A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Plague Tale isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t a good one either. I’ll begin with the gameplay. Many reviews say the gameplay is lackluster calling it a basic stealth game and nothing special, and while that is true to an extent, the gameplay is satisfying and rewarding at times. The main draw of the combat for me is balancing what items and strategies to use, and what enemies to prioritize attacking first. There's a lot of fun to be had in learning that. Speaking of combat encounters, people say this a stealth game, but you don’t really need to use stealth after you amass enough gear. This is a good thing because the stealth encounters are very much a drag. There are no unique stealth mechanics, so the stealth gameplay consists of waiting for predictable enemy patterns and slowly crouching past them. Oh, and don’t worry about making noise the guards are basically deaf. As I said earlier though, you quickly amass enough gear to avoid this. The process of going from skulking in the shadows to dominating every enemy with your slingshot quite satisfying. However, it's still too simple for my tastes. Especially due to the auto-aim that can’t be turned off ruining any chance of your mechanical skill improving. Outside of these combat encounters are the puzzles. They are extremely simple, and as a result, boring. Of course, the gameplay (especially the puzzles) is only the backdrop for the story. The writing is good. However, there were issues I had that kept me from really getting invested. Mainly the general scuffed feeling of the cutscenes. Sometimes before one person is done talking the next talks, and it just sounds off. And it feels like the animations don't match what's going on sometimes. Also, sometimes the voiceacting on the children sounded rather lifeless. However, I did love the characters, and the game does a good job of developing each of them. If the issues I've mentioned don't sound like deal breakers to you I would recommend.

Title. A very good game that exceeded any expectations I had going in. A few random ramblings. When people talk about strong female leads in video games, or what a female leads should be, Amicia is a prime example of how to do a bad ass lead. She is a fantastic character. Her gender never feels like a political statement nor is her sexuality ever shoved in your face. She is just a likable character who you can sympathize with. That's all we need devs. The sling, I love it. It's not a challenging weapon or anything, but it's implemented well during puzzles and it's lethality is quick and brutal. The puzzles, not challenging but satisfying. I particularly love the use of the torch. It lead to some very Mummy/Indiana Jones feeling moments where you are using the light to hold the rats at bay. Stealth likewise is more puzzle than free flowing. It's good enough for how much you use it. The story is paced very well. You never feel bored and you will probably finish the game in a few sittings because it's very engaging and you will want to see what happens next. Cinematic gameplay is thrilling when you feel like narrowly escaped a situation but I do question how often I am actually in danger or if it was just for show. Ultimately, this isn't a skill testing game in any fashion. It's a ride with a lot of simple gameplay that feels satisfying. Everything from story to combat and stealth feel like they got an equal amount of attention and I can't think of anything I didn't like about this game aside from the odd bug here and there. Highly recommend. Be warned though, lot's of dead animals. Probably don't play it if that makes you sad. I love animals and it was rough at times, I'm not going to lie.

…come on, I found myself during my gameplay feeling like Amicia, the mad sling killer. After her first kill she feels regrets and dirty, and five minutes afterwards she is just headshooting everybody? 😆 So yeah, the sling mechanic is broken. Amicia wouldn't behave like that in such an exaggerated killer manner. It would have been nice to have some kind of punishment mechanic for killing when unnecessary. But anyway, the story is great and you should really play this game. And graphics/art are just amazing. Game looks astonishing.

The good parts are the story and the art work. It looks like Europe in the late Middle Ages with a little license in Amicia's clothing. The voice acting is good. Hugo and Amicia seem plausible as brother and sister. The not so good part is the mechanics. On an I7 8 core 2.9GHz desktop, 16 GB RAM with a Radeon RX 550 graphics card and 4 GB of RAM the game was sluggish. It was impossible to adjust the mouse sensitivity to a low enough level without taking the resolution down to 720P and adjusting the "camera" settings to their lowest possible levels. Even then mouse response was problematic. Since the combat requires precise positioning of your character, the controls make the random number generator a big factor in the game. Another thing I thought could have been improved was the total lack of visibility in most of the areas where you have to sneak through and/or have combat. This meant that the only way to plan a route was by dying multiple times till you discovered all of the surprises. Also, when NPCs ambush you they always appear facing you regardless of the direction from which they come. It requires a, pun intended, brute force approach to strategy. The puzzles that involved positioning things suffered from the same visibility problem. It's like playing basketball or soccer with hood on. My real frustration came from the final boss battle. I ended up solving it by watching a couple of videos and making a list of cues from the boss's dialogue. Even after making a complete set of notes it took me 45 minutes to complete the battle because of micro positioning errors. If the mouse and arrow keys were implemented better the game would have been a lot more fun. In addition to the precision problems, a fair number of critical actions required 3 or 4 key chords. I'm a lifelong touch typist and play the guitar and found some of the stretches a bit challenging.

I have a very special feelings towards AA third-person games, that pop up from time to time. I loved Remember Me - a game almost nobody remembers about. Then came Senua and I loved it even more. And I thought it will be the same with Plague Tale, but the longer I played it, the more I realised how flawed it is. At the begining it seemed fresh and original and after first session with the game - which took about 2 hours - I rated it 8 out of 10. Deeper into to the game I realised it's more of a 7 out of 10 production and it was fine by me, I still liked it, but one of the bigger issues started to emerge: inconsistency between the game's subject, it's overall mood and the gameplay, which is completly out of place and at times just ridiculous. This issue gets more and more apparent towards the end of the game. The game was definitely rushed - the story falls apart near the ending, many things are left unexplained and it is completely unsatisfactory. I finished the game because I told myself that I will - I don't want to have to many games unfinished - but the final hours with it were just frustrating. I reached for this game because it seemed like another ambitious and original AA project with very alluring setting and it is all these things, but something went wrong with the execution. I think the developer eithere didn't have enough ideas to make gameplay more relevant or they lacked courage. Personally, I rate this game 6+ / 10 and I don't recommend it.