Name: A Plague Tale: Innocence
Item: A Plague Tale: Innocence
Rating: 8
Author: robiu013

About 2-3 months ago A Plague Tale: Requiem dropped. It's the sequel to this game. People praised it's graphics quite a bit on Twitter as far as I was made aware and despite it's late release it still made some entries in the potential game of the year awards. I researched about it a bit and more and more I got the feeling this is The Last of Us if it were set in the middles ages.

Is that a bad thing though? Well, the parallels to TLOU are undeniable. In a lot of ways it looks like Asobo Studio - a french group which previously worked on a bunch of disney & pixar movie tie-in games - played TLOU and were like: "We can do our own TLOU. We have the means, we can recreate it." They replaced the setting from a near apocalyptic future to the 14th hundreds and exchanged the zombies with the bubonic plague. The guns are replaced by a slingshot and all sorts of alchemic concoctions which help you progress through the game. Much like in the Last of Us games just about everything and everybody is after you and like in those games you primarily follow around a duo of characters: an older protector type with fighting abilities (the older sister - Amicia) and a young child, who has some skills of their own, but is mostly just to be defended because of some story related characteristic that makes people want them (her younger brother Hugo). Among the misery the somewhat initially estranged siblings bond and the story offers some wholesome emotional scenes to boot.

Where A Plague Tale however stepped away from it's TLOU inspirations is the actual gameplay. Don't get me wrong: on paper this would probably still read a lot like TLOU, but APT is way more puzzle-based and you are more rarely pushed in scenarios where action can be the solution. After all Amicia - our protagonist - only has 1 life. One bonk on the head with a sword and she is down. She has no physical means of self defense, only a slingshot her father gifted her pre-plague and some cool alchemic substances she learns to craft along the way.

Unlike TLOU APT also has some roadblock moments:

\-The boss battles seem to be Mario inspired. Each comes with a three phase duration, where you must figure out the weak spot of the oponnent to deal damage and progress the fight to the next stage. Three hits and the oponnent is down. This is one of the major parts through which APT can be harder than TLOU. It probably took me over an hour of time + watching some successful attempts and tutorials to figure out how to defeat the final boss.

\-Aim assist sucks. It's pretty good when your aiming your slingshot at stationary oponnents, but when they charge at you, there is a decent chance you might miss regardless of how promising the yellow blinking target seemed. Most of the game this is no biggie, because you don't depend solely on shooting oponnents, but can compensate for it by being stealthy and using the environment to your advantage... but just 10 minutes before the final boss battle, there is a section, where the game will send 3 waves of soldiers at you with no available advantage in your environment and with no stealth. You are required to flawlessly murder all 8 of the soldiers in cold blood as they charge at you. Only leeway you get is the ability to have some somnum's at your disposal, which have a similar function to an extra life in most games and which will take down the soldier who comes to close to you.

\-Auto save is not optimal. I mean it's fine, but in some sections it will send you back a bit further than you'd like and force you to relisten to quite lenghty story chunks rather than throw you straight at the beginning of the action. Have I already mentioned the part where you have to murder 8 soldiers in cold blood head on? Yes? Every repeat of that part begins with a cutscene you would rather not have to rewatch after dying.

Now I may have done quite a bit of this review in comparison to The Last of Us, but it's also a really good standalone game, which does not just live in the shadow of that similar older game. The gameplay based heavier on puzzle solving adds to it's individuality and even if the story is not as beloved or good as TLOU what we are given here is still solid. I will absolutely give Requiem a chance too, but first I need to get the earworm of Vitalis shouting "Die! Become one again!" out of my ears.

About 2-3 months ago A Plague Tale: Requiem dropped. It's the sequel to this game. People praised it's graphics quite a bit on Twitter as far as I was made aware and despite it's late release it still made some entries in the potential game of the year awards. I researched about it a bit and more and more I got the feeling this is The Last of Us if it were set in the middles ages.Is that a bad thing though? Well, the parallels to TLOU are undeniable. In a lot of ways it looks like Asobo Studio - a french group which previously worked on a bunch of disney &amp; pixar movie tie-in games - played TLOU and were like: "We can do our own TLOU. We have the means, we can recreate it." They replaced the setting from a near apocalyptic future to the 14th hundreds and exchanged the zombies with the bubonic plague. The guns are replaced by a slingshot and all sorts of alchemic concoctions which help you progress through the game. Much like in the Last of Us games just about everything and everybody is after you and like in those games you primarily follow around a duo of characters: an older protector type with fighting abilities (the older sister - Amicia) and a young child, who has some skills of their own, but is mostly just to be defended because of some story related characteristic that makes people want them (her younger brother Hugo). Among the misery the somewhat initially estranged siblings bond and the story offers some wholesome emotional scenes to boot.Where A Plague Tale however stepped away from it's TLOU inspirations is the actual gameplay. Don't get me wrong: on paper this would probably still read a lot like TLOU, but APT is way more puzzle-based and you are more rarely pushed in scenarios where action can be the solution. After all Amicia - our protagonist - only has 1 life. One bonk on the head with a sword and she is down. She has no physical means of self defense, only a slingshot her father gifted her pre-plague and some cool alchemic substances she learns to craft along the way. Unlike TLOU APT also has some roadblock moments:-The boss battles seem to be Mario inspired. Each comes with a three phase duration, where you must figure out the weak spot of the oponnent to deal damage and progress the fight to the next stage. Three hits and the oponnent is down. This is one of the major parts through which APT can be harder than TLOU. It probably took me over an hour of time + watching some successful attempts and tutorials to figure out how to defeat the final boss.-Aim assist sucks. It's pretty good when your aiming your slingshot at stationary oponnents, but when they charge at you, there is a decent chance you might miss regardless of how promising the yellow blinking target seemed. Most of the game this is no biggie, because you don't depend solely on shooting oponnents, but can compensate for it by being stealthy and using the environment to your advantage... but just 10 minutes before the final boss battle, there is a section, where the game will send 3 waves of soldiers at you with no available advantage in your environment and with no stealth. You are required to flawlessly murder all 8 of the soldiers in cold blood as they charge at you. Only leeway you get is the ability to have some somnum's at your disposal, which have a similar function to an extra life in most games and which will take down the soldier who comes to close to you.-Auto save is not optimal. I mean it's fine, but in some sections it will send you back a bit further than you'd like and force you to relisten to quite lenghty story chunks rather than throw you straight at the beginning of the action. Have I already mentioned the part where you have to murder 8 soldiers in cold blood head on? Yes? Every repeat of that part begins with a cutscene you would rather not have to rewatch after dying.Now I may have done quite a bit of this review in comparison to The Last of Us, but it's also a really good standalone game, which does not just live in the shadow of that similar older game. The gameplay based heavier on puzzle solving adds to it's individuality and even if the story is not as beloved or good as TLOU what we are given here is still solid. I will absolutely give Requiem a chance too, but first I need to get the earworm of Vitalis shouting "Die! Become one again!" out of my ears.

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Plague Tale: Innocence

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robiu013

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