Asobo Studio · Oct 18, 2022
I got a bit nostalgic this year. For last year, to be specific. Last year around this time I spontaneously picked up and played through Plague Tale: Innocence. I promised to eventually go for the then brand new sequel, but as the first game had some frustrating sections, issues with the controls and a stressful story with some roadblock boss battles, I have been delaying that for a while. Luckily the holidays got to me and I figured given my health state not being the best it would be time for a game completion vacation. Requiem jumps back into the plot, where the story left the De Rune children Amicia (a slingshot killer and alchemy apprentice) and Hugo (little ratboy, with the gift and curse of controling rats) in the previous game. Reunited with their mother and the alchemic boy Lucas and on their way to a safe haven town, where they can connect with the local alchemist to figure out what's the matter with Hugo, only to find bigger rat piles, the stench of death, more soldiers and another powerful overlord on their trace. Well to start off with the best, Requiem is a beautiful game. Especially some of the environments feel flat out like colourful vacation locations you'd dish out a small fortune to visit. Story overall ends on a high note and finally gives a lot of the answers the first game set questions for. I guess it does have a bit of "annoying children thinking they know better" vibe and at times the kids will dig into dangerous places to provide forced gameplay, when the obvious solution could be to just - idk, say they'll come back later or say it's not possible at the moment - but you need your dose of gameplay, right? And their rashness always somehow ends up propelling the plot forward. Full dislosure: I don't hate the characters, I'm just a 31-year old looking at kids making what I feel are dumb decisions and those sometimes being justified by convenience isn't exactly brightening my concerned old asses' day. But onwards with more positives: I suppose the developers have listened to some player feedback and fixed a lot of the inconveniences of the first game. Aiming with the slingshot works flawlessly now. You no longer have to stock up on pebbles. Wanted cutscene skipping? You got it! No more watching a minute long intro to a guy pushing a cart in front of you only for you to get slaughtered by 8 soldiers around the corner, over and over again! (...now you just die over and over again) Even autosaving is way more frequent and convenient now. I guess not everybody will agree with it, but they also got rid of insta-kills, meaning human enemies are no longer one-shot lethal (unless they kept that on higher difficulties, but I found commentary online suggesting the opposite). Rats will still mercilessly kill you though. Those shts know no mercy. But when they are not inconveniencing you, I was pleased to find out you can sometimes just try outmaneuvering and outrunning human enemies now to see if you make it to the next checkpoint before they can stop you - which makes them disappear like **☆☆☆**magic**☆☆☆**! No boss battles: Not gonna lie, I was a bit relived about it on my first playthrough. Mostly because I still remember the breather I took upon reaching the final boss in the previous game after failing to defeat him on day #1. But in retrospect it is a bit dissapointing they got rid of them altogether, especially with new action mechanics. Not to say the game lacks spectacle and there are multi-enemy wave sections that replace the concept decently enough, but I would appreciate another Rat Pope boss battle. Instead we just got some warlord count with a big round head probably intentionally exposed for most of the game to taunt you into wanting to plant a pebble into it. But don't be too mean to Vicky, he's actually a well-written character all things considered. He's just not Papa Nihil from the rock band Ghost. Crossbow newly added to the arsenal: Several chapters into the story Amicia acquires a crossbow, as a more certain way of killing oponnents. I noticed they got rid of the alchemy trick that makes helmeted soldiers drop their headwear to rebalance various of Amicia's abilities. Crossbows will kill everything but the really heavy armor, which you have to dismantle with alchemy and a sling shot to uncover a weak point. The crossbow is great, but the arrows are a bit scarce and you can't craft them. It was not uncommon for me to find myself without any means of killing oponnents with helmets, having to resort to alternative methods of progression than killing. Overall the game is a beautiful sequel to the first game, but it's not that massive of a game changer in terms of new gameplay additions. It's still a combination of puzzle stealthing and survival action and it's not one of those games that starts you off with a full set of abilities from the previous game, adding new abilities as it goes along, but will during it's early stages actively re-introduce you to the same tricks you were familiar with already. I guess it rebalanced those a bit, the crossbow and use of tar are new, but I wouldn't say I was too blown away by anything gameplay-wise But hey, I'd still fully recommend it to give it a shot on PS5. It should be currently free on Playstation Plus, but I f**ked up when I bought it physically just hours before the January announcement for PS Plus went out. Oh, well.
Sad ending
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