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Rev. MacDonnell Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:07pm
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Last edited by Rev. MacDonnell; Dec 18, 2022 @ 8:35pm
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Originally posted by Castledoque:
I don't usually write opinions on games here, but I really need to vent my frustration. Apologies if I offend anyone who absolutely loved this game.

I want to be sort of fair, so good things first: Graphics, presentation and music are phenomenal. Yes, bad optimization and mild stuttering are an issue, but not game-breaking and the sheer visual beauty of the game makes up for it. Gameplay is good, with more things to do than in the first game, but the improved gameplay causes issues that I will get to later.

And now the bad. This game has literally left a sour taste in my mouth. I loved the original Plague Tale Innocence not because it was a perfect game (it wasn't) but for its originality and avoidance of gamey cliches. Unfortunately this sequel starts where its predessecor left off and gradually destroys everything good about the first game and its premise. Where to start off?

(1) Way , way too many rats. Asobo proudly advertised that this time there are millions of rats, but the end result shows that you can have too much of a good thing. In the original the number of rats increased very gradually and only at the ending did it start gettting a bit ridiculous, but hey it was the climictic ending so it didn't matter all that much. Here we literally get oceans of rats. It gets so big it defeats the purpose. The horror awe is replaced by huge blobkbaster spectacle and the rats lose their bite.

(2) What happened to the characters? The beautiful relationship between Amicia and Hugo is destroyed. Instead of sibling love and conflict, we get a cliched gamey protector-carrier relationship cycle that repeats through each surge of the macula. I feel that this completely wrecks the central relationship that was the emotional core of the first game. Amicia does not love her brother as an individual but as a protector. When her mother referrred to her as a protector, I cringed and basically it was from that point onwards that the game lost all of its charm for me and then went completely off the rails.

(3) Amicia was completely ruined. One of the best things of the original was that Amicia was a normal teenage girl in medieval France forced to find ways to survive and save her little brother. Here she gradually becomes a typical action hero. The girl with the flowers in her hair of the first game becomes a viking warrior, then gets scalped and unflichingly kills grown men with surprising dexterity and ease. When she occasionally reverts to her original loving persona it is ridiculous and unbelievable. At the end of the game she is as bad as her pursuers and all her talk of love and hope sounds phony. Gone is the beautifully realised internal struggle between need for survival and fractured innocence of the original game, thet was so beautifuly visualised in the nightmare sequence of the first game. In short: the complex teenage girl who was the protagonist of Plague Tale Innocence becomes an asexual blockbaster killing machine in appearance, behavior and gameplay and loses everything that made her special. This is a very unfortunate trend in modern games and movies. Making women look and behave like men is not feminism, but actually reinforces patriarchy. This is where I have an issue with the improved gameplay. Yes, killing soldiers is now more fun from a gameplay perspective. Thing is, it shouldn't be. This is supposed to be a loving sensitive girl, who kills to save her brother and who tries not to give in to her darker impulses. Killing should not be fun or at least it should have consequences. (Perhaps two endings? If Amicia becomes a killing machine we get the existing macula ending, but if she fights to retain her humanity, we would get a different ending? It would make much more sense and the macula wins ending would not feel gratuitous.)

(4) The mother who was such a strong and loving character in the first game becomes marginalised and her relationship with her children is retconned and put aside. To make matters worse she is then killed off unceremoniously to progress the story. Basically her role is undermined to undeline the horribly cliched protector-carrier thing. Remember how big a deal she was for Hugo and Amicia in the first game even in her absence? All this is now gone and retconned. Hugo now cares for Amicia more than for his mother, because they have to use this for the horrible euthanasia ending.

