Hi again. No politics this time, just a short review.
Earlier this year Steam incentivized me to throw my money on their face due some random special offer, and I got a copy of A Plague Tale: Innocence — also, why not to play a game about pandemic during a real world pandemic. My fellow anon reader, what a game.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a game developed by a French company called Asobo Studio, released in 2019. The initial setting is already interesting enough: in year 1348, the morbid black death is devastating the European population, killing millions of people of a cruel disease transmitted by fleas living on rats, brought to Europe from eastern of Asia (yes, maybe future China and adjacency). You, the protagonist, is a girl called Amicia de Rune, daughter of some nobles living in old French territories, trying to live peacefully in her mansion. To add insult to injury, the Britons is also invading the region, so soon she is going that life is not some greenish land with rainbows and unicorns. Amicia’s relationship with her mother Beatrice is not that great, and she has a younger brother, Hugo, which is a ill kid since his birth. She also doesn’t have much contact with Hugo, but believe in me, this will be a fantastic starting point.
Then, one day, while walking some fucking beautiful forest (the game is visually breathtaking) with her father Robert and the dog Lion, something (spoilers below), but something very, very bad happens with the adorable dog. It will be just the start of the disgrace that will rain upon de Rune family.
Spoilers: START
The characters
If you are here, is because you don’t care spoilers. Let’s go on.
After Amicia see her dog being ate alive by ferocial rats (more on that later), and retuning in despair to her home, she finds her mother Beatrice shut in trying to find a cure for Hugo. The mother is not exactly a lovely one, but I can’t really blame her: she is trying to develop a potion, a drug to cure a mysterious disease that Hugo has. It all her life on this, studying a shitload of books and practicing alchemy for years. But the small talk between Amicia and Beatrice is promptly interrupted by some shouts outside the house, where from the window the girl sees a fearful scene: the Inquisition is invading the de Rune estate, killing her father and searching for Hugo. From there, we have the start of our journey, fleeing the inquisition and going for a definitive cure for the boy.
Amicia de Rune
Amicia is a strong girl. The most part of the game is her carrying and protecting Hugo, after her mother, seconds before dying, asks to take the boy to Laurentius, a very famous alchemist that may have the cure for Hugo disease. Amicia’s voice is amicable, serene, incredibly dubbed (for my non-French ears) by Léopoldine Serre. She tries the best to make Hugo comfortable, because she is not close to him. Now, the two needs to survive a hostile environment where the Inquisition, the Britons and the rats can appear from every direction. The way she softly speaks to Hugo, trying to convince him not to flee, not to speak too loud, or to help her is a high point of the brothers relationship. If at the start Hugo is unknown to her, as the history progresses, both starts to work together to overcome the enemies. But only cooperation and team work is nothing if you get killed, so Amicia’s needs a weapon. A slingshot. Yes, no swords, no shields, no knives. A sturdy slingshot is all what she (well, she will use other kind-of-weapons later) has to fight enemies, besides being stealthy as long she can.
Hugo de Rune
A innocent boy, caught in the middle of the storm he can’t understand. His unknown disease leaves like scars on the skin, growing every day and making him weaker. I could say Hugo may be at the start of the journey an autistic kid, but it is just a characteristic of being alone too much time — basically the only person he has contact is Beatrice. Although it would like he is a burden to be carried by Amicia, his role will be a vital point for the game, interestingly helping the sister in the final battle. He is smart, is not a crybaby, and because of the adversities Hugo will quickly mature. After all, they need to survive.
But why Inquisition is going after Hugo?
What Hugo has is Prima Macula, a power that released by the end of game, where you will temporarily switch from Amicia’s perspective to Hugo’s one, where rats can be controlled by Hugo’s powers. The Macula is something the only a few bloodlines have and appears around each thousand years, where together a big plague will rave the humanity (are you asking what it was the plague before? The Plague of Justinian, around 500 DC. Nice detail). So, it is not a coincidence between the black death and Hugo’s disease, because the same power can be used to end the plague for good. Kudos to the voice actress Cécile Gatto, for the amazing job.
The rats (yes, rats!)
Remember that the plague death was spread by fleas in rats? Let’s say that the game just made a crucial poetic license in the world history: the rats not only give people the disease, but also, eat them. No jokes, as you will walk the scenary, you will commonly find bloody gory dissolved corps due rats bites, eating all your skin and muscles, and maybe left behind some guts and bones. Rats will pop up from the underground, cause earthquakes, and even will form a gruesome torando! It is not a game for the afraid of blood, you will see both the horrors of the black death and also the horrors inflicted by the Inquisition. Hanged bodies, charred bodies, impaled people. For the name of God, the Church won’t let you peacefully die. Ok, let’s go back to the rats: they are the enemy too. They are afraid of light, so a torch will be your second weapon to avoid being killed. Because they are so terrifying, an useful strategy will be greatly used: just throw a stone on the enemy’s light to break, and see them being eaten alive by swarms of ugly rats. Nice!
