Short review: The aesthetics of Ghibli, the platforming of Prince of Persia, the puzzles of.....Beyond Two Souls? (closest I could think of) with weighty RPG elements. Only a few hours of playtime but enjoyable and obviously had lots of care put into it. Long review: This is a game that tells a story. It is a simple story but it is told well. Its action is kind of "slow" and ponderous and I realize not everyone will like that, but I'm also a sucker for "forgottenness" as a plot point so I jumped right in. Creative direction is what stands out the most to me here. It's not just that the art is technically good (it is), but the cohesiveness of all the game's elements - art, music, lighting, writing, voice acting - all combines to tell this story beautifully. There are all sorts of little artistic flourishes that give extra life to the world - characters acting out their lives in the scenery, machinery running, lights coming on in houses, etc. Much of this is diagenic as well - for example Anne may overhear two characters talking in the background, and they will see her coming and react to her presence, and it all conveys story to you. Some of the writing is a bit on-the-nose ("I can't wait to go back to Ether!" "Yeah, me too!") but generally it's very good at being informative while maintaining subtext. Dialog choices are not just cursory but often decide life or death for various in-game characters. Though gameplay happens on a 2D environment, there's a plane-shifting mechanic that is executed incredibly well to give depth - up and down stairs, down an alley, around the back of a building, all intuitively and seamlessly. Mechanically there are a few problems. I played on a Dualshock 4 and the game couldn't decide if it was an Xbox controller or not. Some things didn't translate well to joystick (the pin sliding puzzles, dialing the rotary phone) and felt a bit clunky. At one point (the white fog) I wasn't sure what to do at all for a while. Worth the price.
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.