(5)The elephant in the room: The ending. I will be blunt. I hated it. It makes me never want to play the game again. I will probably replay the original game after a year or so, to wash off the horrible taste of this ending. It is basically eutanasia, which is already a very sensitive subject. And here it is euthanasia of a 6 year old boy. I don't always want happy endings in games and I actually enjoy a well presented tragic ending. However a tragic ending has to be earned as much as a happy one. Here the characters were deliberately placed in impossible situations to bring about a horrible ending. Amicia fails repatedly by chosing hate and destruction instead of hope but it is not her failings that push Hugo over the edge. Hugo looses all faith in humanity and gives in to the macula, because he thinks his protector is dead. A very melodramatic contrivance and a very hollow way to set in motion the events of the final act. And it gets worse. In th end, part of him retains enough humanity to ask Amicia to kill him. Really? Sorry but I don't think this is good writing. Chose : Despair or hope, innocence lost or retained, conflicted humanity or unbridled armageddon, but you can't have both ways at once. (I mean obviously you can, but it is not good story-telling.) If the creators were going for a bleak pessimistic ending, I would still not like it, but at least I would understand it. It would feel earnest and earned. But what they actually did do, feels too much like emotional manipulation and misery porn. Over the course of two games thousands of people have perished and to make matters worse some of them gave up their life willingly to help the two siblings. For what? For this?

In short , I feel the first game, though flawed, was a gem and a breath of fresh air. This new one tries so much too be edgy and modern, that it ends up being gamey and contrived. A product of its time, that feels dated on inception.
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Showing 1-15 of 220 comments
FreshRevenge Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:19pm 
Originally posted by Kovac Muldoon:
Did anyone else feel like the ending ruined this entire game series for them? I was so disappointed and so upset with the way they ended things. (Admittedly I had to make the phone call to have my dog put to sleep recently because he developed cancer that was eating away at him so the ending hit me a little harder than it might other people) but it just made me miserable. I accidentally got the secrete ending where Lucas killed him because I was too upset to do it and sat there trying to find another way.

I had this hope that there would be a Plague Tale 3 and we would get to play adult Hugo with full mastery over his powers and he could finally be the one to save his sister. Now I don't know if I can even stand to play 3 if they make one.

I finished the game last night and I am still thinking about replaying it but it bothers me so much that they decided to end it with Hugo's death.

I don't see how they would make a sequel with Amicia without Hugo, I think their relationship was part of the charm of the game. I kind of wanted them to save Hugo and find a way to live peacefully out in the mountains.

I was crying and it just gut me like a fish. I just don't understand why developers need to make stories with depressing endings? I get the story, but as far as replayability, it doesn't really motivate me to replay the game again when I know how horrible I am going to feel at the end of it.

Also Hugo is dead. Either Amicia or Lucas can kill him at the end. This stops the world from being destroyed.
#1
Rev. MacDonnell Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:24pm 
Originally posted by FreshRevenge:
Originally posted by Kovac Muldoon:
Did anyone else feel like the ending ruined this entire game series for them? I was so disappointed and so upset with the way they ended things. (Admittedly I had to make the phone call to have my dog put to sleep recently because he developed cancer that was eating away at him so the ending hit me a little harder than it might other people) but it just made me miserable. I accidentally got the secrete ending where Lucas killed him because I was too upset to do it and sat there trying to find another way.

I had this hope that there would be a Plague Tale 3 and we would get to play adult Hugo with full mastery over his powers and he could finally be the one to save his sister. Now I don't know if I can even stand to play 3 if they make one.

I finished the game last night and I am still thinking about replaying it but it bothers me so much that they decided to end it with Hugo's death.

I don't see how they would make a sequel with Amicia without Hugo, I think their relationship was part of the charm of the game. I kind of wanted them to save Hugo and find a way to live peacefully out in the mountains.

I was crying and it just gut me like a fish. I just don't understand why developers need to make stories with depressing endings? I get the story, but as far as replayability, it doesn't really motivate me to replay the game again when I know how horrible I am going to feel at the end of it.

