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A Plague Tale: Innocence (2021, Playstation 5) Review


A PROMISING START TO THE END TIMES


Also for: Luna, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Windows, Windows Apps, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Xbox Cloud Gaming


Nothing is wrong with a little inspiration, and here is a game that goes for broke by learning from the best. A Plague Tale: Innocence is clearly influenced by The Last of Us, combining the same story-driven progression with stealth gameplay, realistic combat and basic crafting. It is set in the plague-stricken medieval France, where superstition and blind faith corrupts the populace into mass hysteria. Here, you must escape evil inquisitors, angry mobs and swarms of rats that seek to gnaw your flesh down to the bone.

It features tight third-person gameplay in an atmospheric story that is good, but never quite reaches the quality of the genre's best. Most characters are well-rounded with solid interactions, but the most important aspect fails to impress me - the relation between the protagonist, 15-year old Amicia de Rune, and her little brother, the merely five-year old Hugo. It's not awful by any means, but neither does it become the emotional pillar it needs to be. The major problem is that I wanted to strangle the obstinate little boy from time to time, especially when he got me in trouble.


Still, the story picks up often enough and for long stretches becomes quite a mesmerizing thriller, evoking memories of nightmares about hiding from lawmen or being swarmed by vermin. Asobo Studio creates a convincingly realistic medieval setting, and adds slight touches of dark fantasy to develop their own, unique mythology.

At the heart of the story is the bond between the two alienated young siblings, forced to get acquainted after being kept apart their entire upbringing. They are the privileged and sheltered children of the local rulers Robert and Beatrice de Rune. But after an unexpected house call by a group of Inquisitors, the young duo becomes orphaned fugitives. The pair must escape the merciless grasp of the Inquisition, who seem oddly obsessed with little Hugo. It turns out he was born with a strange disease, that just might have some connection to the plague.


The siblings narrowly escape, and on their way towards possible salvation, they get to see a world reeling from the effects of the disease. The riled-up peasantry of a nearby town points the finger at them, the nobility, blaming them for this curse. In a stressful sequence you must once again make your escape. And on it goes through a carefully crafted and affecting cinematic experience.

Thanks to the narrative linearity and restrictive playing field, the resulting experience is tight, well-paced and claustrophobic. The composer (Olivier Deriviere) utilizes oppressive strings on his amazing soundtrack to channel the kids' mounting dread. And as the situation worsens, the golden colors of the fall turn into doom and gloom. The world is dying, and this time it might not come back to life the following spring.



I like the gameplay, where combat and puzzling are close-knit elements. You enter an area full of guards or plague rats and have to look for a safe way across. The guards do not know your exact location, whereas the rats know where you are but perish in lit areas. To reach the exit, you might have to assassinate certain guards, or simply distract them with noise. Or you might have to light a way across a veritable flash flood of rats. No matter what, you use your scarce resources and your sling to hit distant objects, and if a guard discovers you, that sling becomes your weapon.

Maybe the combat is a bit too unforgiving, and the puzzles a tad too easy, but for the long haul the game keeps me engaged. With a young couple of siblings taking on the strong arm of the Inquisition, this is basically a tale of David vs Goliath, as Amicia's choice of weapon clearly demonstrates. She is not yet a fighter, although she shows great promise with her sling. A successful headshot means instant death - but miss that shot and you're toast. You hardly have time to find your composure for a dodge, let alone reload and take aim again.


The crafting can alleviate some of that stress. Throughout the game you find resources that you can assemble at different workbenches. By strengthening your sling you can reduce the time for aiming as well as reloading, giving you at least a second chance. The game sports a helpful aim assistance and color-coded crosshairs that indicate you're on the right track. That removes a lot of frustration.

This mechanic is used with a great deal of imagination, especially in the few but memorable boss encounters. The first one is an especially harrowing finale to a prolonged escape scene, that's slightly marred by an annoying story "twist" where Hugo really gets on my nerves. The poor build-up slightly takes the edge off the fight itself, which is a mix of precise aiming, dodging and figuring out the next step. I also appreciate that the game never even remotely outstays its welcome. It introduces tougher opponents and new ways to deal with them at an immaculate pace. 


The game certainly benefits from its linearity. What we see of the world is a well realised, beautiful and frightening backdrop. The designers do not hide any of the gruesome detail. Piles of bodies stick out of the mud, left to rot since not enough people are still alive to bury them. Half-eaten corpses of rat victims are left abandoned in dark stone structures. Lush meadows surround villages where burnt corpses of women, accused of witchcraft, have been left hanging at the stake.

Because of his illness, Hugo has been kept isolated since birth and has seen nothing of the world. This gives Amicia a reason to explain about their times. Brief item descriptions of plants, tools and trinkets explain how they used superstition to shield themselves from dying. This further details the desperation that haunted the medieval populace, adding a touch of sadness to an already dark story.

For as long as it lasted, which for me was almost 16 hours, I got totally wrapped-up in A Plague Tale: Innocence. I can only lament that I did not fancy the depiction of little Hugo, which honestly is no worse than most other five year-old kids in fiction. But because of his importance, it nevertheless puts a dent on this tale. Kids are obviously hard to depict well, and the younger they are, the less of their worldview we seem to understand. They are often reduced to mere narrative tools to get a point across. In this case, Hugo is the titular "Innocence", and little else.

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