Game of the Month #64 (May 2020) - A Plague Tale: Innocence

I don't know exactly what I expected, but it was not this. I guess when I saw trailers and heard all of the awards buzz I formed a mental image of an organic and heartfelt family story against the backdrop of the cruel world of medieval France. And the game really wants you to believe that's what it is--a real, human story, sacrificing arcadey gameplay conventions in service of a higher artistic calling, but this is ultimately the same cliche story you've seen play out a million times, only notable for its unique setting. The very first notable thing that happens is your dog dies, and I swear you can see the developers' puppet strings trying to manipulate your emotions. The heroes start out as strangers, form a bond, fight, split up, reconnect, grow closer, fight again, split up, reconnect, grow closer, ad nauseam. Few of the supporting characters get any meaningful character development, so their bonds feel rushed and phony. It doesn't help that the writers have a habit of raising obvious death flags minutes or even seconds before killing them off, like with both Arthur and Rodric. There's an obligatory dream sequence to make the protagonist feel guilty for the moral atrocities you have no choice but to commit. Any potential for interesting drama between the main characters is torn apart chapter by chapter as the sibling relationship takes a backseat to an inane cult conspiracy. Eventually, I stopped taking the game seriously at all, which I think was better for my health. Once I got to the rat tornadoes and telepathic rat battles I could not help but laugh at the stupidity the game expected me to take seriously.

I will grant that the aesthetics are nice. I enjoyed the cello tones that expertly built suspense, even when the game itself could not. The visuals were grimy enough to make me feel like I needed to wash my hands after playing, and the levels--if you remove the actual need to play them--are impressively designed (although I found the scenarios often relied on too many repeated images for shock value, like the mountains of pig bodies followed by mountains of human bodies). Most of all, I think I enjoyed the rat effects for how oppressive they are, swarming like a hive mind and flowing like liquid.

As far as the gameplay goes, I think everyone's on the same page that that's not really the shining star here. You're given a full radial wheel of ammo types to theoretically expand your options when dealing with Inquisition soldiers and rats, but each encounter really might as well be scripted, considering how obviously the solutions are telegraphed. Once you get past a certain ammo type's tutorial level, though, you're likely to never use it again, especially since the last few levels basically tell stealth puzzles to go screw themselves and take your leash off so you can kill everyone in sight, because, hey, in case the subtitle didn't make it grotesquely obvious, this game's about losing your innocence!

I really don't hate the game; I just find it mediocre and can't fathom the praise that has been lavished on it.

What's the gameplay / narrative ratio like? Thinking of giving this one a shot.

Played through chapters VI and VII today. I seriously wished I had more time.

Here are my thoughts:

VI:
FINALLY a way to kill guards with helmets. When I was first leaving the camp I tried not killing anyone, but after miserably failing some times I decided to just kill every possible guard. I have to say that the feeling of killing armed people with just a sling and rocks is interesting given the context.

VII:
Okay, the fact that thunders scares rats is a bit... too much. Besides that, I loved the puzzles in the castle courtyard and the castle itself.

The rats being scared of lightning seems to me more that they are scared of light and in the game the lightning creates enough light for them to return to there dark hideaways

Finished playing this last night, not really expecting it to win. So I won't be actively participating this month, but I'll copy and paste my review (with slight alterations) and then wait for everyone to tear me to shreds for it. I gave it a 4/10.

I don't know exactly what I expected, but it was not this. I guess when I saw trailers and heard all of the awards buzz I formed a mental image of an organic and heartfelt family story against the backdrop of the cruel world of medieval France. And the game really wants you to believe that's what it is--a real, human story, sacrificing arcadey gameplay conventions in service of a higher artistic calling, but this is ultimately the same cliche story you've seen play out a million times, only notable for its unique setting. The very first notable thing that happens is your dog dies, and I swear you can see the developers' puppet strings trying to manipulate your emotions. The heroes start out as strangers, form a bond, fight, split up, reconnect, grow closer, fight again, split up, reconnect, grow closer, ad nauseam. Few of the supporting characters get any meaningful character development, so their bonds feel rushed and phony. It doesn't help that the writers have a habit of raising obvious death flags minutes or even seconds before killing them off, like with both Arthur and Rodric. There's an obligatory dream sequence to make the protagonist feel guilty for the moral atrocities you have no choice but to commit. Any potential for interesting drama between the main characters is torn apart chapter by chapter as the sibling relationship takes a backseat to an inane cult conspiracy. Eventually, I stopped taking the game seriously at all, which I think was better for my health. Once I got to the rat tornadoes and telepathic rat battles I could not help but laugh at the stupidity the game expected me to take seriously.

I will grant that the aesthetics are nice. I enjoyed the cello tones that expertly built suspense, even when the game itself could not. The visuals were grimy enough to make me feel like I needed to wash my hands after playing, and the levels--if you remove the actual need to play them--are impressively designed (although I found the scenarios often relied on too many repeated images for shock value, like the mountains of pig bodies followed by mountains of human bodies). Most of all, I think I enjoyed the rat effects for how oppressive they are, swarming like a hive mind and flowing like liquid.

