Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom. Note, this includes spoilers for this game and The Last of Us 1

Games can often be reductive portrayals of conflicts, and the medieval genre is no exception. This was a time of rampant war and misery, yet anyone who’s played a Dark Age title is liable to only seeing the romanticized tropes: you know, fancy castles, roaming knights, gossipy peasants, and, above all, a grand sense of adventure. And while these do make for a captivating epic, the fact of the matter is that pastoral chivalry hardly applied to the myriad of serfs who were just trying to make ends meet amidst the suffering: disease, civil strife, and lack of due process being their preliminary sources of doom.

Taking place during the Edwardian Invasion of France, I was hopeful that A Plague Tale: Innocence would stand apart from its contemporaries by accurately depicting this period, and for about the first half of its run-time, it was doing just that. Developer Asobo Studio’s vision of the 14th century is one of political turmoil, with extrajudicial killings offing as many people as the infamous Black Death. Navigating this cruel world are siblings Amicia and Hugo de Rune, whose lives have been turned upside-down by the French Inquisition for reasons unclear to them. Why are they after you and why are there so many man-eating rats? That’s up to you to figure out should you play the game, a recommendation I am hard-pressed to give in spite of its technical feats. See, I stressed the first half for a reason as the back part of Innocence honestly feels like a completely different game, and while only one writer is listed (Sébastien Renard), I can’t help wondering whether there was an uncredited rewrite of Renard’s script.

During the initial hours, you’re treated to that rural grottiness I alluded to above: lynchings are commonplace, buildings decadent, and human & animal corpses alike strewn across the pavement. This is not the meme-worthy land of The Elder Scrolls, but a sinister scape unfit for civilization, let alone children on the run. Controlling Amicia, you genuinely feel powerless amongst the soldiers and vigilantes patrolling the world, that powerlessness amplified by the swarms of malicious vermin sprouting up everywhere. For the safety of yourself and your brother, stealth and isolationism are mandatory, the few moments of forced combat yielding an explicit sense of apprehension. And yet, by the third act, you’re dispatching paladins and rats alike with ease, the heroine barking out war cries as though she’s Wolverine in a berserker rage.

I know the counterargument will be that this is a character arc involving Amicia shedding her “innocence” to survive the horrors of her newfound reality ala Jason in Far Cry 3, and while that is a reasonable conjecture, its failure to be believable speaks to the larger problem plaguing (no pun intended) Innocence, that being the lack of natural development for any of its themes and changes. I hate to make comparisons, but the truth is A Plague Tale is essentially a worse version of The Last of Us albeit in a medieval skin. Think about it, both take place in a contaminated world, both feature a reluctant hero getting acquainted with a newbie whom they initially dislike and have to escort elsewhere, and both have protagonists tied to the mythology of the setting. There are several other similarities, but as they involve story spoilers, you’ll have to check them out at the bottom(+).

Regardless, taking inspiration from one of the greatest narrative video games of all time wasn’t a bad idea by any means. However, when you fail to conceive a framework as organic as your influence, it unfortunately magnifies such collations for the worse. At its crux, A Plague Tale’s problems are ultimately attributable to impetuous bonding and Hugo as a whole. The former basically speaks for itself; conflicts arise between the newly-acquainted siblings, they get resolved quickly, and that shared adversity morphs into a closer relationship. It’s a fine set-up, but the problem is not enough time is spent on the menial interactions between the two to warrant the emotional impact of those deeper moments when they do occur. There’s surprisingly very little downtime as Amicia and Hugo are constantly moving from beat-to-beat, and while this works for crafting thrills, it’s simply inadequate as far as making me care about their kinship. For you TLOU fans, it’d be like if the ending of Winter occurred at the beginning of Spring instead of after everything Joel & Ellie had gone through -- yeah, it’d still make for a nice scene, but you wouldn’t find it as invigorating.

Still, this issue pales in comparison to the latter one involving the difficulty that is Hugo de Rune. Look, I didn’t want to say this at first since I was hoping things would improve, however, as that didn’t happen, it needs to be said: he is utterly annoying. I used to be a lifeguard, so I understand the ignorance, naivety, and outright temperamentality kids exhibit in their comprehension of fresh stimuli. But they are NOT idiots, which is the core ailment of Amicia’s brother. Throughout the game, he consistently acts in ways that are just illogical even by the standards of children (especially, I assume, children who grew up during the Hundred Years’ War) -- running into dangerous situations because of a small squabble, disregarding your well-intentioned elders out-of-spite, not heeding common sense after overhearing something you didn’t like; lacking spatial awareness of your surroundings. Again, I know juveniles are susceptible to focalizing reward over risk due to the rawness of their prefrontal cortex, and I get that Hugo was raised in a highly-sheltered household, but even taking all of that into account his reactions are just not realistic; and because they’re the basis for much of the game’s plotting, their irrationality hurts the story as a whole.

