Name: A Plague Tale: Innocence
Item: A Plague Tale: Innocence
Rating: 7
Author: Bigby's Gaming Hand

Intro: If you've played The Last of Us, then this might be something for you. This game is set during the year 1349, a time when the second bubonic plague was at its peak. Despite seeming like a game for the horror genre, there are no jumpscares, just a promising new IP from Asobo Studio, with your progression hinging on solving puzzles while evading, hiding from, or combating rats, or soldiers, or both.

Gameplay:

Camera: 3rd Person Camera Controls. No manual controls to switch shoulders, but there are built-in scenarios where camera switches to other shoulder. Movement has sensitivity slider but camera's movement speed ramps.

Movement: Protag has three variations of movement based on scene context. Normally, protag will either walk or jog, based on context. But can crouch to engage stealth and move under environment objects or within stealth grass. Has also Sprint button that will disengage crouch/stealth. Protag might not be allowed to sprint in certain scenes. Sprint also increases speed of detection. Protag also has dodge, but is useful only in very specific scenarios.

Combat: Protag gains ability to do combat early in the story and difficulty of combat increases as more abilities are provided to the player. All combat is done at range. Engaging in melee will usually result to a scripted game over, except in certain scenarios. Protag also gains upgrades for their combat abilities.

Economy: Player progression depends heavily on crafting. There are no currencies related to character progression. Player will need to pick up items for crafting to improve abilities. Crafting materials are limited and do not respawn. Exploration is rewarded with either more crafting materials or collectibles. Collectibles provides lore and achievements, nothing else. If you've played TLoU, you'll recognize this mechanic.

UI: UI provide some customization. There are two standard presets, Standard which provides all UI in the game. Immersive, which removes most UI, except for important UI elements like environment interaction prompts, reticle, and tutorials. Subtitles are also available.

Saves: There are 3 save slots. These save slots include chapter progression and game preferences as part of the save profile. There are also checkpoints in a chapter where you can continue from after quitting. Certain checkpoints have triggers, like picking up collectibles, upgrading tools, and progression. Make sure you don't trigger a checkpoint during combat or you might trigger the checkpoint right before a game over. I had this happen to me during the late parts of the game.

Minigames: There are no minigames.

Bugs: No game-stopping bugs encountered in playthrough. Stealth mechanic does not feel polished. Archers have a very high detection range and sometimes feel like it passes through objects. Rat detection mechanic felt it was given more love than the stealth detection mechanic. Auto-aim for targets that are close to each other is also a pain, since a slight movement could change the target and mean that the outcome is different, since shooting the head means detection but taking out their light and getting them eaten by rats is not.

Music:

There's not really a song that stood out for me that I loved. Delivery of the music did not feel out of place. Lots of string instruments were used, possibly to give out that rural 1300s vibe. But Mystical Castle felt unnecessarily intense to the point of jumpscare-y without the jumpscare when it first played.

Composer: Olivier Derivier. Composer for Dying Light 2.

Number of Tracks: 26 tracks

OST in Spotify: Yes

Story:

I am satisfied with the story. The story's execution felt natural and that only added to the experience. But sometimes there is the weird character maturity/motivation shifts that changes to the drive the story or to add to the drama.

Voice Acting: All story scripts are fully voiced. Game comes with 3 voice languages, English, German, and French. I particularly liked Hugo's voice and his interactions with everyone. Amicia comes at a close second.

Multiple Endings: No. Only one ending. Linear progression.

Narration: Game follows the story of Amicia and Hugo. Some of the story is told through the environment, with the support of voice lines from the main characters. Collectibles also provides lore. Both of these are provided thru thorough exploration of the environment.

Pacing: The story's pacing felt natural. Timeskips are also used to imply some character progression, and weather changes in response to these timeskips. It does not feel like everything happened in the span of a week.

Worldbuilding: You need to apply some suspension of disbelief with the rats. The setting takes place in the 1340s, at the same time as the historic second bubonic plague. Setting feels correct. Nothing too out of place. However, the game shifts the actual known threat to rats and their bites instead of just the plague itself. Some cutscenes and environment interaction seem to imply people can be contagious, enough to kill sick people for it, but this idea was never a threat to the characters. Lastly, loved the fact that they kept themselves from doing a plague doctor reference since plague doctor masks only started appearing in the 1600s.