As far as the gameplay goes, I think everyone's on the same page that that's not really the shining star here. You're given a full radial wheel of ammo types to theoretically expand your options when dealing with Inquisition soldiers and rats, but each encounter really might as well be scripted, considering how obviously the solutions are telegraphed. Once you get past a certain ammo type's tutorial level, though, you're likely to never use it again, especially since the last few levels basically tell stealth puzzles to go screw themselves and take your leash off so you can kill everyone in sight, because, hey, in case the subtitle didn't make it grotesquely obvious, this game's about losing your innocence!

I really don't hate the game; I just find it mediocre and can't fathom the praise that has been lavished on it.

It's heralded as some kind of mature masterpiece in gaming circles, but if this was a book or a film it would be derided as B-tier at best for its mawkish attempts at pathos further undercut by the unintentionally comedic turns of its absurd plot.

A Plague Tale: Innocence could have been so much more, by being so much less. Visually, the game is stunning, even if the character model lip-syncing doesn't always look good. It really is a beautiful game and it's clear the levels and art had a lot of work put into them. And more importantly, skill. Oh, and the music is great on multiple levels.

Story spoilers incoming: the story starts out good. I can't put my finger on why, but the simple plot of a young woman being forced to care for her sick younger brother after her family is killed by the Inquisition during a plague in medieval France is a good one. In the beginning, it felt like a better Life is Strange 2. Two siblings turned orphans by systematic discrimination, the older teenager left to become an adult and parent as they make their way alone in harsh world. Not to mention, supernatural overtones in the younger sibling.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stay that way. While the game shouldn't have been beholden to my assumption the Inquisition was attacking the sick brother for being mentally ill, seeking a scapegoat to blame the Black Death on, as the mass of rats physically represent the emotional volatility of the brother, I personally think that my idea was more compelling. Instead, the game decides that it isn't a story about two siblings and the friends they make along the way. The superstition and magic aren't personifications of human emotion, or a way that the people of the time coped with the horrors around them every day.

No, the brother is sick with an evil magic curse that lets him control rats. And there's a whole backstory dating back to Justinian's Plague. This curse within the boy is actually causing the Black Death for real. Why? Because the game needs a villain. And so the plot of the game isn't just curing the kid and just trying to survive against the horrors of real-life medieval France, but that the evil Grand Inquisitor, Emperor Corypheus Palpatine, wants to use the blood of Luke Solas to tear open the Fade and rule the Galaxy. But with the power of Inquisitor Leia, Han Blackwall and some other archetypes, the Chosen One turns away from the Dark Side of the Blood Magic and saves the world from the plague! Oh, and you fight Darth Vader. Or something. I honestly don't fully understand the Grand Inquisitor's motives.

Apparently he caught the boil, read about Hugo in a book somewhere, and now wants to use his rat power to force the Pope to declare him God? And I want to be clear: it's not inherently bad. It's an interesting plot. I was engaged in the beginning, when I didn't fully understand what was happening. And that's good. Just the hint of something greater going on was enough. Something bigger than me, than the characters. Like how it treats the Hundred Year's War. It's a backdrop, not important to me personally. And by keeping the backstory in the background, it becomes more open to interpretation, like the first Life is Strange. Maybe the magic is real, maybe it's just superstition. Are Hugo's powers a manifestation of his trauma, or something more?

I don't think the backstory and some elements of the plot are bad. They just don't mesh with what the game starts out as, in my opinion. It misdirects attention from the characters we're rooting for. The game starts out with a messy world and boils it down to good and evil. Pretending you can kill a pandemic as easily as you can kill a man to save your loved ones. But the world, neither now nor in medieval France, is that easy. And the game does such a good job writing its characters and their traumas in this awful world, that it's like if The Walking Dead season 1 ended with Lee fighting a giant zombie and ended the apocalypse. It's such a heel turn that doesn't benefit much of the character development, or even the core gameplay. And speaking of gameplay...

From what little I knew of the game before playing, I thought it was a stealth horror game. And if you played the first few chapters, you'd come to the same conclusion. It's a pretty good stealth game, too. At its best, it feels almost like an immersive sim. Give me some tools and provide the world with reactivity to those tools, and I'll pick my own path through the levels. Looking back afterwards, I could frequently see alternative routes. The level of feedback the game gives is minimal, but those usually works to the advantage of its puzzle-like stealth encounters.

Usually. It relies too much on plot contrivances and action sequences for pacing. So while the gameplay is mostly good overall, it varies between great and confusing. At worst, it ends on a terrible boss fight - it shouldn't even have boss fights - where you basically run in circles until you run in the proper circles and win.

Also, there's a post-credits scene. So just skip the credits immediately.