Ghost of a Tale

Incredible experience. Great storytelling. Every character is believable, and even the generic enemies have a degree of pathos seldom found in the big budget RPGs. This is carried in every dimension, from the colorful portraits used in the dialogue to the design and animation of each character, and the incredible writing that, for every character, can go from wry and sarcastic to bare and emotional. The major characters (even the most comical) have a range of motivations to portray and explore, rather than just a caricatured schtick. The environment is worth mentioning all on its own. The castle and its environs feel vast, and they convey a great sense of a lived-in space, without feeling overloaded. It cuts square feet where it needs to cut square feet, to keep the running about on a relatively sane timescale, but there are enough nooks and crannies and hidden shortcuts that even the most familiar spaces are constantly unfolding new dimensions. The only thing holding it back from five stars is a somewhat buggy experience. The seams do show through a bit. Items and characters will occasionally go missing, although it can usually be resolved by a brief nap, and the game has had a series of patches that have smoothed over the worst offenders. Of note, I've never lost a savegame, and never had a quest that couldn't complete, so none of the bugs are show-stoppers, just a bit of a nuisance. The sound also seems either poorly designed or buggy. Gameplay critical sounds (such as approaching enemies) seem to work fine, but explosives don't seem to explode and environmental sound seems spotty at best. I am happy to have bought it, and happy to have played it. The experience was well worth the wait for me (I bought it some time ago but waited until release to play). If you have absolutely zero tolerance for technical bumps, it might not be the game for you, but if you can let it slide just a little bit (and I do mean a little bit), buy it, play it, and love it.

tl;dr Great visuals, fantastic characters, average fetch-quest and sneaking gameplay Ghost of a Tale first caught my attention with its handcrafted visuals, and the idea of playing a Thief-like game starring a mouse bard seemed to be a good change of pace. Not just the graphics, but the whole cohesion of all the game's elements are very well designed and integrated. The lighting in the catacombs conveys this perfect mix of danger and ancient grandeur. The forest comes alive at night with crickets and beetles chirping through streaks of moonlight. The blacksmith's hammer rings across the courtyard where the rat sentries watch over crumbling ramparts. But even eye candy gets boring after a while. The thing that really kept me hooked in playing this game is the surprisingly deep and well-written characters. Each has a very distinct personality without being one-dimensional. Subtle choices in your dialog can reflect how much you trust or distrust them. You can't just scam their conversation tree to max out the disposition or whatever, because they talk like real people. There's things that they will only ever say once, and then only under certain conditions, which makes repeat playthroughs more interesting. There are secrets left unspoken. There are cases where you can talk to a character in disguise and see a completely different side of them. There's the frickin' minstrel roleplaying elements where you sing songs, but it's up to you to decide which song each character might like best and which social / political undertones each may convey, all in the context of a slowly unfolding lore which goes surprisingly deep. The downside of the game is the so-so gameplay which is mostly centered around fetch quests. It can get frustrating at times because you usually have to scour every single barrel, cupboard, and tree to find what you are looking for. There are also some minor technical issues like the loading stutter. But for the money I think this is a great buy.

Très bon petit jeu, qui change un peu de ce qu'on voit habituellement de nos jours. La mignonitude se fait de plus en plus rare et c'est vraiment plaisant de temps en temps. Tilo et tous les PNJ sont très attachants et l'aventure est diablement prenante. Seul petit défaut: une grande partie des quêtes vous demanderont de trouver des objets dispersés un peu partout dans le fort et parfois très bien caché. Vous passerez beaucoup, beaucoup de temps à fouiller chaque cm² à leur recherche, à tourner en rond avec l'impression de ne pas avancer, ce qui avouons-le, fini par être un peu lourd. Néanmoins j'ai pris de beaucoup de plaisir à suivre les aventures de Tilo, et j'attends la suite avec impatience!

It is not about stealth, nor rpg elements, it is all about little mouse and his struggle in wonderfully and deeply written medieval world. Highly recommend to play to the end.

Ghost of a tale est un bon jeu, sympathique, avec une direction artistique magnifique et servit par de très beaux graphismes. L'animation est très bonne, les mouvements de Tilo le ménestrel sont fluides et on plonge facilement dans l'histoire de cette souris devant user de discrétion, de ruse, pour échapper aux gardes de rats de la patte rouge. Même si l'exploration est limité, que le plus souvent on fait du va et vient pour aller chercher tel ou tel objet, je suis resté conquis à chaque fois que j'ai découvert une nouvelle zone. Enchanté aussi par la musique et par les faux-semblant qui révèlent un univers plus complexe qu'il n'y parait. J'aurais juste aimé avoir des voix pour les personnages au lieu de seulement des textes. Notamment lors des chansons, car oui Tilo est ménestrel et interprète de nombreuses chansons qui permettent d'en apprendre plus sur les légendes et les histoires de ce monde. Sans ces voix, on perd de l'immersion, dommage. D'ailleurs sur le net vous pouvez entendre la compositrice faire des démos en chantant et cela rend très bien. Pour résumer, bon jeu d'infiltration à la 3ème personne, avec un univers et des personnages enchanteurs et attachants.