#42
Change YoY: NEW! My Rating: 9.1 / 10
The two A Plague Tale games have been one of the biggest positive surprises of recent years, at least to me personally. The first game certainly looked very promising from the moment it was first revealed, but I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did, as it was in my top 50 up until last year. Then the sequel, which I finally got around to playing earlier this year, turned out to be even better. It continues the story of Amicia, Hugo, and their friends and allies during the time of the Black Plague in France, as they begin to further unravel the truth behind the rat infestation and Hugo's powers, all the while Amicia begins to struggle more and more with her morality as the actions she must take lead her further and further down a path that will only lead to further suffering.
That internal conflict within Amicia is often at the centre of the game's story and drives many of its themes, as she desperately tries to hold on to her humanity while constantly being forced to do increasingly horrible things to survive and keep her brother safe, until eventually the question begins to emerge, is she actually being forced to do these things anymore? Charlotte McBurney's voice performance as Amicia is vital in conveying all of these aspects of the character, and had I played this game back in 2022, I would have without question considered her performance as the best of the entire year in any video game. Of course, there's more to the game than just Amicia's story.
The first game, for all its triumphs, definitely showed the limits of its budget at times. As impressive as the visuals were at times, it was still clearly an indie title, not that I really mind. It's greatest weakness was the combat, which culminated in the final boss battle that was the absolute nadir of the whole game. In the sequel Asobo Studio has made some significant improvements in pretty much every department, or at the very least held up the high standards of the first game. Visually Requiem looks gorgeous, the gameplay has been expanded and has a lot more variety than before, and many of the locations are far more expansive and open than before, though this is still not a proper open-world game. There's really only one section in the game I found to be overly frustrating due to its instant death condition if you get caught, otherwise I enjoyed the vast majority of my experience. The soundtrack is largely of similar quality to the first game, but that just means it's great.
Still, it is in its setting, story, and characters that A Plague Tale: Requiem truly shines. The story of the De Rune siblings against the backdrop of a nation suffering through a horrible disease is wonderfully told, and it's the seeming inevitability of tragedy that gives the game its most powerful moments, both joyful and sad, beautiful and bleak, and no moment showcases this in Requiem as well as its ending, which I will not spoil.
