A Plague Tale: Innocence Game Review
A Plague Tale Innocence is a Sony game created without a Sony budget. Focus Home Interactive may not be a forum favorite. Still, with ambitious original games like Vampyr and The Council, it has proudly flown the flag for story-driven, single-player experiences. Asobo's gothic medieval romp is another step in that direction, but does it bite like a rat or nibble like a mouse?
Related: A Plague Tale Requiem Free Download & Review
In this game, which takes place in France at the start of the Hundred Years' War in the 14th century, you play Amicia, the teenage daughter of a nobleman. She ends up being the primary caretaker of her sick brother Hugo as the two travel across their country searching for a cure. It's an exciting idea, but the wooden voice acting kills what would be an otherwise good script.
Games like The Last of Us inspire the gameplay, but it's much more straightforward. You'll spend a lot of time waltzing through beautiful and horrifying settings and picking up crafting materials that can be used to make potions. The combat isn't extreme, so you'll mostly use a slingshot that can be upgraded to distract guards and open up new paths.
The most surprising thing about Plague Tale is that its kind of like Gears of War. The more obvious comparison is The Last of Us (You can find both reviews for the last of us parts on our YouTube channel). It's another touching post-apocalyptic adventure in which an older character guides a younger soul whose blood has been touched by fate. However, in practice, even though there are no chainsaws, Epic's game often comes to mind. It's clear from how the characters move slowly as if they are much more significant than they look. It's there in the sense that the historical background (the Sera of Gears is a pastiche of familiar architectural styles) is slowly being taken over by the supernatural: the darkness that glows with eyeshine, the twisted, bone-black rot that rats leave behind, and the alchemical motifs that slowly become the plot's crucible. But the most important thing is how you frame it. As in Gears, you spend most of the chapters making your way towards a faraway landmark, like a windmill set up for you with a "look" command, and then pulled in and out of view by the landscape. It gives each step of Amicia and Hugo's journey a strong sense of certainty, even though soldiers have to be fooled by trial and error. It's as if gravity were pulling you through the world toward a line of big things. It's a good idea to give in. Don't forget to look for flowers, though.
You'll also have to look for things that the rats can chew on instead of Amicia and Hugo, such as animal carcasses and dead bodies that your enemies have strung up or even your enemies themselves. All of this changes how the game feels. Instead of just sneaking around, you have to decide how horrible you want to be to those who are after you while Hugo watches. I don't think the rat horde idea is fully explored; in the last third, it's clear that the scenario designers have run out of ideas. However, there are some rich environmental puzzles to solve, especially once Amicia and Hugo team up with other characters who have some freedom. The most luxurious one looks like a vast clockwork castle made of braziers on tracks. To rid the place of scurrying dangers, you have to work with a grumpy thief to move each brazier one at a time so you can get to the next one.
The other way A Plague Tale gets better is through the normal process of getting better gear. In some ways, this is the most tedious and genre-typical part of the game. Workshop benches are scattered throughout the chapters and let you use craftable resources to make a lot of minor improvements, like being able to throw things without making a sound. More interesting, though, are the alchemy recipes that some of the people you make friends with will give you (who have signature abilities of their own you can call on at intervals). Some mixtures can put out torches or light embers, as well as smelly ones that can choke out armored enemies and make them take off their helmets. These gadgets have been used before, and the puzzles that go with them aren't exactly mind-blowing. However, they help Plague Tale escape its clunky core and make the most of its beautiful and horrifying settings. At the end of the game, there's a great, if slightly rough, set of different skills and puzzles that show another side of the rodent plague. I won't tell you what they are, but let's say it's worth the trip.
The game does an excellent job of changing the mechanics and giving you new problems to solve, but it cannot help but feel like filler. With a campaign that lasts up to 15 hours, you'll find yourself rolling your eyes every time you run into another long stealth or rat-avoiding sequence. It gets boring, even if the puzzles and settings change.
Also, the adventure is unclear about what it wants to be. The way the story goes is almost educational because it takes place during a dark time in history that doesn't get a lot of screen time. At the same time, it cannot help but flirt with the supernatural when it's unnecessary. It's almost as if the writers couldn't stop themselves.
But maybe the most disappointing thing about the game is how clumsy it can feel. Amicia's movements are stiff and jerky, and the "weapon" wheel is hard to use. At times, the presentation is beautiful, and the haunting music adds a lot to the mood of the experience. However, it lacks the final polish that its competitors have, which makes it full of dreaded jank.
As Amicia, you spend a lot of time holding Hugo's hand, helping him get over ledges, and protecting him from the dangers of the environment. Hugo's presence never felt like a burden to me. On the contrary, I felt like I was protecting him like a brother or sister, and I got nervous every time I sent him alone into a small crawlspace to open a door or get a flashlight. Hugo is a sweet and innocent child, and the friendship between him and his friend is lovely.
The story of A Plague Tale had me rushing to get to the end credits, but the basic gameplay has a lot of speedbumps. A plague of black rats that run through the shadows and threaten to kill every living thing is one of the biggest dangers to the de Rune children. The rats fear the light, so most environmental puzzles involve finding fire and using it to make a safe path. You can make things like explosives or rat bait with a simple crafting system, and I liked being able to control fire. However, I rarely needed to search the environment for crafting materials because you can usually find what you need just a few feet from every puzzle. Also, most puzzles have clear answers, so I didn't feel like I was coming up with clever ways to get out of trouble. I felt like I was just going through the motions instead.
When not dealing with rats, you must avoid Inquisition soldiers because few have orders to separate you from your brother and drop your body in a rat nest. Amicia has a sling and can throw rocks at enemy temples like bullets. The generous auto-aim helps make up for the controls being hard to use. Most of the time, it's best to run away and hide from a fight, but the stealth mechanics aren't excellent. Most stealth parts of games tested my patience more than my smarts., but I never got tired of putting out an enemy's torch and watching the rats swarm them. Enemies have primary patrol routes, and the environments are usually small enough. There is only one way to get where you want to go. So, throwing rocks at enemies to distract them is about as exciting and fast-paced as pressing a button at a crosswalk.
The PS5 version is better because it lets you use the Dual Sense controller, which is great when moving. Holding R2 makes Amicia run, and the trigger does the same by gently putting pressure on the ground as she walks. A subtle but effective way to make chase scenes more exciting. When the sling is needed, the group gets haptic feedback that feels like a rope swinging just before the rock it holds is thrown at an Inquisition member. The game is improved by clever uses that we hope other games will learn from without going too far.
The way the game is played hasn't changed. It's still linear, leading you through a well-made campaign full of surprises and standout moments. The English army of 1348 and the rodent infantry that burrows underground create environmental puzzles that can solve in creative ways. Combat, on the other hand, is almost always a matter of life or death. If you miss your shot, you're probably going to die soon. But the same is true for one of the most underrated things in the past few years. Innocence has always been a great game in A Plague Tale. PS5 improves it just a little bit.
A Plague Tale has two sad endings. On the one hand, Amicia and Hugo's tearful journey through rural France is full of problems, but the bigger problem is that simple puzzles and clunky stealth mechanics ruin this powerful story of sibling love. A Plague Tale is an adventure wrapped in a game that is easy to forget.
A Plague Tale Innocence deserves respect for being different and taking you through a grim part of Europe that you don't see very often. Even though there are some fantastic ideas, the stealth and puzzle mechanics are slow, and the story can't decide what it wants to be. Even though the presentation is excellent, the project lacks polish in some key areas and sometimes goes on too long.
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