A Plague's Tale: Innocence was an interesting game I played a while back, it was fairly a stealth game that had trial and error gameplay without leaving much room to adapt. Which I don't usually like and cheapens the experience by making it feel like I had to die, without having any control over it to avoid such things. Requiem does that worse here.
But, make no mistake, I'd be remiss if I said this was a below average game, because it isn't. The first game had a riveting story, this one has a well written continuing story with a lot of gut punches. The stealth mechanics, when they work, are something to be beholden on. Gameplay that rewards you for being concise, and efficient.
The sequel takes what the first game did, and improves on them and making welcoming changes. Besides some of the infuriating issues that hampers my playthrough. For a Sophomore game of the Plague series, it got a lot of ambitions.
Hugo and Amicia are playing with his each other, alongside Lucas. Hide and seek, kings march, they're having the time of their lives, especially knowing the absolute purgatory they've both gone through, Hugo especially. A nearby village kid comes along to play with them, letting me know that if the characters weren't doomed to live out like this, they could have had normal lives.
Just half an hour of that peace and quiet, gone, when they've accidentally stumbled upon a cleansing in a village led by local militia. Turns out the boy's older siblings weren't upto any good. After they attacked Amicia, kind of knocking her out, Hugo went full Akira, and telepathically slaughtered them. Passing out before dreaming about an oasis that could seem to be a cure for his superpowered rat controlling disease. This is actually a foreshadowing for the entire plot.
Just like the previous game, this one's pretty uncomfortable to play except it seemed like they've removed the training wheels and went all in, especially more so now with the visual upgrade. Opening up to more options and diverse playstyles for playing. Especially with a system, where based on how you played in a section, you earn skill points like walking past enemies without making a single noise, or finding newer ways to kill them. You get a lot in your arsenal as you progress into later stages.
There are caveats, with this much flexibility and options, there's little wiggle room when the playground itself is kind of stringent. The gameplay is based around this trial and error thing, where you have to figure out what's the right way to play each section. It's either only one way or there are options presented, but neither of that is properly indicated.
Pathfinding problems at times, the game having bigger maps but with terrible invincible walls, and it has bugs. Moving past all that, I really had fun. Because there's so much going on with these two characters, they've grown a lot, becoming stronger against everything that kept falling apart. Finding parts to upgrade your gears giving incentive to explore is a nice bit of detour from the linear experience.
The scope in here, regarding immersion, is far more ambitious than the first game was. On both story front and gameplay. In later stages, you even start to have Hugo's abilities. He starts using a sonar type X-ray, detecting enemies and rats nearby. I won't spoil the rest, but be assured, it gets hectic and fun. Deviating from the small tedium of the stealth mechanics.
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Speaking of ambition, this game is really gorgeous to look at. So much work has been put into it. Almost as if they took everything out of Uncharted's book and went all the way. There are areas that just feel really stretched out and not just some cardboard background with fog effects. You really do feel like you're in these places.
The main story itself is just relentless. Throwing all kinds of bad problems at you, there are times even Amicia lost it, and it got pretty bloody. I wouldn't call this exactly a smartly written game, though it has its moments of awe and levity, mostly genuine and earnest. A lot of emotion with a bit of substance to hold it. That, and quite a number of interesting new characters too.
In an encompassing way, it deals with all kinds of hardship. Since it is based around the time that the bubonic plague had happened. But the major theme of the game is that no matter what happens, blood is thicker from your own kind and that the people you love will do everything they can to protect you. Even if it comes with compromising their humanity to survive the worst of the worst.
And eventually, the game does reach a tilting point for the series. As Hugo finally comes close to realizing who he actually was and how his lineage along with his family is connected. The mature elements of the game coincide with its yearning for lost innocence, and justifying one's own survival.
As a video game, it is pretty much flawed. Despite having so much of it that it wants you to do. It has fun moments, if not held back by those issues. But I think I finally saw a developer that tried, I can see that quite clearly. Most triple AAA devs would add the high budget stuff and gloss over the important aspects. This game tried not to, and I can respect that.
It is also a lengthier game, in fact, I think I totaled about 16-17hrs playing it. My GPU was capable of running this (RX 6700 XT), but my CPU was getting bottlenecked. It squeezes your hardware for everything it has, even if mine ran mostly at 60 FPS in the highest settings at 1080p. I hope they add FSR 2.0 in the future, it has DLSS but not that. How unfair.
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