I anticipate there’ll be folks out there who’ll insist he’s an accurate representation of an adolescent, and though we’ll have to agree to disagree, surely we may reach a compromise on him being more than a bit irksome? Seriously, take a shot every time he utters the word “mummy” or asks an overly-stupid question and you’ll be dead from alcohol poisoning long before you reach the end of the game. Realism or not, if one of your main characters is bugging the player, you have made a fundamental mistake. Ellie’s spunk may have put off some people, however, I doubt anyone left TLOU disliking her the way I did with Hugo.

It’s a shame because, on the other hand, Amicia is generally well-done. Yes, her Sarah Connor/Ripley transformation is rushed, but at least we’re provided a believable baseline for this growth via a Deer Hunter-esque opening. More importantly, in contrast to Hugo, I could easily see where her reactions were coming from, and when you understand why a character is acting the way they are, it goes a long way towards making them immersive and worth following. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if a large part of A Plague Tale’s advocacy comes from her as she truly is one of the best heroines of recent gaming, brought to life by a fantastic performance from Charlotte McBurney. I just wish the story surrounding her lived up to these histrionics as she’s simply unable to counterbalance neither Hugo’s antics, nor the aforementioned tonal inconsistencies (one moment may see a soldier getting sacrificed, another Amicia trading silly jests with an ally). It’s one thing to incorporate levity amidst the heavy drama (which the game does have and does well); it’s a whole other beast to flip the script for the sake of half-hearted jokes, especially jokes at odds with the historical atmosphere. And no, the overarching plot isn’t good enough to overcome these deficits, its mystery coasting on old-school thriller fare that quickly loses steam the second you realize it’s going to be pointlessly drawn out. I like being kept in the dark, but when said darkness derives from such hackneyed tropes as characters deliberately speaking in parse sentences or explanations being shoved to an “I’ll explain more later” schtick, you can’t help getting frustrated. Not that it would’ve mattered considering the game doesn’t bother explaining the integral components of its lore; lore meant the form the backbone of the narratorial skeleton.++

But look, I’m done ranting about the story. Tl;dr - it doesn’t live up to the expectations it sets up for itself in the first half, becomes outright self-indulgent in the second, and features one of the most vexing characters in video game history. And it’s a shame it stumbles so much because this truly is one of the most gorgeous worlds I have ever experienced in gaming, and I would’ve loved every reason to recommend it to prospective buyers. The Middle Ages, with their looming forts, checkered hamlets, and windswept woods have, of course, inspired innumerable pieces of historical fiction, but A Plague Tale may very well be my favorite rendition of all time. Much like the Assassin’s Creed series, Asobo have gone for a pictorial aesthetic halfway between photorealism and stylization, using the former as a bedplate and latter as a paintbrush, and the result is quite literally a digitized fresco. From contaminated villages to gold-scaped forests, Innocence is one of those titles where you could freeze frame any part of it and get a painting worthy of the Louvre, my playthrough alone gleaning the following delights: fire flares reflecting off sheens of ice; emaciated townsfolk limping amid the pestilential air; fuchsia tiles bedecking ancient scraggly tombs, individual strands of hair on fur-based textiles, and the scratched-up vestige of Amicia’s tunic. Even small areas you barely spend time in like alchemy trailers and frosted gardens aren’t just generic simulacra, but handmade teriors adorned with specific parchments, unique illustrations, and snow-tipped leaves respectively. Seriously, I cannot do the visuals justice with mere words; go out and Google Image screen caps and you’ll see exactly what I mean by how beautiful it is.

However, no release is perfect, and there are minor blemishes to be found throughout beginning with the horses: whether dead or alive, these beasts of burden somehow look half-rendered compared to their fellow fauna (thankfully you rarely have to see them). Next are a couple of animation shortcuts: clouds on high are completely stationary, while downlow Amicia’s eyelids only half-close when blinking. Then there’s the lighting which, though not defective, is nowhere near as vibrant as it should have been, often settling for an untamed glow over quavering frenzy (and yes, this is noticeable given the gameplay gimmick -- more on that later). Finally, there’s a blur filter occasionally tossed onto the screen that makes things overly-disorientating; whether it was to mimic the burning haze, I cannot say, but it’s to the game’s detriment.