Also Hugo is dead. Either Amicia or Lucas can kill him at the end. This stops the world from being destroyed.
I feel that. I know some people like sad endings and I get that, but to me the world is sad and depressing enough. I like to use games to escape from all that. I also saw the new game plus and I just was like... there's no way I can go through that again.

I know he's dead, but there was that baby at the very ending with the mark. So it looks like there will be a 3. I had just hoped 3 would be about adult Hugo. It would have been really cool to play as him with full control and save Amicia and take the burden off her for once.
Last edited by Rev. MacDonnell; Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:26pm
#2
FreshRevenge Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:34pm 
Originally posted by Kovac Muldoon:
Originally posted by FreshRevenge:

I finished the game last night and I am still thinking about replaying it but it bothers me so much that they decided to end it with Hugo's death.

I don't see how they would make a sequel with Amicia without Hugo, I think their relationship was part of the charm of the game. I kind of wanted them to save Hugo and find a way to live peacefully out in the mountains.

I was crying and it just gut me like a fish. I just don't understand why developers need to make stories with depressing endings? I get the story, but as far as replayability, it doesn't really motivate me to replay the game again when I know how horrible I am going to feel at the end of it.

Also Hugo is dead. Either Amicia or Lucas can kill him at the end. This stops the world from being destroyed.
I feel that. I know some people like sad endings and I get that, but to me the world is sad and depressing enough. I like to use games to escape from all that. I also saw the new game plus and I just was like... there's no way I can go through that again.

I know he's dead, but there was that baby at the very ending with the mark. So it looks like there will be a 3. I had just hoped 3 would be about adult Hugo. It would have been really cool to play as him with full control and save Amicia and take the burden off her for once.

I wouldnt put too much into the last credit scene. They probably put it in there to show that the cycle repeats.

Not sure if I want to see a modern day take on the plague.

If they did do another game, maybe they could have it that Amicia and Lucas and Sophia and other characters finding a way to eliminate the Prima Macula once and for all. That they would find the source of where the Prima Macula originated and stop the cycle etc.

Also it will a future carrier and not Hugo De Rune. It would be another boy.
Last edited by FreshRevenge; Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:36pm
#3
FreshRevenge Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:39pm 
Hugo De Rune is dead, he isn't coming back as an adult. It will be a future carrier or boy that carries the Macula in his blood.
#4
Rev. MacDonnell Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:42pm 
Originally posted by FreshRevenge:
Hugo De Rune is dead, he isn't coming back as an adult. It will be a future carrier or boy that carries the Macula in his blood.
Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm saying I wished the game would have been about that. I'm fully aware it will be a modern plague and will be with new people if they do 3.
#5
kukroach Oct 20, 2022 @ 10:06pm 
The whole game felt like poop to me , except 1 scene in the amphitheater ,bad textures , bad lip sink , bad npc animations , the whole game felt like a neverending hallway with 3 different kind of torches , I never had any emotions from what was happening in game.

Guess i'm going back to play my good old 2008 STALKER to forget this.
#6
FreshRevenge Oct 21, 2022 @ 12:17am 
Originally posted by kukroach:
The whole game felt like poop to me , except 1 scene in the amphitheater ,bad textures , bad lip sink , bad npc animations , the whole game felt like a neverending hallway with 3 different kind of torches , I never had any emotions from what was happening in game.

Guess i'm going back to play my good old 2008 STALKER to forget this.

Looks to me that you didn't really play it. So nice try. Go play Stalker. You don't even have the game in your library. So again nice try on trolling.
#7
Rev. MacDonnell Oct 21, 2022 @ 12:57am 
To be fair they could have just as easily played on GamePass like I did.
#8
FreshRevenge Oct 21, 2022 @ 1:00am 
Originally posted by Kovac Muldoon:
To be fair they could have just as easily played on GamePass like I did.

