Ghost of a Tale

The older I get, the more I care about the experience of a game, rather than the difficulty/challenge. And Ghost of a Tale is a great experience, clearly created with care. It pulls me back to the days of reading the Redwall books. And alongside the sneaking and puzzle solving the game also manages to pack in a lot of lore. There are a couple technical glitches that I've bumped into. For example, sometimes the camera likes to jump around randomly. But it's nothing game breaking. And the guard AI is a little simplistic. But none of that really takes away from the feel of the game. The level design in great. Everything seems to connect to everything else - once you find the way to open the passages/doors. The day/night cycle was an unexpected nice touch. And the open world-style map lets you just explore and interact with the various characters at your own pace.

The Secret of NIMH meets the Lost Legends of Redwall, and the result is a lovingly crafted castle you'll end up knowing like the back of your hand, exploring every nook and cranny, in an enchanting anthropomorphic fantasy world with a dark edge and bits of sly and well-executed humor. Ghost of a Tale is a gorgeous game, and the world is interesting enough for you to want to know more about it. Unfortunately, the stealth aspect ends up being more of an inconvenience as you explore than an essential element, and some items are rather obtuse to find, as one of the previous reviewers stated. An ability to take notes on the map would have been tremendously appreciated, as it's rather hard to keep track of all the doors, chests and trunks you've yet to open because you haven't the specific key. The lack of voice acting and JRPG "typed in text" for dialogues in a game with otherwise impressive production values is also a bit jarring, but the story is well written, and the characters are either likable or amusing, and some even have hidden depths to them. This is a game to explore and savor, not to blindly follow the questlog and check off items. Its ending screams "sequel", so here's to hoping it does come to pass. If this was the product of pretty much a one man team, I'd be very interested to see what could be achieved with more resources.

First and foremost, I really enjoyed the storytelling in this game. Despite the limitations of the game itself there is strong depth and suggestion of scale that captivated me. The game creator added such lore and history to the game world that I wanted to know more. But that also relates to what left me disappointed. Full disclosure, while growing up I loved the Redwall novels. They were obviously an influence to "Ghost of a Tale," and it's part of why I like it. The anthropomorphized animal inhabitants of this game world are of similar species. The setting is medieval-like, and there's a "ghost story" (honestly my favorite part) intertwined with the main story as well as "heroes of legend" who make up some plot points. The characters are charming and have a good dose of personality, and the character artwork (stills) and writing convey it. The spooky atmosphere is great. At the same time, all this depth tended to remind me of how limited the game was. I mean it's not a fullscale triple-A title, nor priced as such, but I found myself wishing it was. Yes, it has some rough edges mechanics-wise. There are no cutscenes, even animations are limited, and the areas to explore aren't particularly large or numerous (certainly not like GTA or BotW). Some item interaction can be finnicky, the save system is "eh" though serviceable, and I swear the dialogue trees could be better organized/more consistent. I did notice some audio clipping. Half of the lore is told through the journal mechanic--cleverly used when limited in budget and manpower, but darn I wanted to see some of the stuff it talked about. Most of all, for better or worse, the game left me wishing for more (and for spoiler reasons I won't elaborate). All in all, if you're looking for a sneaking-and-puzzle-solving game, I do recommend "Ghost of a Tale," especially for an entertaining story. Don't expect the "frills" of a triple-A title, but you will feel like you made your way through a rousing adventure.

An “avoid your enemies” game. Stay low, hide and avoid. You can incapacitate (preferably unaware) enemies temporarily, by throwing bottles at their heads, but it's difficult. If spotted, it’s easier to outrun them and hide. They don’t search in hiding spots to root you out. You can save the game only when you are in a hiding spot. These are everywhere, you just have to reach one. No voice-acted (I expected it would be), so you have to read texts while conversing with others. The texts are short and funny, so reading them doesn’t become tiresome. There is a main questline and side quests, but you can’t affect anything in level-ups. The only important thing is to feed, as the length of your health bar is also your stamina, and it is badly needed when spotted by an enemy and you need to hastily get away from him. Another major aspect of gameplay consists of costumes. According to the lore of the game, and since all mice look identical, their clothing in different occasions is the means by which they can be told apart. As you find your way in the game’s areas and search out, you can find separate pieces of clothing, and if you collect all pieces (usually five) that consist a costume, you can wear it and trick others. For example, you can pass as a guard among other guards, and you can solve quests, not solvable otherwise. The inventory is well organized but, sadly, there is no minimap. And you have to find a map of each area you’re in. Thankfully, with some exploration, each area is easy to be familiarized with, so I (at least) didn’t need to open up the map. The game itself makes you to want to discover every nook and cranny! Also, you can discover shortcuts in each area’s locations, which are very useful, as they connect the area’s locations (instead of having to go by the long route). 10 skills in the game. You can learn them by NPCs, after doing some quests for them. Utterly amazing! 22 hours for me, passed very pleasantly! The game definitely needs a sequel.

...this game had voice acting. If by some miracle this game had voice acting with talents who could convey the humour, it would be a total masterpiece. As it stands, it's just 90% of a masterpiece. Great game.