The following is a transcript of the video review:
Triple A arthouse games are pretty rare. Rarer still are games that can legitimately use Sean Bean performing William Blake poetry to hype up audiences for a game’s release. A Plague Tale: Innocence invites players to pack their bags and go on a ‘heart-rending’ journey with two young orphans as they fight their way through the bubonic plague. With a unique premise and exceptionally high production values, the game pledges to deliver an emotionally charged experience that dares players to struggle through an oppressive and unforgettable adventure.
You’ll experience the world through the eyes of Amicia, a noble’s daughter growing up in 1348 amidst the picturesque French countryside. Your idyllic life is forever destroyed by the sadistic inquisition who are hell-bent on getting their hands on your younger brother, Hugo, a toddler infected with a curious illness. After witnessing the execution of their father, Amicia and Hugo barely escape their chateau with their lives.
In the midst of this family drama, a corruption begins to spread across the land, carrying with it plague-spreading rats in their thousands. It’s literally jaw-dropping to see how many of these vermin the game crams on-screen and their crawling, organic mass never ceases to be a visually arresting image throughout the 10 hour playtime.
The premise makes a hell of a good first impression, but unfortunately the narrative shifts direction, becoming less of a character study after its opening act. Themes of ‘innocence lost’ and ‘the human cost of survival’ are teased, but never pushed to an engaging or thought-provoking degree. Other orphans eventually join your rag-tag team, but they needlessly draw attention away from the brother/sister relationship and an uninspiring ‘save the world’ tangent materialises which ultimately undermines the simplicity of the games story.
Despite these shortcomings, the core relationship between the two siblings shines brightly and the game’s best moments occur early on when the two leads are side-by-side, quietly absorbing how their lives have changed forever.
The world is rapidly becoming a dangerous place for the siblings and when you’re not running from the rats, you’ll be hunted like them. Stealth is your best bet to sneak by the Inquisition’s men. If you can’t take advantage of a guard’s patrol route, dinging rocks against conveniently placed bits of metal is an easy way to cause a distraction. Combat is viable, but outside of boss fights it’s rarely encouraged. Amica is armed with a sling capable of killing helmet-less guards, but its slow rate of fire and noisy nature means that, unless you’re engaging a single foe, it’ll likely get you in more trouble than you started with.
Getting past the rats is a different story since getting anywhere near them will treat you to a horrific game over screen. Their weakness: light and fire. Waving torches and lighting pyres allow you to construct a rat-free path during these puzzle-like scenarios. Feeding them works too, even if their meal is a hapless soldier.
As a budding alchemist, Amicia will learn how to craft a multitude of throw-able items. Some let you light fires to fend off rats, others like a particularly nasty acid bomb, force soldiers to rip off their helmets, leaving their temples exposed to a well placed head-shot. While fun to use, the linear nature of the game overly contextualises their use so they’ll only be effective when the opportunity is explicitly presented.
Sneaking by humans and weaving through rats are the two steady loops the gameplay cycles between, but things stay engaging thanks to a steady diet of new environments to survive through, some of which are truly inspired. One of the best chapters puts you in the aftermath of a bloody battle, corpses funneling you through the muddy battlefield moments before the rats arrive to feast on the dead. You’ll always feel compelled to push creative areas like this just so you can see what’s around the next corner.
Since you’ll be doing a lot of sneaking around you’re gonna spend a lot of time waiting around with your nose pressed up against walls and shrubs… Thankfully, the stunning visuals consistently offer something new to marvel at. The journey starts off exhibiting warm palettes and soft lighting akin to French Renaissance art, with the colours becoming increasingly mute as the grim reality of the world sets in. Everywhere you look the world is brimming with details – forest floors are littered with autumn leaves that crunch underfoot and blood-stained skeletons plaster the walls of fetid rat nests. Though the world is full of dangers, it’s also undeniably beautiful.
A top-tier soundtrack will guide you across the world, effortlessly capturing the mood of the moment. Mellow cellos accompany quiet moments, chilling and erratic violin strings are paired with the sight of rats and haunting strings punctuate sombre scenes. It’s a good thing that the soundtrack does most of the emotional heavy lifting because the facial animations let down the otherwise beautiful presentation. While voice performances are good across the board, glazed-over eyes and stiff movements often fail to sell the emotions behind some of the scenes. The tempo of cut-scenes is also strangely speedy at times, seldom giving emotional scenes the time breathe or sink in. This, more than anything, subtly highlights the recurring issue that plagues the whole game – it never quite knows how far to push the emotional side of things, often backing off before it can make an impact.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this’ll be ‘Grave of the Fireflies – The Video Game’ because heaven knows that the marketing and set-up does everything in its power to convince you that this will be a harrowing gaming experience. While I commend the developers for using a genuinely unique setting to tell their story, the game ultimately lacks the confidence to take advantage of its premise to really challenge the player, or its own characters, on an emotional or moral level.
The game is at its absolute best in the opening acts when the emphasis is purely about Amicia protecting Hugo. There’s something primal and beautiful about the image of a sister pushing through a sea of rats with a barely lit torch in one hand, her Brother’s trembling hand in the other. These are the breathtaking moments that the game absolutely nails. While it never reaches heartbreaking heights, Amicia and Hugo’s journey if fraught with enough compassion and humanity to compel you to see their quest to the end.
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