Regardless, still being a troll. Or he just has a horrible pc that can't run the game. Because it doesn't look bad at all.
#9
Tom Oct 21, 2022 @ 1:50am 
Originally posted by Kovac Muldoon:
Did anyone else feel like the ending ruined this entire game series for them? I was so disappointed and so upset with the way they ended things. (Admittedly I had to make the phone call to have my dog put to sleep recently because he developed cancer that was eating away at him so the ending hit me a little harder than it might other people) but it just made me miserable. I accidentally got the secrete ending where Lucas killed him because I was too upset to do it and sat there trying to find another way.

I had this hope that there would be a Plague Tale 3 and we would get to play adult Hugo with full mastery over his powers and he could finally be the one to save his sister. Now I don't know if I can even stand to play 3 if they make one.
i think everyone who gets to that part will be relucant to kill him considering he was charming in the last game and now he is doomed to merge with this disease that is incurable.
#10
Panda Oct 21, 2022 @ 6:24am 
i cant believe you literally kill ur brother by slinging a rock at him lmao wtf
#11
Crimsomrider Oct 21, 2022 @ 7:00am 
Unless they revive Hugo in Plague Tale 3 due to all the phoenixes that were going on during the story, yes it is extremely disappointing.

To me Plague Tale was all about Amicia and Hugo and observing their relationship evolve into something beautiful... something similar to The Last Of Us. I wanted to see them grow and uncover the mysteries of this plague and eventually living a happy life.

I truly do not understand what is up with this modern storytelling where the main character has to die and the game has to end in a depressing way to make the story emotional and deep. I see it in so many games and movies and it's starting to get ridiculous. The world is depressing enough as it is...

As for the modern post-credit scene... I get that it's supposed to hint how the cycle never ends, but by showing that it means that nothing Amicia does in Plague Tale 3 will matter. Assuming there will be a Plague Tale 3 with Amicia.

And if Plague Tale 3 is supposed to be in modern day, well I think that will be a major mistake as the whole attraction of these games is the 14th century plague-ridden France.
Last edited by Crimsomrider; Oct 21, 2022 @ 7:04am
#12
MeldinX2 Oct 21, 2022 @ 8:13am 
Originally posted by Crimsomrider:
Unless they revive Hugo in Plague Tale 3 due to all the phoenixes that were going on during the story, yes it is extremely disappointing.

To me Plague Tale was all about Amicia and Hugo and observing their relationship evolve into something beautiful... something similar to The Last Of Us. I wanted to see them grow and uncover the mysteries of this plague and eventually living a happy life.

I truly do not understand what is up with this modern storytelling where the main character has to die and the game has to end in a depressing way to make the story emotional and deep. I see it in so many games and movies and it's starting to get ridiculous. The world is depressing enough as it is...

As for the modern post-credit scene... I get that it's supposed to hint how the cycle never ends, but by showing that it means that nothing Amicia does in Plague Tale 3 will matter. Assuming there will be a Plague Tale 3 with Amicia.

And if Plague Tale 3 is supposed to be in modern day, well I think that will be a major mistake as the whole attraction of these games is the 14th century plague-ridden France.

I doubt there will be a Plauge Tale 3. I think they ended it the way they did in order to get a conclusion to the series. I quite like the ending. Sure it was tragic but it was supposed to be. It shows that no matter how you struggle sometimes you have to just let go.
#13
.oO(Cannon_Fodder?!?) Oct 21, 2022 @ 8:31am 
I thought the whole thing with keeping Hugo and other carriers alive was so that the plague didn't go super nova. Turns out killing them immediately is the correct thing to do.
And I guess this means the Protectors are the real big bad the entire time, and Amecia is wandering off in order to bring more death and destruction.
#14
Tom Oct 21, 2022 @ 9:51am 
Originally posted by Panda:
i cant believe you literally kill ur brother by slinging a rock at him lmao wtf
i mean by the last few chapters he is more or less being consumed by the macula so in the end he will become evil so at that point you have no choice, because if he is allowed to merge with it he will end the world with his swarms of rats.
#15
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Date Posted: Oct 20, 2022 @ 9:07pm
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