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A Plague Tale: Innocence - Dodging Rats and Inquisitors in medieval France

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,086
Location
Bulgaria
It looks like a fucking 10 hours escort quest with the most obnoxious retarded kid in the land. I am just watching Cohh and feel like strangling the little fucker. Tho the girl is very fuckable.
 

Terenty

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 29, 2018
Messages
1,367
Yeah, im surprised by the universal acclaim this game receives, from critics to gamers on steam, metacritics. The gameplay is beyond linear and basic and the story is as cliche as it can get. The graphics is poor too
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,086
Location
Bulgaria
Yeah, im surprised by the universal acclaim this game receives, from critics to gamers on steam, metacritics. The gameplay is beyond linear and basic and the story is as cliche as it can get. The graphics is poor too
It is one of those artsy shit that everyone likes but very few buy it. Like journey and tales of two brothers. If that cunt totalbiscuit was alive he would have shilled it to high heaven.
 

Mark Richard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2016
Messages
1,192
Deja vu. In 2012 another French studio released a stealth/puzzle adventure game called Amy, which involved guiding a child with supernatural powers through an apocalyptic scenario and protecting her from a militant organization bent on using said child for their own ends. The major difference is A Plague Tale looks like it had ten zillion dollars pumped into it.
 

Terenty

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 29, 2018
Messages
1,367
It is one of those artsy shit that everyone likes but very few buy it. Like journey and tales of two brothers.

Hey Brothers is a legit game dont shit on it, better play it for yourself. Otherwise i agree about artsy shit games, but its not only retarded journos who praise it, it has like 90% approval on Steam that is strange
 

Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,765
Location
dm6
Deja vu. In 2012 another French studio released a stealth/puzzle adventure game called Amy, which involved guiding a child with supernatural powers through an apocalyptic scenario and protecting her from a militant organization bent on using said child for their own ends. The major difference is A Plague Tale looks like it had ten zillion dollars pumped into it.

Amy was fucking terrible. This one seems alright.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,086
Location
Bulgaria
It is one of those artsy shit that everyone likes but very few buy it. Like journey and tales of two brothers.

Hey Brothers is a legit game dont shit on it, better play it for yourself. Otherwise i agree about artsy shit games, but its not only retarded journos who praise it, it has like 90% approval on Steam that is strange
Meh it is the same game as this. It is very niche game with rabbit fanboys,it is natural that a third of them to post a review.
 

Ovg

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
921
Location
Potato
I was in it for the plague only. Too bad it was some magical plague though.

I don't dislike it though, I had a good time, yet not worth the price. But it was ok.
 

Martyr

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2018
Messages
1,098
Location
Bavaria
I was in it for the plague only. Too bad it was some magical plague though.

I don't dislike it though, I had a good time, yet not worth the price. But it was ok.
"magical plague"? so it's not about the historical plague but something done by an evil wizurd??
wow, instantly lost all interest.
 

Ezeekiel

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 19, 2016
Messages
1,783
It wouldn't make sense if it was about the black plague anyway. The rats would have to be mostly wiped out for the fleas which carry the bp to attack humans in the first place, no?
Instead the rats basically are the plague here and somehow swarm and consume people in seconds.
 

Ovg

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
921
Location
Potato
Its both the original and true classic boils, but it's a lot more magical rats consuming people in seconds, strange inquisitors technology that's somewhat medievalish just what the fuck.

The story is quite ok, I liked most of the characters, though the kid who is your girl from last of us recycled in medieval France is an annoying sack of shit. So a typical very young kid I guess. That's realistic.

The protagonist suffers from Lara croft psychopathy, crying after her first kill, then slaughtering armies for the lulzy. She does some things that you know are a bad idea, but the game is lineral so no way to avoid doing the stupid.

The best character is probably the thief lady that joins you mid game and I sorta liked the blacksmith. The ending seems rushed, the final battle being equally frustrating, weird but fitting to the overall setting and just plain corny..

If you can get it for free, it's an experience. There were inspired moments where the story picked up and moments that are "writer has no idea what to do next, so have this boring moment", though the latter are helped by the chars talking through them, or that desire to see what's next. I must say the ending, the very ending, was just my endurance pushing me through to see how they wrap it up.

You can tell they put a lot of effort into the first 3/4ths of the game, the plague seems interesting, a malevolent force, the setting is dark, then suddenly, avengers happens and you get superpowered and not explained enough why ways of beating your generic stupid as shit AI.

All in all, if it was, say 10 Euros I would say buy it. It's good enough for that. But the pricing is now ridiculous, the game suffers from a severe case of overhyping and just not good enough mechanics.

Diagnosis: overhype made us expect something great, we got a steady decline from good-ish to moderate to simply ridiculous. If they had spent more time, more money, more talent. It could have been so much more.


At first I thought the rats are almost a great artistic metaphor for the plague and it was great and oppressive, it almost feels like the first writer quit somewhere before the game was finished.

:edit:

You can tell they lost the spark and love for it and the exact moment it happened. There's a lot of extra interactive objects, interesting sights and so on for the first half? 3/4ths? Then they just said fuck it and pushed forward without inspiration or that same level of care.

