Too bad there is not a "Mixed" vote, because that is the review I would have given to this game. This game is between a 4 and 5 out of 10 for me. Here are the different reasons why:
Presentation: First things first, the graphics are really good and the game is well-optimized. Some sceneries are absolutely beautiful and the number of rats displayed on screen is really impressive. The music is also great and complements the game well.
[b]Story & Characters:[/b] Graphics and music do not do everything—you also need a compelling story and good gameplay, which is where this game fell short for me. The story is bad in my opinion; the characters keep flip-flopping between being morally good and chaotic evil, which becomes very annoying after a while. One minute they are like, "Oh my God, I am scared, all these people are dead, this is wrong, we should not kill, but I have to in self-defense," and the next second they are like, "Yeah, kill them all! They were the bad guys anyway." And man, the "boss fight" in the farm during the beginning chapter was so cringe.
[b]Plot Themes:[/b] The story feels very "girlbossy" and at the same time very misogynistic. [spoiler] I mean, one of the only female villains is a villain just because she is crazy, and why is she crazy? Because she can't have a baby—way to reduce a woman to just being someone who produces babies. [/spoiler] [spoiler] The heroine keeps referring to some men as "pigs," which is a term used to describe perverted men, but there were no perverted men. They were traitors or warmongering men, yes, but she keeps referring to them as "pigs." [/spoiler] [spoiler] Also, the main plot of the story is finding a cure for Hugo, the bearer of the Plague. During the story, they find the corpse of a previous bearer to get clues about how to cure Hugo. When they find the corpse, their logical reasoning for the cure is, "Oh, the previous bearer died sad and alone, which is why the plague spread, so to cure Hugo, he just needs to not be sad and alone!" I was like, what is this plot? [/spoiler]
[b]Gameplay & Rat Mechanics:[/b] The gameplay is also not good. The rat zones—which are basically dead zones where you die if you enter—are very buggy. One rat nips your foot and the game lets you walk backward thinking you can reach safety, but in reality, you will always die because the grace timer is so short. There are some mechanics to avoid instant death, like a knife or fireworks, but they are so rare that I do not know why they introduced them. The parts with Hugo and the rat mechanics were nice, but severely undercooked. I would have liked more fleshed-out mechanics with the rats, since the game is primarily about the rat plague. Also, you have companions with you during most of the game, but they just stand there watching you die against enemies because they are only programmed to perform certain actions—this is very stupid.
[b]Stealth & Combat:[/b] The stealth sections get annoying after a while since they are basically always the same thing. Sometimes, if you have no resources and cannot kill an armored guy, you have to kite them far away from the checkpoint because you cannot progress while enemies are nearby. Also, while the first game technically had a "boss fight," the only real "boss fights" here are just waves of enemies (plus a boss stealth section that was not very good).
Overall, it was okay, but not great either. The next game—which is soon to be released at the time of this review—will feature the pirate lady you see in this entry. However, she was so bland and flat, and the combat seemed meh at best in the trailers, so it does not give me any incentive to play the sequel. (Formatting and grammar issues fixed with the help of AI.)