Lifespan:

Chapter Select/New Game+: Chapter Select is immediately available after finishing a game. Since it is one ending, linear progression, a new game+ is really just for getting everything you missed.

DLCs: Only cosmetic DLCs. No story content from DLCs.

Duration: HowLongToBeat lists this as 10 hours. I beat the game within 12 hours.

Graphics:

The graphics of this game is at the triple A level. Detailbuilding is also remarkable. Nothing really felt out of place. I, however, prefer the nighttime scenes of this game because of how the light works.

Graphic Settings: Extensive graphics settings. No benchmarking. TAA can't be turned off via the in-game settings. There's also an "Auto" setting for the graphics, which possibly adjusts the graphics based on load(?). There's also an auto select in the game settings itself that chooses the best setting based on your hardware.

Optimizations: YMMV. Graphics felt unoptimized. Frame drops are experienced despite running the game at a setting lower than the recommended. Either the issue comes from the rats' CPU consumption or from something else. Also, your CPU will also take more load than normal, possibly due to the rats.

Achievements:

Missable Achievements: Lots of missable achievements. But chapter select will allow you to easily try them again.

Multiplayer-Only Achievements: No multiplayer.

Time-based Achievements: None.

High-Skill Achievements: The aim training achievement at the start of the game is possibly the only "skill-based" achievement in the game. Other than that, it's all achievements that are awarded through exploration.

Accessibility:

Varying Difficulty: None. Auto-aim, named aim assist, is available and can be set to normal and low.

Controller Support: Yes, with availabilty of PS4 prompts of DS4 controllers.

In-game Button Remapping: Keyboard remapping is available. Controller remapping is not, but there are two presets to choose from.

Subtitles: Yes

Pause in Cutscenes: Yes

Hold button to Skip Cutscenes: Yes

Requires Button Mashing: Yes. Cannot be changed.

Tutorials: Yes.

Multiplayer: No Multiplayer

LAN:

Online-Coop:

Online-PVP:

Intro: If you've played The Last of Us, then this might be something for you. This game is set during the year 1349, a time when the second bubonic plague was at its peak. Despite seeming like a game for the horror genre, there are no jumpscares, just a promising new IP from Asobo Studio, with your progression hinging on solving puzzles while evading, hiding from, or combating rats, or soldiers, or both.Gameplay:	Camera: 3rd Person Camera Controls. No manual controls to switch shoulders, but there are built-in scenarios where camera switches to other shoulder. Movement has sensitivity slider but camera's movement speed ramps.	Movement: Protag has three variations of movement based on scene context. Normally, protag will either walk or jog, based on context. But can crouch to engage stealth and move under environment objects or within stealth grass. Has also Sprint button that will disengage crouch/stealth. Protag might not be allowed to sprint in certain scenes. Sprint also increases speed of detection. Protag also has dodge, but is useful only in very specific scenarios.	Combat: Protag gains ability to do combat early in the story and difficulty of combat increases as more abilities are provided to the player. All combat is done at range. Engaging in melee will usually result to a scripted game over, except in certain scenarios. Protag also gains upgrades for their combat abilities.	Economy: Player progression depends heavily on crafting. There are no currencies related to character progression. Player will need to pick up items for crafting to improve abilities. Crafting materials are limited and do not respawn. Exploration is rewarded with either more crafting materials or collectibles. Collectibles provides lore and achievements, nothing else. If you've played TLoU, you'll recognize this mechanic.	UI: UI provide some customization. There are two standard presets, Standard which provides all UI in the game. Immersive, which removes most UI, except for important UI elements like environment interaction prompts, reticle, and tutorials. Subtitles are also available.	Saves: There are 3 save slots. These save slots include chapter progression and game preferences as part of the save profile. There are also checkpoints in a chapter where you can continue from after quitting. Certain checkpoints have triggers, like picking up collectibles, upgrading tools, and progression. Make sure you don't trigger a checkpoint during combat or you might trigger the checkpoint right before a game over. I had this happen to me during the late parts of the game.	Minigames: There are no minigames.	Bugs: No game-stopping bugs encountered in playthrough. Stealth mechanic does not feel polished. Archers have a very high detection range and sometimes feel like it passes through objects. Rat detection mechanic felt it was given more love than the stealth detection mechanic. Auto-aim for targets that are close to each other is also a pain, since a slight movement could change the target and mean that the outcome is different, since shooting the head means detection but taking out their light and getting them eaten by rats is not. Music:There's not really a song that stood out for me that I loved. Delivery of the music did not feel out of place. Lots of string instruments were used, possibly to give out that rural 1300s vibe. But Mystical Castle felt unnecessarily intense to the point of jumpscare-y without the jumpscare when it first played.	Composer: Olivier Derivier. Composer for Dying Light 2.	Number of Tracks: 26 tracks	OST in Spotify: YesStory: I am satisfied with the story. The story's execution felt natural and that only added to the experience. But sometimes there is the weird character maturity/motivation shifts that changes to the drive the story or to add to the drama.	Voice Acting: All story scripts are fully voiced. Game comes with 3 voice languages, English, German, and French. I particularly liked Hugo's voice and his interactions with everyone. Amicia comes at a close second.	Multiple Endings: No. Only one ending. Linear progression.	Narration: Game follows the story of Amicia and Hugo. Some of the story is told through the environment, with the support of voice lines from the main characters. Collectibles also provides lore. Both of these are provided thru thorough exploration of the environment.	Pacing: The story's pacing felt natural. Timeskips are also used to imply some character progression, and weather changes in response to these timeskips. It does not feel like everything happened in the span of a week. 	Worldbuilding: You need to apply some suspension of disbelief with the rats. The setting takes place in the 1340s, at the same time as the historic second bubonic plague. Setting feels correct. Nothing too out of place. However, the game shifts the actual known threat to rats and their bites instead of just the plague itself. Some cutscenes and environment interaction seem to imply people can be contagious, enough to kill sick people for it, but this idea was never a threat to the characters. Lastly, loved the fact that they kept themselves from doing a plague doctor reference since plague doctor masks only started appearing in the 1600s. Lifespan:	Chapter Select/New Game+: Chapter Select is immediately available after finishing a game. Since it is one ending, linear progression, a new game+ is really just for getting everything you missed.	DLCs: Only cosmetic DLCs. No story content from DLCs.	Duration: HowLongToBeat lists this as 10 hours. I beat the game within 12 hours. Graphics: 	The graphics of this game is at the triple A level. Detailbuilding is also remarkable. Nothing really felt out of place. I, however, prefer the nighttime scenes of this game because of how the light works.	Graphic Settings: Extensive graphics settings. No benchmarking. TAA can't be turned off via the in-game settings. There's also an "Auto" setting for the graphics, which possibly adjusts the graphics based on load(?). There's also an auto select in the game settings itself that chooses the best setting based on your hardware.	Optimizations: YMMV. Graphics felt unoptimized. Frame drops are experienced despite running the game at a setting lower than the recommended. Either the issue comes from the rats' CPU consumption or from something else. Also, your CPU will also take more load than normal, possibly due to the rats.Achievements: 	Missable Achievements: Lots of missable achievements. But chapter select will allow you to easily try them again.	Multiplayer-Only Achievements: No multiplayer.	Time-based Achievements: None.	High-Skill Achievements: The aim training achievement at the start of the game is possibly the only "skill-based" achievement in the game. Other than that, it's all achievements that are awarded through exploration.Accessibility: 	Varying Difficulty: None. Auto-aim, named aim assist, is available and can be set to normal and low.	Controller Support: Yes, with availabilty of PS4 prompts of DS4 controllers. 	In-game Button Remapping: Keyboard remapping is available. Controller remapping is not, but there are two presets to choose from.	Subtitles: Yes	Pause in Cutscenes: Yes	Hold button to Skip Cutscenes: Yes	Requires Button Mashing: Yes. Cannot be changed.	Tutorials: Yes.Multiplayer: No Multiplayer		LAN:	Online-Coop:	Online-PVP:

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Player Score

Bigby's Gaming Hand