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| Rats, rats, and lots of rats! |
Taking place in 14th century France, the tale centers on two siblings, older sister Amicia and young brother Hugo de Rune, as they must escape the country after a rat-plague starts claiming the lives of thousands and leaving everything in its path in ruins. The pair's journey to survive and find a cure for Hugo's illness, which shares a connection with the plague, will take them to a road filled with trouble. Along the way, they'll slowly bond with each other and come across various characters like young alchemist Lucas, lowly thief Melie, and apprentice blacksmith Rodric-- who were all interesting characters with their stories to share. However, I felt that the game could've done a better job with explaining the origins of the plague and making the villains a lot more interesting than having paper-thin motivations.
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| Minor issues aside, the story was a genuinely interesting one. |
A Plague Tale is a stealth game as neither Amicia nor Hugo are skilled at fighting and throughout the adventure you'll be sneaking past enemies to progress the game. That said, you can hide in grass and by using Amicia's trusty slingshot, you can throw objects to distract enemies to avoid getting whacked when spotted. Throughout the course of the game, you'll be able to craft lots of items that'll help you in levels like an acid that burns through a guard's helmet, an ignifier that lights up fires to clear a way from the rats, and a sleep powder that knocks enemies out to name a few.
There are also light puzzles to solve that involves you using both siblings to proceed too. At certain points, you'll have to deal with swarms of rats who will eat you alive at dark, so you'll have to illuminate your way by lighting up torches to scare them away with the aforementioned items. You can even use them to your advantage by luring them into the enemies and unblock areas using new potions later in the game as well.
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| The gameplay is familiar if you've played survival games before, yet it manages to be fun. |
The levels do a great job of showing you the terrifying doom that looms over the country and the many lives it claimed, and it was neat hearing the characters' thoughts on it too. However, I wished that the levels were a lot less linear and offered a bit of freedom to fully explore the world better, maybe even adding an open-ended element to the gameplay. Also, more weapon variety would've been geat like using a crossbow as the slingshot got boring after a while. The game took me around 15 hours to beat and in terms of replay-value, it's pretty light. The chapters are fairly short and packed in each are collectable like flowers and objects of interest to collect, which also offer interesting conversations from the leads.
A Plague Tale looks amazing considering its an AA game. The surprising amount of detail in the environments and character models is commendable and the cut-scenes were also fun to watch. It really feels like a big-budget game in some moments. The only gripes I noticed with the presentation is the 30FPS lock and occasional dumb AI. The voice-work was a huge surprise given the many solid performances from the game's mainly young cast. Also, the soundtrack is good and it nails the dreadful atmosphere of the game, which managed to hook you into the game's bleak world.
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| A Plague Tale packs delivers in terms of production values, given its small scope. |
A Plague Tale: Innocence was a fantastic game that I enjoyed more than I though I would. The story and characters kept me hooked, the gameplay (while nothing special) was still fun to play, and the presentation punches above its weight thanks to the lush visuals and outstanding voicework. It's a nice find amongst all the big-budget releases these days and I really hope there's a sequel in the works. A Plague Tale is a short game despite its $50 price may suggest, but personally for the amount of care put here, I can see why. Those looking for a neat story-driven adventure should definitely check it out.
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