This got long. Too long for my liking, but last point. The alchemy, the understanding of medieval times, it all goes out the window when magic shows up or whatever it was. A plot fast forward device more than magic.

editing the edit

I typed it up on the train, so excuse all the bad english I put into that, well, mini-review? I just couldn't type properly while watching my shit and making sure I get out at the right station. Anyway, if you like some medieval low-fantasy, where alchemy is real? The game has you set for the first 3/4ths. You should probably get it just for that. There just aren't enough games with the same level of care put into their design. Though, please by God himself, wait until the game goes on sale or, ekhm, full demo it.

I would refund it, but I'm torn. I want more. I loved the thing they did with it until they felt they had to wrap up the story. If they are to release more games, games that are as detailed as this one was at first, I am all for it. If they think they did a good job with the ending, I feel like that studio already lost. It's a wild card all in all. If they somehow end up making more games. I hope they can make the gameplay less generic, get some proper AI guys to fix the 2000s level guard AI, that they manage to keep it alchemy-maybe-magick-maybe-science (as seen by medievals), then, we are witnessing a birth of a good studio. Otherwise they are lost forever and we should not support those fucks.
 
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Ovg

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
921
Location
Potato
It wouldn't make sense if it was about the black plague anyway. The rats would have to be mostly wiped out for the fleas which carry the bp to attack humans in the first place, no?
Instead the rats basically are the plague here and somehow swarm and consume people in seconds.
Far as I remember, bubonic plague in rats is not even half as virulent as it was in it's first major contact with western europe.
 

Belegarsson

Think about hairy dwarfs all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Patron
Joined
Oct 20, 2015
Messages
1,261
Location
Uwotopia
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Oh I forgot to writing a short review for this game back when I finished it.

Basically, even though my first impression was largely solid, the game's novelty quickly wore off after 5 hours. While you control the big sister holding little brother's hand and guide them through danger, the game treats them as a singular entity, everything you do in this game is just bog standard crouch sneak, aim and shoot, nothing requires both characters to overcome challenges except for one single small section.

The game is very on rail, the solution for a barrier blocking player's path is always presented in the most obvious way, you don't need good perception or finesse skill to get through any challenge. The kids are weak... on paper, the big sister is actually a very skillful predator as she can instakill with a rock aimed straight at a guard's head. If they wear helmet then you can use another special rock to lure rat underneath them. This design came off as confusing to me, because they wanted these runaways to struggle among a bleak world yet they aren't really that helpless in gameplay. In fact I'd say the big sister is the most lethal hunter in the entire game thanks to haggressive auto aim and just pure better maneuver ability than all enemies.

The writing is... meh, it had a pretty intriguing first act, a nice tie between the little brother and the plague's origin. But the moment to moment storytelling isn't gripping enough. A lot of weird offbeat plot points like the brother of an outlaw, he didn't escape successfully with the gang then several chapters later he's back unharmed, for some reasons. The last 1/3 before the final showdown got stretched way too thin, with the whole "saving a particular person" thing downplayed the atmosphere. This is also the part when you can freely kill guards with a new special ability.

Honestly I think the devs had the right idea but didn't pull off the execution well. The first runaway sections are crazy good, but it just couldn't keep the momentum afterwards. Mediocre gameplay, boring writing, good but repetitive visual <= TL;DR. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is the better, more emotional mechanically game that sparked a far greater message about siblings' ties, play it instead.
 
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DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Played the demo and it seems like a cool movie, but for such linear and directed gameplay I don't think it's worth the current $30 price, let alone $50. I'll buy it in some $15 sale someday, because it looks nice and I like stealth. In general though games pretending to be movies just pisses me off.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
I liked the demo enough to buy it once it goes on deeper discount. The realization of the medieval world seemed quite nice.
 

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
Übermensch Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
11,557
Location
LAND OF THE FREE & HOME OF THE BRAVE
Wow. Heard about this game, been playing it a couple hours. I got it secondhand off a table of otherwise really crappy titles, just happening to notice it flipping through and decided I could not go wrong at that price, would give it a try.

What an awesome high concept computer game and they pulled it off, too. Triple AAA graphics and really creepy in many places.

SURVIVAL HORROR + HISTORICAL DRAMA + BLACK PLAGUE + KILLER RAT SWARMS + INSANE ITZ HORDES BURNING WITCHES + KICKASS GIRL HERO PROTAGONIST TAKING OUT THE TRASH WITH HER SUPERSLING

I was only reading an account of the Black Plague a couple months back and thought, this would actually make a great survival horror game but seriously who would play it? Too esoteric.

It's like being in a movie sometimes, other times it is elite survival horror and sometimes it's just METAL GEAR SOLID in the Middle Ages. Most of the stealth is really challenging and has clever mechanics.

The Gamergate bitches always whining about no good video games with females, well, here's one and it is FANTASTIC.

Highly recommend, 5 stars.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
Played it for nothing on my son's Game Pass account.

Definitely one to play for the atmosphere because the gameplay is pretty basic and what action there is is fairly minimal. I felt most of the best levels were towards the first half of the game - by the end it's reusing locations you've already visited a lot. I was intrigued enough to finish the game but happy for it to end when it did.
 

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