Ghost of a Tale

A wonderful, at times even lovely game, that could have been great. It feels like its development budget didn't match its ambitions.

As it stands, it's an astonishing achievement for its graphics as well as level and system design. Ghost of a Tale is an excellent yarn of a tale with twists and turns, charming characters—of which you are one—and diverse locales. The story takes place in a beguiling world just begging for more adventures. I do wish voice acting were part of the budget, to match the liveliness of the visuals. I also wish the music were better: it's adequate, but rather mundane, which is especially unfortunate because music is an important theme in the story.

The game world is by no means small, but it feels small for the density of quests, which tend to crisscross over the same areas and characters again and again. Around mid-game it turns into constant backtracking, which until you acquire a certain set of items involves annoyingly repetitive stealth gameplay.

There are RPG systems: an inventory, abilities, skills, and levels, and they are polished enough. But they don't matter. The game would have been better off without them. It's almost as if the game changed direction during development and these systems remained.

Otherwise, the rest of the gameplay feels very well integrated into its story. Exploration and stealth form its core, but there is plenty of interactive and delightful dialog, and even a teensy bit of puzzle solving.

The bottom line is that if you are not turned off by lots of backtracking then you are in for an especially charming adventure.

Note: Many reviews complain about bugs. Indeed, the game was released before it was ready. But, since then, it seems the developers have fixed it and even changed significant parts of the game. I had a polished experience.