A plague tale innocence is an action-adventure stealth game developed by Asobo Studios and was published by Focus Entertainment. It was released in may of 2019 to the PC, playstation 4 and 5, XBox one and S/X series, and nintendo Switch.

The story occurs in the 14th century in France, and is telling the story of Amicia and Hugo De Rune.

In their journey, they learn of the pain of loss, friendships and power.

By the end of the story both of them have grown immensely and they are ready to continue their journey.

The 5 good things

Story

Amicia and Hugo De Rune are almost always together. 

The player mostly controls Amicia but there are some parts where the player also controls Hugo.

part of the story is also about the importance of family, where the love and The bond between the brother and sister is getting stronger as the game progresses.

There is also a mother figure, but not for the most of the game.

The plague that the game is talking about is called the black death and is carried around by rats. The rats are a very big part of the game and they appear almost everywhere Amicia and Hugo will go

There is a very strong connection between Hugo and the rats which has something to do with  the reason why the French Inquisition’s army is after them.

There’s a lot more, but we will leave it at that.

Characters

Even though the story is about a sister and her brother, the game has quite a few

more characters in it.  Amicia and Hugo meet new friends that are helping them in their journey of survival.

lucas – An alchemist apprentice that has lost his mentor during the game, and

He is currently helping to find a cure for Hugo’s disease.

Millie and Arthur – Sibling thieves who helped save Amicia and Hugo when they

were captured by the soldiers. And after that, joined Amicia and Hugo in their journey.

Rodric – A young blacksmith with brute strength that helps Amicia to run away from the inquisitor.

This is where Amicia and Hugo learn how important and beneficial friendships are.

While being around their friends, the player can command the other characters to do various things. Whether it’s picking locks, Breaking doors and even using certain machines.

It’s worth mentioning that these characters are adding a lot to the story.

Constant Awareness to The Surroundings

The game has no map. And frankly, It doesn’t need one.

Part of the gameplay experience is for the players to be aware of their surroundings.

They will need to be careful of not being seen by any of the nearby guards.

And the players also need to be careful as to not step out of the lighted area, when there are rats around. The rats are afraid of the light.

In addition, the player needs to keep a lookout for resources in order to collect them.

But we will get into more details about resources later in this article.

It is also very important to listen to the game sounds, it will help the player to cope with the surroundings in a much easier way.

The music in the game is also helping the player to get into the mood, as it usually does.

Projectiles

Amicia firstly learned to use a sling. You can throw stones with it, hard enough to kill a man.

As the game progressed she learned to use different kinds of projectiles for different uses.

With the stones, she can either throw them at enemies, or at different objects, in order to distract the enemy. 

Pots – Are used to distract enemies. In general, there is no need for a certain object like when you need with the stones.

Ignifer – which ignites fire when thrown to specific objects, like torches and Haystacks.

Somnum – Is a very strong sleeping powder.

Amicia can use it while sneaking behind a human enemy or when

that enemy charges in order to strike.This does not work on rats.

Devorantis – Are used to be thrown at enemies that have helmets. It causes the helmets to melt and make the enemy remove it from their heads. That’s when Amicia had the opportunity to throw a stone at them

Luminosa – Is a variant of the Ignifer. Which unlike the Ignifer, can be thrown on the ground and it will lighten the area, for a short period of time. It can also be used as a less resort if Amicia is about to be devoured by the rats.

Odoris – Is used to attract rats to it. Amicia can throw it everywhere as long as it’s approachable to the rats. She can throw it at the enemies as well .

Extinguish – It can be thrown at almost every fireplace and extinguish it.

It can also be used in a way which let the rats the ability to get to certain places.

Using these different tools efficiently will make the game much easier

Appearance

The game is very dark. It has lots of brutal images in it, such as hanging bodies,

skeletons inside pools of blood and half bodies, that their internal organs are hanging from. 

While the characters are moving through a pile of bodies, or when they are near a place where there are a lot of dead animals, they are showing their disgust and complaining about the horrible smell. That helps the player to feel how heavy the air is. 

The fire and the lightning in general looks great. Not too dark that the player can’t see where to go, but dark enough for the player to miss a few things here and there.

The character design and their clothes also look amazing. 

It really feels like a story that occurred in the 14th century.

The 5 Bad things

Movements

In general, the movements are pretty okay, Nothing bad in it. But from time to time

Some of the character’s movements are a bit bizarre. 

For example it can happen when the character is crouching and the player wants to move to a certain place. So the character will move in an unpredictable way, which can cause for

the player to be discovered by the enemies or die by the rats.

It can also happen when the player tries to run and the character gets stuck in an object.

Collectibles

Like many other games, this game also offers collectibles.

It has 50 collectibles in total and it can be challenging to find them All.

Among these collectibles, there are 26 curiosities, 11 gifts and 13 flowers.

The reason that it’s on the bad list, is because none of them give the

player any reward for being discovered.

In most games at least one collectible category gives the players some kind of reward. 

But in this case, the only reward is the trophy at the end.

I’m not a big collectible achievement fan myself, even though I did collect everything in some games.

But in this one I didn’t feel like it’s worth the effort. The player can collect these while

playing the game for the first time or by playing the game later as to where they can play by chapters.

No Close Combat

If an enemy is getting close enough to strike Amicia, there isn’t much that she

can do. If she has a Somnum powder available, which is a sleeping powder,

There is a quick event that enables the player to put the guard to sleep and avoid death.

But other than that, there is no other way and the player will have to accept that quietly.

My problem with this, is that the developers could have had at least one more feature to avoid that. They could make a quick event where Amica asked for the help of one of the nearby ally characters.

They could have also provided her with a knife. After she first kills a person with the sling. 

And just for the challenge of it they couldn’t make the knife a one-time use until the player will find another one.

I mean it’s not the most important thing but i think that they should have added at least one more way for her to survive.

Climbing

The character is unable to jump. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, The way that the game works does not need it. So it works in a way that when the player need to climb places, they need to press a button.

The problem occurred because the button to climb is the same button as to evade.

So oftenly, when the player needs to climb, the character is actually evading and not climbing.

It doesn’t pose too much of a problem most of the time, but there are some moments where it can be crucial. the climbing can also be a little bit smoother, but we don’t need to dwell in that too much.

Resources

Some of the resources are pretty easy to find. Others, not so much. The player needs to be very careful with the resources if they want to fully upgrade Amicia’s gear. 

That’s because crafting projectiles and upgrading the gear requires the same resources. 

And because some of the projectiles are somewhat expensive in the sense of resources, upgrading the gear can be very challenging. 

It is possible to finish the game without fully upgrading the gear, and it’s not too hard as well. 

But it’s still annoying to find yourself without the resources to upgrade specific things

that you want, and creating very valuable projectiles. 

and that was the list

Conclusion

the game is beautiful. The character design is beautiful as well, and the story is amazing. The problem with the movement and without close combat, is a bad combination in my opinion.

But all in all, this is a great game and i even dare say, one of the best games of 2019.