Eventually, Tilo is able to descend into the keep’s sewer system, the cavernous catacombs below the ruins, and even to the nearby shore of Lake Vaelia. This world becomes accessible piece by piece, starting with the dungeon before expanding to the keep’s courtyard and main buildings. The pirate frog Kerold Redwhiskers is just one of a number of colorful NPCs Tilo will meet on his adventure. While some outfits are part of optional side quests and aren’t required to complete the game, it is possible to run into a roadblock due to having missed a single piece of a critical costume, hidden in a chest somewhere in the game’s rather large world.
A king’s outfit grants him a royal audience with a magpie, while the pirate’s costume allows him to appear as the dread pirate captain Otto Powderkeg. An emphasis is placed on Tilo assembling a number of such outfits by finding pieces of them scattered around they make up a number of the game’s quests and allow Tilo certain benefits by passing himself off as various personalities. Once Tilo has assembled a set of armor that lets him pass as a runty rat guard, the need for stealth is effectively negated for much of the remainder of the game. Thus, Tilo’s escape from the dungeon and the next few sections represent some of the game’s most challenging hours, when the player is the most disoriented, trying to get a handle on the world and come to terms with the narrative - a bumpy start that is difficult to claw back from.įor those that persevere through this early hump, a more engaging experience awaits. Though Tilo can run as well as sneak, rats - even sleeping ones - will hear him and give chase, no matter how slowly he moves, forcing the player to stop moving entirely to lower their alertness level again. The why or how of Tilo’s imprisonment can only be found by carefully inspecting his inventory. As the game begins, Tilo is locked in a prison cell, in the dungeon underneath the rat stronghold of Dwindling Heights Keep. Tilo is instead reduced to sneaking past guards and hiding in empty chests or cupboards once they’re onto him. This mechanic is especially cumbersome in the game’s early sections, when the player is still finding their bearings. Even the game’s final boss battle only sees Tilo lug around objects to solve a task while other allies are doing the actual fighting.ĭwindling Heights Keep is a sprawling place, and Tilo will run from end to end multiple times. Tilo, on the other hand, is unable to wield anything more deadly than a bottle with which he can at best temporarily knock out a guard, provided his foe’s not wearing a metal helmet. Tilo has no recourse against the rat army he’s up against - they not only tower over him in stature, but are often clad in armor and bearing weapons. The difference is that, while Souls-like games can still be enjoyed based purely on their action combat merits, Ghost of a Tale doesn’t offer a lot of excitement in its gameplay.
#CHILDREN OF MORTA HLTB SERIES#
Even though it’s not your run-of-the-mill RPG by any stretch of the imagination, there’s a good bit of potential tucked away in the adventure of this little four-legged minstrel.īelying its adorable animal-kingdom theme and setting, Ghost of a Tale looks to FromSoftware’s Souls series in the way it presents its narrative, which is to say that a very large chunk of it is tucked away in item descriptions and codex entries accessible during dialog. However, digging into the game further reveals some genre staples, like quests and a leveling system, as well as the large amount of care the developer invested into establishing a unique and interesting new world to explore, with some impressive production values and writing along the way. Combat, for instance, is entirely absent. First-time developer SeithCG’s Ghost of a Tale rides a fine line of what constitutes an RPG. The first hour or two I spent with Tilo, the little minstrel on a quest to save his mousey wife from the clutches of the rat army known as the Red Paw, featured very few familiar gameplay elements one would expect to find in an RPG.
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