I guess this is ghost week for Celebrating All Things Spooky, because today’s review will once again see us quelling restless spirits as we discuss Echo Night.

I picked up Echo Night from the PlayStation Store during the shutdown concerns since it sounded like the sort of game I’d enjoy.

You play a man named Richard Osmond, who goes to his father’s house in response to a police report and from there is transported to a train, where he witnesses a strange encounter, and then to a ship haunted by ghosts of the people who died on board when the ship disappeared.

It plays a lot like a survival horror game or an adventure game, as a good portion of your time will be spent exploring, searching for items, and solving puzzles to access new areas.

There is no combat, but dangerous ghosts can appear in the dark and hurt you. This means the first thing you’ll want to do in any room is find the light switch and turn on the lights. Of course, sometimes you’ll find yourself in a place where the lights can’t be turned on, putting you in danger until you can find a way to get them working.

A major focus of the game is helping out the spirits you meet so that they can finally rest, which frequently involves being transported to a different time and place, while learning more about the mystery of the Red Stone that has caused so much trouble.

I enjoyed it, aside from the blackjack mini-game I spent too much time on in order to get the best ending.

Now, Echo Night is the first game in a trilogy. Echo Night 2 was only released in Japan, but Echo Night: Beyond for the PlayStation 2 was localized. Unfortunately, it was never ported to anything and is hard to find nowadays. If only the developer of these games was still around and a big deal nowadays, oh wait.

I’d be thrilled to see an Echo Night collection or ports, just saying. Until then, at least the first Echo Night is available on PSN if you want to resolve the mysteries of the vanished ghost ship.