A Plague Tale: Requiem

What the ♥♥♥♥ is it with this game and its ridiculous amount of forced walking sections.

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.)

I played both Innocence & Requiem and bought both at a Discount on Steam. Not recommended on Full Price. The intro of Requiem is decent, but much weaker than its predecessor. The first game established its dark atmosphere almost immediately, while Requiem spends far too much time on small interactions and mini-games with Hugo before the story finally gets going. It just dragged for me and delayed what the game is actually about. Yet, the game has Story-Breaking bugs. I have already encountered one at Chapter 3. The gameplay is enjoyable overall, but there are quite a few immersion-breaking moments. Guards often fail to notice you in situations where they clearly should, making several stealth sections feel poorly designed. There are also scenes where characters somehow appear behind barricaded doors or situations that simply make no logical sense. These are small issues individually, but they happen often enough to take you out of the experience. For example, in Chapter 1, you are ought to escape with Hugo, and the guard is literally looking almost entirely in your direction, but you can just jump up a cliff, not be heard by the guard, and get no reaction. Like what? In another scene, you also had a guard right in front of you, where you could just sneak by, without him noticing you. However, in the story, you also have some scenes, like in Chapter 2, where you have to find an alchemist from the Order, the only dude who can help Hugo, per the story, and Amicia stands outside the door. She is NOT able to help him. She begins to ♥♥♥♥♥ about how she wants to go with Lukas to find some ingredients needed for Hugo onwards to Chapter 3, because she "feels useless in the house anyways." Like, girl, that dude is the only one who understands the Macula and is able to help Hugo. What are you yapping about? Amicia also starts with almost nothing again, and important combat options are locked behind story progression, which I already disliked in the first game. The dagger is a great addition, allowing you to deal with helmeted enemies much earlier, but I still don't understand why abilities have to be locked away at the start. They also removed the dodge mechanic from the first game, which was an unnecessary downgrade. On the positive side, the inventory received some nice quality-of-life improvements, making weapon selection much smoother. The story itself is actually very good, but some character decisions make very little sense. There are several moments where the writing feels forced or inconsistent, which hurts otherwise emotional scenes. Heavy spoiler below: I cannot recommend this game at full price because the ending makes the entire journey feel meaningless. The entire point of the game is trying to save Hugo, yet he dies regardless of your choices. After everything Amicia and the others go through, it feels like none of it truly mattered. A sequel built around saving Hugo should have at least given players a meaningful ending where that goal was actually achievable. If you can get it for around $5–10, it's worth playing for the gameplay, visuals, and soundtrack alone. At full price, however, I would personally skip it.

👍👍👍The story's still great. Amicia and Hugo hit just as hard as the first game. The rat swarms are insane, the atmosphere is thick, and when the game looks good it really looks good. I'm having fun with it, no doubt. 👎👎👎But some of this stuff is just weird. Amicia's mom looks like she aged 20 years when the timeline barely moved. And the NPCs? Dudes look fine but the women look rough. Plus they cope paste some of the crowd, Kinda lazy. Now the real problem. I got a 9070 XT. Game forces this "Resolution Optimizer" on me with no way to turn it off. Looks blurry as hell even on Ultra. Meanwhile NVIDIA users get DLSS no problem. No FSR, no option to disable it, nothing. Had to download some mod called OptiScaler and basically fake my GPU being NVIDIA just to get FSR 4 working. Game looks sharp now but stutters sometimes. Still way better than the blurry mess before though. I wish game companies would stop sucking NVIDIA or AMD's a*s for money to make this stuff exclusive. Just add the good features from both sides and let players actually enjoy the game they paid for. Modders shouldn't have to do your job for you.

Первая часть данной игры была более компактной по прохождению, несмотря на то, что механика там была попроще. Но развитие сюжета и геймплея было более насыщенным. В данной части на самом деле хорошо додумали механику боя, Амиция теперь стала машиной смерти, но можно и стелсить при желании. И подобные боевые моменты играются интересно и затягивают. Проблема оказалась в том, что примерно со второй половины игры этих моментов становится очень мало, зато становится много бесполезной беготни, сюжета, который по мне уныл и неинтересен. Просто персонажи ноют всю игру и только. Разработчики говорили, что не растягивали специально игру, а насытили её концентрированным сюжетом, геймплеем, так вот я считаю это лукавством с их стороны. Так как после вымучивания игры до титров, ты прекрасно понимаешь где можно было бы подурезать, чтобы было действительно насыщенно. Под конец игры, она меня настолько утомила, что я чуть ли не взвыл, когда оказалось, что и в эпилоге надо ещё играть. В общем хорошо начинали, но не дожали, из за чего общее впечатление об игре в финале остается как УНЫНИЕ. Играйте только в первую часть, эту советовал бы пропустить