Regardless of these flaws, it’s obvious I’m reaching for complaints. Though only a few years old, A Plague Tale is one of those games I anticipate will age like a bottle of fine burgundy in the generations to come.
Unfortunately, I cannot mimic that same praise for the sound design as it seems to have been short-changed throughout development, primarily with regards to the situational volume. As I noted above, stealth is a big component of the game, meaning your characters constantly speak in hushed tones to avoid detection….or so you’d think. The editing sees these whispers amplified to such a degree, enemies must be hard of hearing to not catch a single note. Even Amicia’s muted breathing (triggered when point blank to a nearby thug) makes Amanda’s in Alien: Isolation seem pin-drop by comparison. On the other side of the spectrum you have the labored respiration you’d expect from individuals on the run, yet the way the dialogue is filtered, it’s as though all parties were casually sitting around a campfire telling stories. And yes, I know this is an issue with most games not called Spider-Man, but the difference is A Plague Tale’s faulty dubbing afflicts its scripted sequences too; sequences that should’ve been ironed out from the get-go.

The rest of the SFX is better, though not without their own drawbacks. To start with the positives, foleying (the few instances it occurs) is magnificent; from the pangs of a marketplace to the chinking of armor, every din resounds as you’d expect it to in real life, right down to the minutiae. To give an example, one of the more fascinating noises I detected early-on occurred as I was passing by a farmer pulling feathers from a dead fowl: in that moment, I could literally discern the pluck of EACH calamus as it popped from its pore. That kind of dedication is incredibly praise-worthy, as are the echo modulations within caves and distinguished footsteps per a surface.

Sadly, there are more cons in this department, namely the lack of diversity for stone throws. I’ll explain more shortly, but the gist of A Plague Tale’s gameplay comes down to tossing gravel around for miscellaneous purposes, yet the devs only programmed three variations for your 11+ hour playthrough: one for flesh, one for metal, and one for everything else. Considering you’ll be flinging pebbles at an assortment of objects (at varying velocities no less), this diminishment is pretty disappointing, as is the bulk of the voice acting. Tabitha Rubens, David Knight, and Max Raphael round out most of your allies, and while fine performers in their own right, they rarely come across as believable figures in the kind of world Asobo wants to convey. It’s absolutely a script issue wherein the cast is made to say anachronistic lines more reminiscent of 80s action heroes than members of the classe laborieuse; however, it does impact their performance, and, though provided a fair amount of screen time, I was ultimately unable to get as invested in their characters as the writers evidently intended.

Still, they are shoulders above the following thespians: Logan Hannan (Hugo) and Mark Nealy (secondary antagonist Sir Nicholas). With regards to Hannan, look, I don’t want to be too harsh on the kid since he blatantly wasn’t given anything solid to work with, but his cloying demeanor doesn’t help this dearth, nor his inability to maintain a consistent French accent. Nealy, on the other hand, disgraces his paladin’s fantastic design with a voice so hammy it would be out-of-place in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

For the record, it’s not universal negativity: I lavished extensive praise on McBurney above, and the same applies to Edan Hayhurst as the alchemist Lucas. Had the game centered on these two, it may have made-up for prior problems, but, alas, that was not to be. Lastly, Stephane Cornicard takes on the role of main villain Vitalis, and while he’s actually good, I couldn’t get over him sounding like Roger in that episode of American Dad where he’s dying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWQnf2PF_8o).

Regarding the music, an interesting thing happened when I was relistening to it for this review. Initially, it began extraordinarily memorable; sombre, melancholic, and tense as it reveled in numerous stringed instruments of varying pitches (aka, all the traits you’d want in a gothic period piece). As it went on, though, it began to get repetitive; rehashing leitmotifs I swear I’d heard in prior tracks, albeit to a less effective degree. By the end, it had all morphed into background noise. I call this phenomena interesting because it reflected my actual experience with the game: usually, OSTs tend to be significantly better than the way they were integrated in their respective titles, yet here Olivier Deriviere was simply unable to maintain the highs he exuded in the beginning.

With all the technicalities aside, it’s high-time we got into the gameplay. To give a bit of a disclaimer, Innocence is one of those games built on a heavily-linear schematic: whether it's puzzles, combat, or exploration, it wants you to do things in a set order, and any deviation from set order will result in you either failing or pointlessly wasting time as you luck your way into a solution. I have no problem with these formats so long as the devs are upfront about them from the get-go (cough cough Metro), but for those of you who prefer a more open-ended approach to game design, you’d best gaze elsewhere.

The core seed of Innocence’s gameplay revolves around a sling Amicia possesses- she can use it to take out thugs, break items, and deploy special ammo types ranging from fire extinguishers to rat-attracting fungi. It’s a surprising amount of variety, yet one of things you’ll quickly realize is just how disappointingly underutilized the ammo system is due to Asobo foregoing the black box route. Whenever you stumble across an obstacle, whether manmade or natural, its solution is almost always tied to some blatantly-obvious observation, and while I wouldn’t call it bad by any means, it can’t help coming across as a bit condescending to players. Had Innocence been a game marketed towards a younger demographic ala RiME, I could understand the easier entrypoint; however, given the thematic material on hand, I don’t quite get who this layout is meant to appeal to. I’m not saying difficulty is correlated with maturity, but the game truly borders on handholding at times: heck, taking an extended period to observe your surroundings will outright result in your immediate partner (or Amicia herself) “suggesting” the next best course of action.

