Developer SeithCG has released a massive new update for its delightful mouse-based RPG Ghost of a Tale, aimed at quashing the "vast majority" of its remaining technical issues.

Eurogamer liked Ghost of a Tale enough to give it the Recommended stamp of approval when it released earlier this month on PC; however, reviewer Edwin Evans-Thirlwell noted that it was "absolutely riddled with bugs".

SeithCG has been more than open in acknowledging the game's launch problems, and has already released a number of updates to address them. The developer says its latest patch, known as 6.5, "takes care of the vast majority of the remaining bugs", admitting that "it's been a very intense period, with a lot of work and very little sleep."

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Ghost of a Tale's castle feels like a prison at first but ends up feeling like home. In the course of 20 hours searching for a way out, I've slowly fallen in love with the place - its feathery falls of afternoon light over mossy stonework, its leafblown ramparts and canted mausoleums, its small, hard-bitten population of anthropomorphic rats, mice, frogs and magpies. Part of the setting's allure is that it carries the echoes of many great virtual fortresses. Indeed, this slightly muddled third-person action-RPG's greatest strength is probably how it adds to that architectural tradition, though the witty, affecting, politically resonant writing runs a close second.

There's a touch of Square Enix's winding masterpiece Vagrant Story to certain overgrown, shady courtyards, and a generous dollop of both Zelda and Moria in the shape of a magnificent underground vault, woven around a circular puzzle structure. The view from the keep's belfry recalls the view inland from ICO's fortress walls, yellow crenelations biting into blissful green distances. Above all, there's the spectre of Dark Souls - a game with which Ghost of a Tale engages in fascinating, not always successful ways. As with From Software's Lordran, Dwindling Heights Keep is a purgatory for lost people and things that is much taller than it is broad, stretching from a bone-strewn shoreline up through catacombs and sewers to a barracks, kitchen and armoury. Like Lordran, it's a persistent environment bound together by a profusion of cunning shortcuts, unlocked one by one - rope elevators that whisk you from the gardens to the signal tower, doors that open from one side only and secret passages cheekily visible through rusted grates.

Working out how the game's spaces thread into one another, letting their twists and turns sink into muscle memory, is as integral to Ghost of a Tale's appeal as its hypnotic good looks. The act of stitching those wayward, ruined chambers together also chimes with the narrative, a story about rediscovering the past and building trust across racial divides that is a lot more searching than its parade of waggling tails and frog beards might suggest.

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Five years later, the gorgeous crowdfunded mouse adventure Ghost of a Tale, made by Lorax and Despicable Me animation director Lionel Gallat, is ready. An update on the game's website yesterday revealed a startlingly imminent release date of 13th March.

That's on PC, where a small portion of the game has been in early access for a year-and-a-half (it's also currently in the Xbox One Game Preview programme). It's 15/$20 and will stay that way for the next couple of weeks, after which it will go up to $25(/ 20, perhaps).

There are console versions (Xbox One X and PlayStation 4) planned for later this year but their timing depends on rectifying any issues there may be with the PC version first. A Switch version is a much trickier proposition and would require "a complete re-tooling of the visual features and a fundamental re-authoring of most of the 3D assets", Gallat said. If Ghost of a Tale sells well and Gallat can hire a studio for a Switch conversion then it would be possible, but otherwise probably not.

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