Recomendo fortemente que você jogue Innocence, e siga a ordem correta para não ficar boiando na história. Uma narrativa belíssima, os jogos franceses no geral, excluindo os jogos da Ubi Software tem narrativas e histórias que não tentam serem artificialmente felizes, ou encontrarem uma moral da história. Sem spoilers é um jogo muito duro na forma como eles vão sendo conduzidos ainda que seja muito plausível, de modo a fechar todas as formas de esperança, os desfechos dos sub personagens são ótimos no geral, 97% tem importância para história, eles são diferentes entre si e transpiram vida, e chega a ser tocante o desfecho de alguns. O modo como os personagens vão buscando alternativas e vão mudando conforme cada situação é a mestria do jogo, eles mudaram e vão evoluindo de modo dinâmico sem excesso de dramas, auto piedade e isso começa no primeiro jogo... Uma obra prima, embora no final eu tenha sentido uma forma artificial como uma nova personagem e toma importância e o alquimista meio que desaparece, havia um relacionamento claro entre ambos, mas paciência, a lógica foi explorar a nova protagonista, embora no final a Amícia estivesse em seu auge, mas completamente destruída. Um daqueles jogos diferentes que vale cada segundo do seu tempo!!!

玩过这么多个游戏，没有哪个游戏让我这——么——讨厌主角过！明明知道自己走到哪里哪里就会带来灾祸，哪里就会有数不清的老鼠，但是依旧要为了所谓的反抗命运的机会去到处游历，把普通人的生命置于危险之下。 没有一点责任心，全是自私自利，别人凭什么要为了他们的命买单？？看到雨果每到一个地方，哪个地方就会被召唤出老鼠，折腾了一圈，结果最后还是失败了，自己死了就算了，别的努力生活的普通人的平静生活也被破坏了。 没有一点反思，没有一点教导，从来没有正儿八经的去教导过雨果不能够随意动用自己的能力，阿米西亚是个脑子有包的纯货，因为一个梦带雨果去到了他的梦境岛，自以为是能解决雨果身上的问题，实际只是在赌博，只是在孤注一掷，带着雨果到处杀人，让一个有能力灭世的5岁小孩天天看自己是怎么杀路上的人的，潜移默化的让雨果觉得别人的命不是命，杀人很容易，雨果也放任自己的能力去杀人。 带着雨果去到伯爵的炼金房也因为没有一点炼金知识，根本看不懂那些初始的学会的人怎么研究的初代携者，做出了什么样的实验数据，拿出了什么样的成果，之前抛下卢卡斯和母亲那么轻易，结果自己到头来什么也不懂什么也不会，在搞什么？搞笑的吗？ 雨果能有现在这样的结局，阿米西亚需要负一半的责任，他们一家人就不该出现在任何有村镇的地方，就应该远离人群，如果最开始阿米西亚能够跟着自己的母亲一起把雨果隔离起来，不让他再接触到外面的人，不让他接着显露自己的能力，阿米西亚可以跟卢卡斯一起去到雨果梦中的岛上，卢卡斯可以看明白伯爵的炼金房里的秘密，雨果的秘密不会暴露，妈妈也不会因此而死。哪怕最后阿米西亚仍然看到了初代携者的尸体，雨果也没有亲眼目睹携者的惨痛死亡，也不会跟初代携者灵魂共振，也不会因此背负上多大的情感负担。雨果哪怕最后也还是逃不过一死，至少也不会造成这么大的破坏，雨果会在母亲的关爱与照顾下死去，比现在不得不让阿米西亚亲手终结掉一切要好太多。 最后什么也没有改变，雨果死了仍然有下一个携者，绕这么一大圈，真气笑了

A Plague Tale: Requiem é uma experiência inesquecível. A história prende do início ao fim, com personagens muito bem desenvolvidos e momentos que ficam marcados por muito tempo. A trilha sonora é simplesmente absurda de boa e combina perfeitamente com cada cena, enquanto os gráficos ajudam a tornar tudo ainda mais imersivo. A duração é excelente e em nenhum momento senti que o jogo se arrastava. Um dos melhores jogos focados em narrativa que já joguei. Nota: 10/10.

Un moment de silence pour ce chef-d'œuvre (estou em pedaços e não sei quando vou me recuperar depois desse jogo)

