3.5/5 ★ – nickmazz15's review of A Plague Tale: Innocence.

A PLAGUE TALE: INNOCENCE REVIEW - Solid stealth driven game. Gameplay is tense and does a good job at forcing you to use all at your disposal to get around enemies and hordes of ravenous rats. The game does a great job at making you feel like you’re small when matched up against soldiers and the legions of plagued rats. You feel like any misstep could cost you and you have to think around obstacles. I will say almost half the game feels very tutorial. You gain new equipment at least every two chapters and the ensuing levels feel like they’re teaching you how to use said new equipment. With many of the chapters being completable in about forty minutes, a handful in even ten-ish minutes, a lot of the game feels like its teaching you stuff mechanic wise which isn’t always a challenge. The last few chapters introduce this new mechanic that I found a bit silly. The game is relatively grounded but towards the end it really taps into some fantasy abilities that I didn’t much care for. It in theory makes the gameplay easier but to combat that the game starts to throw more enemies at you and with the tight level design makes stealth much more of a chore. The story is pretty solid. You follow a sister and brother, Amicia and Hugo, on the run who are connecting for really the first time after being separated for much of their lives. As someone who has an older sister, the narrative really hit home for me in certain areas. With the life threatening situation Amicia and Hugo are in they’re forced to make horrific decisions that kids shouldn’t have to. You feel that loss of innocence (as the title suggests haha) and how it affects their relationship. The story really taps into the age difference between the two. Amicia is older, more mature and distrusting. While Hugo is five years old and more optimistic. Amicia, while wanting to take care of her brother, still holds some resentment for Hugo since his mother gave him most of her attention due to his illness while Hugo really wants to connect with and have fun with his sister for the first time. Its this well done layered relationship. I really like how gameplay wise you have to both take care of Hugo while use him to solve puzzles. Its this great balancing act that I wish was the whole game. A supporting cast is introduced throughout the game and they’re good but gameplay wise they’re not as interesting to go through levels with as Hugo. The environmental graphics and character models are pretty good but the emoting with the character models isn’t crisp which somewhat affects the emotional impact of scenes but the voice performances all around are great. The music is tremendous. Tense & atmospheric when it needs to be and whimsical & beautiful when it has to be. Overall, A Plague Tale: Innocence does some really good stuff but feels like its trying to figure itself out in some places. I feel like the sequel, Requiem, will address all my issues and Im looking forward to playing it.