izigame.me

Humans are still worse than rats

Single player games are dead”. People who say that are morons.
We don't get a lot of good single player games because people want live service and multiplayer in every game. But there's still some dedicated developers who deliver the highest quality single player experiences.
Plague Tale is a third person adventure game with great emphasis on story. It has everything you would want in a single player game.
After the inquisition comes, you and your little brother Hugo escape in search to find a person who could heal the little brother. Like your ill brother and inquisition is not enough there are rats everywhere, they're eating people, they come from everywhere and roam in the dark. Only light can save you from being eaten by rats.
The journey is terrifying and extremely enjoyable. Each chapter consists of a new area you can explore a little. Some chapters are more action based some are calm and all you do is talk with your friends and some have puzzles.
Gameplay is simple. Most of the time you must get from one point to another while avoiding the inquisition soldiers and rats. There's a lot of stealth in this game, but it's not too bad. It's a simple stealth mechanic, nothing too deep. You usually need to crouch walk from cover to cover while distracting or killing the soldiers. Then there are rats and to avoid them you need to stay in the light so you run from one fire source to the other. Or sometimes you are able to carry a torch. Later in the game you unlock more skills and can use other methods to deal with everything.
Overall gameplay is really fun, the game is not hard although you'll find yourself dying sometimes because you either chose the wrong path or just wasn't careful enough. But nothing to worry about, this is a story driven game after all.
You can craft various equipment which can be used on rats and soldiers. Actually all this resource gathering, crafting mechanics, sneaking on enemies and using your tools and some puzzles reminds me a little of recent Tomb Raider games, but that's the only similarity.
Hugo sometimes is little annoying. I understand the kid haven't seen the outside world much, but after seeing human eating rats coming out of nowhere, soldiers who torture and kill other people and wants to kill him and his sister, he still runs around, screams and wants to play. Seriously, I would be shitting my pants there and would be holding to my sister so hard that i would tear her robes off. But no, he just runs away all happy la la la la la. This felt strange. But it's a minor thing anyway.
The world is dark and full of death but developers know there's always a hope. You can find blooming flowers in most of the levels showing there's still hope for the bright future. Nice little touch there.
Also another little thing I noticed is when you take a huge book the character doesn't put it in her magical pocket/black hole. She puts it on her back in a self made backpack. These are little details but it's good to know developers take attention to these details.
At one point in the game i even got some Overlord vibes.
The graphics are quite impressive considering it's not an AAA game. The game looks very good. When you look closer and start analyzing the graphics you can see it uses older technology. It feels like last gen technology was squeezed to the max here. It's in no way looks bad. The game looks great. Every level is carefully designed with beautiful attention to detail. Sometimes you don't even want to run around but just walk slowly admiring the surroundings.
Character models are well done but facial expressions, animations and hair graphics are lacking. Not a big deal of course, but it could be better.
Sadly no out of the box ultrawide support so you'll need to use a fix. But after that ultrawide works great.
Performance is very good. I've played the game on max settings on 3440x1440 and it was a smooth ride.
There's also a basic photo mode. Nothing fancy but i'm glad they included it. You can take some nice screenshots with it, I just wish they would include more advanced photo mode.
You think everything so far is great right? Yes, this game does everything good, it may lack some little minor things like I mentioned, but what is done to perfection is music. The music here is 11/10. It's dark, grim and terrifying. Combined with extremely dark atmosphere the music adds another layer of greatness. The game isn't hard, checkpoint system is generous and even when you know you won't be losing much by dying, your heart starts racing when you're running through those disgusting areas while the music is playing. It adds tension, it makes you feel scared.
This game is a good example of a great single player game and single player games are clearly not dead considering the success of Plague Tale. A game for everyone who want go on a grim adventure, see things they've never seen before. For any story driven/adventure game fans this is a must. This game among all the live-service crap is like that blooming flower among dead bodies. This game is only one hair away from being a masterpiece.
I'd also wanted to say i'm looking forward to the next game by these developers and then I found out their next game is...ehm...Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. A little bit different eh? Gonna buy it of course. But I hope to see more story driven games from Asobo.
Pros

Great story
Quite unique
Brilliant soundtrack
Good graphics
Nice pacing, no repetitiveness
Dark and beautiful at the same time

Cons

Could use some work on facial animations
No ultrawide support by default


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