gained. He used it to manipulate both the justice minister and Lynne.

Story

Initially, Sissel sees a woman being held at gunpoint by an assassin, with the corpse of a man in red in between them, which Sissel deduces to be his own. While the woman is moments from being shot, he is met by a fellow ghost who inhabits a lamp, nicknaming himself as "Ray of light", who convinces Sissel to help her, saying that it will help him recover his memories. Ray teaches him how to use his "ghost tricks", which include the ability to manipulate objects as well as the ability to rewind time to four minutes before a person's death to reverse it. Additionally, Ray warns Sissel that his soul will disappear by dawn. He winds up saving the girl and killing the man, learning that the girl's name is Lynne. He learns that she is investigating something significant, and teams up with her, with Sissel trusting her due to her honesty.

Throughout the game, Sissel saves several people, including a girl named Kamila who was tied up, a dog named Missile who was shot, and Lynne, who dies several times. Sissel eventually learns that Lynne was apparently the one who killed him.

After agreeing to help Lynne delay the execution of a man named Jowd, Sissel travels to a prison in order to somehow stop it. He eventually manages this by destroying the electric chair that was to be used for Jowd, though in the process, he learns that his own face had been painted by Jowd while in prison. Sissel then has to rescue Kamila, the daughter of Jowd, who was kidnapped to force the justice minister to not cancel the execution.

While attempting to rescue her from her kidnapper, he learns that she had died at some point, and was saved by Missile who also died yet again. At this point, Sissel and Missile work together on several occasions to save people, with Missile able to swap objects of the same shape. Sissel discovers eventually that his corpse has been moving around, making Sissel question whether he is this person. He also discovers that this man was involved in a case ten years ago, where he held Lynne hostage. While Jowd claims to be responsible for his death back then, he was actually hit by a meteor fragment from a meteorite, referred as the "Temsik meteorite", making him effectively immortal.

Sissel, Missile, and Lynne go to a submarine housing the foreign people who arranged the assassination of Lynne, among everyone else who was involved in the event of ten years ago. The man who used Sissel's apparent body possessed the kidnapped Kamila and attempts to kill Lynne, but is unsuccessful. After realizing he had been betrayed and left behind in a sinking submarine, (his body had been taken by the assassins) he helps Sissel and Missile rescue Lynne and Kamila, and reveals his name to be Yomiel.

Sissel, Missile, and Yomiel travel back to ten years ago after realizing that since Yomiel's body was only truly dead when he lost the meteorite, they could still save him. Through various manipulations, the three of them work together to prevent the meteorite piece from entering Yomiel's body, though Yomiel is forced to possess his own unconscious body to rescue Lynne, injuring himself.

At this point, Yomiel reveals to Sissel the latter's true identity - that he was actually a cat that was at both the event of ten years ago and the event at the beginning of the night. Ten years ago, when Yomiel discovered the abilities given to him by the meteorite, he took care of Sissel, keeping him up until the events of the beginning of the game. Yomiel possessed Lynne and had her shoot his body, though Lynne fought against this possession and missed in the first shot. However, Sissel died as a result of this bullet, when Lynne accidentally shot Sissel through the suitcase that Yomiel was carrying him in. Sissel also learns that Ray was actually Missile from an alternate timeline, where he went back ten years into the past and waited until someone could help him save Lynne and Kamila.

In the end, changing the past caused all of the events to become undone, with only the ones present at Yomiel's fate change - namely Yomiel (who have just finish serving jail time), Missile, Jowd, and Sissel (who becomes Jowd and Kamila's pet cat) - retaining their memories. Sissel also retains his abilities in the end.

Other appearance

Sissel's only other appearance to date has been as a card, along with Lynne, in Street Fighter × All Capcom.

Trivia

• Before Shu Takumi and his team decided to make Sissel a detective, the game was titled "Ghost Spy", where he acted in the capacity of a spy.

• Sissel saved a total of nine lives in the game, just as a cat has nine lives.
  • Lives he saved are Lynne (five times), Yomiel, Cabanela, Jowd, Pigeon man, the Guardian of the Park, Missile, Detective Rindge and the Justice Minister.

• After the fate change, Sissel retained his Ghost Tricks as well as the evident immortality Yomiel previously possessed, caused by his body constantly "cycling" through the four-minute period between his life and death. The shard of Temsik that pierced Jowd's leg went straight through it, still traveling forward with enough momentum to strike and kill Sissel (a wandering kitten at the time) effortlessly. Much like Yomiel, Sissel is now invincible, immortal, and a constant emitter of Temsik-radiation that allows people who die near him to develop the ability to use Ghost Tricks.

• Sissel mentions at one point how he feels comfortable in small spaces (much like Lynne), a possible nod to his true form as a cat.

• Sissel's design has a close resemblance to Suita, a filler character from the third TV special of the One Piece anime series.

• In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, one of the alternative color schemes for Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey (who is part of Wright's moveset) are the color schemes of Sissel and Lynne respectively.

• In Street Fighter V, one of the alternative colors for Kolin's nostalgia costume matches the color scheme of Sissel (Yomiel).

• Eve, a character from Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, could be a reference to Sissel. Both are black cats with scarves tied around their necks and are named after someone who was close to their owner.

Gallery

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

With Lynne

As a cat

Street Fighter × All Capcom