It really is a shame because there was so much potential here for intricate level design: redirecting vermin, manipulating light sources, destroying certain guard helmets, the concepts were endless. Alas, what you’ve got instead is the video game equivalent of one of those coloring books with directions on which colors to use where: it leads to a pretty picture, but you can’t help feeling like the fun was sapped out of it.

The much marketed rats also lack inspiration, primarily taking the form of hive clumps whose functionality is indifferent from the lava pits and acid pools of yesteryear. At first I figured the animation work simply wasn’t there for the kind of threat Asobo wanted to craft, but as I delved further into the story, it became obvious that, no, this was always their intention: to abjure a creepy biological menace in favor of generic environmental hazards, and I cannot for the life of me comprehend why. Rats, like snakes, trigger an inherent repulsion in us humans; combined with the terrors of the ongoing war, they could’ve easily been used to accentuate the horror atmosphere surrounding the Runes the way Pan’s Labyrinth did with Francoist Spain. As it stands, the murines end up being akin to those anchovies from the Spongebob pilot: an incoherent mass that’s technically dangerous, but not in the least intimidating. It’s a shame too because the artisans behind Asobo are talented- seeing individual mice creep towards you at the edge of a light source is genuinely unnerving, and I would’ve much rather had a game centered around those kinds of rodents than the poorly-mixed spiral before you (seriously, they sound less like a cacophony of man-eating animals and more like baby birds boosted up several decibels).

There’s really not much else to say. Despite ending on a negative note, I should be clear that A Plague Tale hits a lot of highs: it’s one of the best looking games I’ve ever played, has a dang good protagonist, and occasionally indulges well in its historical ambiance. It’s just these facets are brought down by some weak supporting characters, an inconsistent story, and mollycoddled gameplay. Make your decision appropriately.


NOTES
-Didn’t get a chance to touch on this in the story section, but another infringing factor is the employment of timeskips in the second half of the game. Innocence is genuinely one of those titles that would’ve benefited significantly from a pure “real-time” layout.

-Love the screams of any characters (NPC or main) who gets caught by the mice; glimpsing distinguishable rodents clamber up said bodies is the cherry on top (and a visceral incentive to avoid dying!).

-It’s worth pointing out that fleas, not mice, were the primary carriers of the Yersinia pestis bacteria, yet guess which species has been demonized more in mainstream media?

-I appreciated Asobo programming some unique animations for Amicia, such as multiple climbs and knee crossing as you sneak around an object.

-There’s a small crafting system, though it’s pretty limited and hardly necessary for completing the game. That said, I couldn’t get over how contrived its tutorial was.+++

-Hated that you couldn’t dismantle existing ammunition for extra rocks. Yes, the game provides more than enough to loot; however, as a reviewer, I had to do a lot of testing with the flinging mechanic and ended-up soft-locking myself during a chapter.

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+Hugo’s head ails from a disease called the Prima Macula that, in its later stages, gives him control over the rats. While there are obvious differences, it is thematically similar to the Cordyceps mutation in Ellie’s brain as both heroes contain a malady capable of ending the torment around them. Here are some other analogous storybeats: Hugo’s Mother hid him from the outside world to delay his progression until he was of sufficient maturity/Ellie was kept away by the Fireflies until future plans could be cemented; Amicia leaves a bedridden Hugo to get a healing book/Ellie leaves a bedridden Joel to get medicine in Left Behind; Amicia’s rampage to rescue her brother from Vitalis/Joel’s murder spree at the end to free Ellie from the Fireflies.


++Going off of the above, almost nothing about the Prima Macula is conveyed properly. We know it’s been around for years and is genetic to the de Rune Family, but why hasn’t any other immediate member gotten it? If you want to say it was limited in affliction, then how were so many alchemists able to garner enough knowledge about it to concoct a giant medical tome? Why does it create a connection with the plague rats? Why does it lead to the host having a predilection towards evil? How did Vitalis find out? Why does a simple blood transfusion enable transference of its ratto-kinetic properties? Wtf does Hugo mean in the finale that the rats are good entities?

Yeah, none of these questions are answered or even alluded to having a decent explanation. All cards on the table, part of me feels the game would’ve been better off walking that same fine line Pan’s Labyrinth did between its fantasy and grounded elements; keeping the deeper mysteries up-for-interpretation whilst showing things beyond human comprehension. Innocence does that for a time till the writers inadvertently decide to go full exposition with the lore dumps and power reveals. Seeing Vitalis create tornadoes of vermin is silly compared to the realistic imagery players are fed before.

+++Amicia and Hugo are let into a hut owned by a blighted spinster who conveniently has fresh clothes that perfectly fit them, as well as a work bench for them to craft stuff.
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