[h1] Introduction [/h1] A Plague Tale: Requiem is a third-person stealth action-adventure game from developer Asobo Studio that takes place 6 months after the events of the first game, Innocence and continues the story of Amicia and Hugo as they continue to find a cure for for the Prima Macula, a curse that doesn't seem to get away from Hugo and the people around them, no matter how far they go. [h1] Positives [/h1] [list] [*]The game takes place in mid-14th Century, France, during the Hundred Years' War in 1348, a time that also had the Black Death, one of the most fatal plague pandemics in human history. As someone who often sticks to video games as my main source of media consumption, I've hardly played or seen anything about the Black Death and to have it be on full display as one of the main themes or premises of the game sets this dark, gruesome tone that doesn't go away [*]I praised Innocence for its incredible visuals, so I'm just gonna do it again. This game is one of the best looking games I've ever played. Using the Zouna engine once more, it's pretty much more of the same, but on a gigantically bigger scale to where there's plenty of opportunities to make use of the game's photo mode and take beautiful screenshots. I probably took at least 5, considering the different environments and places this game takes you through. The lighting in Requiem is top notch, volumetric fog looks and "feels" incredible and though you have to rely on upscaling this time around to get your FPS up, you can still run the game without it if you so please and the sharpening filter is solid, so no need for ini edits or anything like that. Didn't have any crashes or stutters, ran really well for me! [*]The game continues the story of Amicia & Hugo, who alongside their mother Beatrice and good friend Lucas, move out of their now destroyed town Guyenne and onto Provence in search of a secret group known as The Order, who knows about Hugo's curse and how they can remove it for good. This prime objective sets the story for Requiem as they'll be going through plenty of hurdles, meeting new characters once more (albeit a LOT more this time around) and taking themselves on a journey that is twice the size of the first game that thoroughly explores the themes of hope, grief, love and facing the inevitable. Just writing about this makes me want to cry, because this game is one of the most emotional, heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories I have played in recent memory. Without spoiling anything, you'll be put through so many scenarios, some being short-impact, others being long-impact and this will of course depend on [b] YOU [/b] and how you take these sorts of things, but just know that this world is brutal and no matter what decisions you make, there's always going to be some sort of consequence, even if you don't see it [*]Between Amicia and Hugo, Hugo is the star of the show here. Not only does he talk more, he has more of a presence and plenty of character development + things to say for a 5 year-old boy, starting off as being quiet but opening up and beginning to appreciate everything in life, from his now close sister to the things around him, even when times are so dark. There are also plenty of moments for him in Requiem that I don't want to spoil, but just know that he plays a bigger part in the plot than before [*]Gameplay is similar to the first game, but with a few new additions. Amicia now has a crossbow, which gives her a second ranged weapon on top of the sling and can be used to craft alchemical mixtures, much like what we had in Innocence. One cool gimmick I like is that fire arrows can be attached to wooden walls to give you a light source, safe from harm and adds a small layer that goes along with dealing with the rats. I also love how pots can now be combined to make different mixtures as well instead of just being a distraction tool, like making use of Extinguis to remove fires and let the guards give into the rats or throwing a big pot of fire between a group of rats to give you a bigger radius. There's also new mixtures like Tar which function as a flashbang, but can also be used to ignite enemies from a distance. Another addition is the Knife, which is pretty much Last of Us' shivs but in Requiem, giving Amicia a chance at close range since the first game guaranteed your death the moment you had someone closely approach you. On top of that, there's also counters, allowing you to temporarily stun an enemy and reposition to either escape or take said enemy out [*]Levels are [b] bigger, badder and bolder, [/b] and I mean that in every way possible. Levels are more open-ended, there's a lot more things to find in the world and on some occasions you'll have the freedom to go around and roam as you please, taking note of any [b] souvenirs, [/b] which replace the items that Amicia would collect from Innocence, flowers and feathers as Hugo has grown a love for birds and secret chests that give you resources [*]Hugo's also got some upgrades too - You can now control the rats at your own will during specific sections and has a "listen mode" (again, Last of Us) that lets you see the whereabouts of enemies through walls. Controlling these rats are really cool and makes me wish for a standalone game of some kind where I control these and just ensue chaos. Really fun stuff [*]On top of the sling upgrades, there's now a second progression system that allows Amicia to earn skills based on how the player approaches each encounter. These are divided into three categories: Prudence, Aggressive and Opportunism, each having their own requirements to progress, such as being sneaky and silently taking people out for Prudence, battling and taking enemies head on with your weapons for Aggressive or making use of alchemical tools and mixtures to dispatch guards for Opportunism. It's a very vague system since they give you no context for how to earn these at all, but they do give you handy skills such as faster movement speed while crouched, quicker recovery and faster crafting. Part of feels like this was unnecessary, but it's nice to have something else to work towards on top of the sling (i'm a sucker for progression systems :P) [*]Rats have been expanded upon to feel more dangerous, and WAY, WAY BIGGER IN SCALE. I think this is where the higher budget got put towards, because on the first instance of seeing these things, you are away from a tsunami of them, I'm not even kidding. It is freaking incredible to see so, so many of them at once and I'll never forget about that with the Plague Tale games for years on end. In terms of gameplay, it's also the same as the last game, just with a few new ways to do so like the aforementioned fire arrows or Sophia's prism thingy, one of the new characters. Killer character by the way, cannot wait for her title which comes out in a few weeks!! [*]Soundtrack in this game is PEAK! I enjoyed the first game, but not as much as this one. The main menu music is a standout track for me, incredible way of getting you into the game while also imagining how the characters are feeling [/list] [h1] Negatives [/h1] [list] [*]Game's pacing is all over the place - At times it's fast, others it's slow that it often feels tedious and dragged out for no reason other than time [*]Puzzles are still too easy to complete [/list] [h1] Conclusion [/h1] I'm running out of space, but Requiem is a great sequel that takes everything from the first game and improves upon it. Think of it like Innocence 1.5, but with a bigger budget, story, levels and more gameplay options that brings the story of these two to it's conclusion. Though I'd argue the game is too long as well, this is definitely one of those games you want to take your time with. You'll feel better playing it that way and it'll be less of a slog.