Vitalis Bénévent
The final boss, the Inquisitor, the intend-to-be-eviler-than-the-pope. A old man with an ugly face, who leads the Inquisition to burn all of heretics, wants to have the Macula power only for him, to control all the world (if they knew America’s existence at the time). But he has a problem: he was biten by the rats and now the disease flow through his blood, the only way to control it is to give frequent blood transfusions. Although initially Hugo can’t control the Macula power, Vitalis is the one, after capture him, to force the kid to use it. Because the Inquisitor got a blood transfusion form Hugo, he can also control the rats, but modified rats: they are not afraid of light anymore. Vitalis will use such white haired rats in the final battle, to try to win against the black rats of Hugo. Dubbed by Féodor Atkine.
Many others will appear during the journey, like the brothers Mélie and Artur; the alchemist Laurentius and his pupil, Lucas; the son of a dead blacksmith called Rodric; and the secondary enemy, subordinated to Vitalis, Nicholas. I was almost forgetting one special character: death. Death everywhere, like in real middle ages.
A spoilish and bloody gallery below:
Spoilers: END
Fucking beautiful graphics
I can’t describe the first time I saw this beautiful cathedral below. The ambient light, the yellowish apocalyptic landspace, the despair revolving around. The apocalyptic feeling in every scene, in every time of the day. I really like the chromatic aberration filter and the field of depth effects. The reflection of the light on the water, the medieval stone buildings, the snow on the top of the roofs. The characters faces are a separately big plus, being realistic and not falling in the uncanny valley. Everything looks beautiful, well done and made with care, even the body parts laying around. No graphical bugs as far I can tell. And then…
the rats.
Don’t be afraid because thousand of evil creatures will appear in your screen making screeching sounds. They won’t bite you (sorry), because they were carefully programed to not overwhelm your graphic card (they used a tactic of render the details of the rats near to year. This way the game can show literally thousand of rats moving on screen with no perceptible lose of performance). I would say that sometimes they lack details, but it is not important when a pile of monsters is going in your direction to rip off your intestines alive.
Enjoy the sightseeing. The game even has a photo menu, where you can change the angle of the camera, depth of field, colors, zoom, etc. to take pictures. The first time I thought it was a dumb feature, but then sometimes I got myself using it. So no more excuse to not post on Instagram!
Non-spoilish gallery below:
Great music
I am a kind of soundtrack enthusiast, so it is obvious that I listened after playing the game the entire album on YouTube. Sweet melodies mixed with dissonant notes from low pitch cellos (a lot of cellos), bringing despair and uneasy feeling to your ears, as you can hear just in the opening of the game. Many chord instruments in medieval touch, slow paced, then a crescendo ending in shivering. Sometimes “wrong” notes are played, especially when rats goes close to you, involving the game atmosphere in terror. I wouldn’t say this soundtrack is a masterpiece, but it is beautiful enough for the experience. The composer in Olivier Deriviere and you can buy the music in Bandcamp.
Not terrible, not great gameplay
Well, I think it is the lowest point of the game. As I said, your main weapon will be a slingshot, but you will use many artifacts, like explosives, torch igniters, poison, rocks to hit metallic objects to distracts enemies, etc. I would say that for the extension of the game (around 12 hours), many of them are underused, only to specific battles or situations. You will usually put them on your slingshot and throw it, nothing more. But the thing the really irritates me was to use the slingshot it was too easy. Yes, easy. Your aim is assisted, that means if you are close enough of your target the aim will magnetically be attracted to it, and everything you need to do is release the mouse button. I wouldn’t say the game is too easy (I died many times), but the shooting system is. I know, they needed this feature for the filthy console gamers that can’t aim properly using analog button, but for the PC version it is reasonable to have a toggle to turn it on or off. What I have done to make a little bit harder was to disable the crosshair, but still wasn’t enough to bring the challenge back. I know, it is a story-driven, third person, no choice, linear game, so maybe the aim assistance was thought lightly, but I think this made this beautiful game worse. Besides, the game also has a update system, to improve the character (for example, to make the slingshot strong enough to kill the opponent, or to carry more material, or to fast recharge, etc), but the system is very simple, you don’t need to think too much, and even if you don’t get material enough or pay attention enough to it beat the game is just ok. The materials that you can use to make potions, or improve the weapons are not scarce (it is linear after all) and if you look around enough you almost never feel you are too weak. Finally, you can collect special items in the scenery to build up a small encyclopedia of the game universe, but it is only informative and it is not required to finish the game.
You will find some places that requires some puzzle resolving thinking, but no puzzle is impossibly hard, at the most, a little bit challenging (especially in the castle ruins stage). Remember, the game is linear, closed world, so there’s no reason to dig around to find solutions, every one has only one answer. I think in this case it is good to not have too much hindrance on the storyline flow.
I caught only one blocking bug in certain scene that I needed to ask help to the Google, but it is possible to “unbug” it accidentally if you explore around.
Conclusion
Izi pizi, solid recommend. It is a gory, bloody, tragical story, but it is a heartwarming, cute, familiar one. It is about a familiar bond, a sister and brother alone in a cruel world, protecting the each other backs. I can’t say that I cried in some scenes, it was because some stray dust and pollution entered in my eye coincidentally at the same time I swear.
The lightning, scenery, story, soundtrack and voice acting (please, play with the French one!) has evolved me in such way that it was hard to stop a game session to sleep. It is not for the faint hearted, but surely for the big hearted. A story of pandemic, before corona was cool.
Next time, the harsh fate of Hong Kong.
