A Plague Tale: Innocence and Requiem

So, I finished the game yesterday.

Really really good from start to finish IMO. The fact that they keep the story pacing and my investment into the characters up for the entire 14 hours it took me to get through is pretty amazing, given the density of the story telling. If I had one complaint, it is that it goes a little too super natural for me in the end. As Gileadan mentioned, it makes sense, given the rather unrealistic scale of the rat infestation from the very beginning but still, I'd have preferred the story to remain in a realistic setting and maybe then also scale down the rats a little. The game didn't really manage to shock me much in the end because the rats themselves just seemed too ... unrealistic, covering everything like a carpet and their gameplay ended up very formulaic, rendering them more into a game mechanic than a shocking narrative device.
However:
In any case, it's their story and given how expertly it's written, I am ok with the fact that it went in a direction that isn't necessarily my absolute favorite. It still is an excellent story.

Technically, the game is extremely impressive for a AA production. There is a really good video, covering the technical aspects of the game engine in detail. It has no spoilers, so anyone can watch it and I really recommend it for the technically inclined.The only thing it's missing IMO is an interview with the devs:

So no complaints there. Same goes for sound (English) VA and music. It's pretty much perfect.

Gameplay works well for the most part. It's not that deep and you certainly wouldn't play this for the gameplay but it fits the story and characters perfectly and clearly, that was the focus of Asobo, so well done in that regard. I am also not sure why everyone seems to have had problems with the boss fights. I did both of them on the first or second trial, the final one especially was almost underwhelming I thought.

However, I do have a complaint about the gameplay and that is the collecting of resources and the crafting. Plague Tale makes an unfortunate mistake here, that a lot of other games make as well but in this case, it's particularly bad: On the one hand, the game throws me into a lot of tense situations, that would urge my character to go forward quickly and also, other characters will urge me on, repeating the same sound bites over and over and over "Come here Amicia!" ... "Come here Amicia!". "Yes, I heard you that first time, shut the fuck up!" Because at the same time, the game mechanics with the resource gathering and crafting as well as the fact that I know nothing is going to happen before I trigger it compels me to walk into every little nook and corner and see what I can scrounge or if can find a collectable somewhere. This is made worse by the fact that very often and very randomly, the game closes up the path behind you, so you cannot go back (probably mostly for technical reasons, streaming in and out map data, etc. but still, it does it). So you never know if you will miss something if you don't stop the narrative now and and go searching instead. It's the one instance in this title, where game design jars with the narrative and unfortunately, it happens all the time.
I'll grant that those upgrades you can craft are a good idea as they expand the otherwise rather shallow gameplay over time and thus prevent it from becoming boring, so the upgrades are not a bad idea per se and I also don't mind those collectables and their codex entries, they are nice but I'd much rather have skipped out on the crafting (and just require tools for the upgrades, which one can either find easily along the way or which are in areas that have no tension at all).
Likewise, crafting ammunition doesn't really fit the more puzzle-heavy gameplay. What's the point of having me craft ammo, when everyone of the puzzles require that the materials are around at every puzzle location. It's not increasing the challenge, it's just a random nuisance to contend with.

So, like in almost all games I know, the crafting aspect is a negative, not a positive in APT:I but apart from that, the game is dam near perfect at what it wants to do and taking into account the limited resources of the developers, it's amazing what they pu together here.

95000/100000 rats, feasting on a pig corpse for this one.

There’s yet another thing that makes the crafting bad: your state from the first time you played any chapter is saved, so you can’t replay to gather materials or to upgrade: everything is lost, with the exception of the collectibles.

Finished the game in 11 hours.

Was a "get it on sale" kind of enjoyable. Visuals were nice both in the terms of being pretty graphically and in some truly disgusting imagery they use (for instance that one spot where the inquisition has hanged a bunch of villagers and you crawl through the area underneath with all the remains and stuff dripping down... ), but the gameplay felt like it was from a 2005 game. Not a bad 2005 game, mind you, but it felt dated. Movement felt clunky, for instance. Unless they're angling for a sequel, I'm annoyed by some things that are never answered by the end of the game.

I'm also 50/50 on whether I found Hugo endearing or if I hated him. There were moments where he comes across as super sweet and likeable, but then he does something to make me want to smack him upside the head or just tell him to shut the fuck up. Amicia was a likable protagonist though. I wish there had been a lot more dialogue with the allies you meet along the way. Would've made some events much more impactful.

They're working on a sequel yay !

www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-12-04-a-plague-tale-2-reportedly-in-development

The review for the sequel is good. There're some problems of course but overall, it's good. I've seen some of the game play and it looks good.

I'll be playing the two after I finish the present run of AC Valhalla.

I'm waiting a bit on this one, but did read a spoiler free review that commented on the boss fight.  Apparently this one is much simpler than the first game, so rest easy on that score.

Beat it.

Pros:

- Games gorgeous
- Great voice acting and character design
- Spectacle is better
- Crossbows adds another dynamic to puzzle solving
- Really nice soundtrack
- The pacing of the story is pretty good, and the game doesn't feel like it overstays it's welcome for too long.

Cons:

- Some of the story beats either became too predictable, or too repetitive. This is also similar - to a lesser extent - with some of the character dialogue after certain events.
- Enemy types are too repetitive
- Not enough innovations when it comes to puzzle solving and Amecia's general toolkit. You only get one new alchemy chemical to work with, and the new skill system they added doesn't really add much to the base gameplay to be honest.

I'd say it's around a 7.5-8 for me just because I liked the presentation of the game, and enough of the gameplay elements.

There's new game plus in-case anyone's interested.

After sobbing uncontrollably, I'm happy to say that, despite performance issues on PS5, I really loved A Plague Tale: Requiem.

Finished the game. Took me 23h because I struggled badly with the arena type combat sequences and had to reload them 5-10 times. And apparently I'm not alone. The one in chapter Dying Sun towards the end of the game had me almost rage quit. Easily as bad as the final boss in Innocence. But for different reasons. I went into that scene with no pots. And I couldn't figure out how to take out the armored guy with a shield and a mace. I circled him for ten minutes trying all kinds of stuff and nothing worked. I looked up videos and they all used explosive pots. Yeah well, shit. Smoke sling gave me a yellow prompt for his head and legs but nothing happened. Got a yellow prompt for fire on the mace. Again, nothing happened. I was in despair after about an hour of playing this over and over and never being able to kill the last guy. Was about to give up and cry when I figured out a way to beat him: Hide, sneak up from behind and THEN you can blind him with the smoke sling. Makes NO sense whatsoever. But this is how I got through this... Extremely poor game design imo. I found tons of people online who couldn't figure out how to win this fight.

That being said, I LOVED the story. Absolutely mesmerizing narrative and stellar voice acting. Amicia is such am amazing tragic character. I love how her looks change with the beatings she takes. At the end she looks like a true warrior.

I like the ending. No real surprise there. But very well executed. I'm surprised about all the backlash I see everywhere and all the hate Amicia gets. This is The Last Of Us all over again except imo it's completely opposite in its conclusion. Joel became the villain in the end imo but Amicia did not.
Spoiler discussion fo the ending and Amicia's character arc:



Here are many very spoilery screenshots of the second half of the game on the island:

Amazing game but of the type i have no desire to replay to complete every collectibles.