After playing A Plague Tale: Innocence a few years ago after claiming a free copy through Epic Games I was quite excited to see there was a new game coming. I was less than excited to find out that it had a price tag of $75. My excitement then returned when it ended up being one of the free games for the PlayStation+ subscription. Since I'm off work for the Easter holidays I decided now was the perfect time to start the game.
First Impressions
The very first thing I noticed was that the graphics looked really bland. Everything seemed to be quite smudged, blurry and soft. As far as I could remember even the first game looked a lot better than this so I wasn't sure if this was just a limitation of the PS5's graphical capabilities or not. Turning off motion blur and chromatic abberation made it slightly better and I didn't really notice and difference switching between performance and resolution mode. After googling the issue a bit it seems like this is just how the game is. It's probably an active style choice they've made but it's a shame that it ends up feeling like a downgrade.
On the gameplay side of things the game is very similar to the first one. I've played for about 3-4 hours and I haven't really encountered anything new when it comes to gameplay. This isn't an issue seeing as I'm mostly playing this game to get a wrap on the story and to experience the stunning visuals. Gameplay wasn't a strong suit in the first game either. It was simply what it had to be to tell a great story.
There's still a heavy focus on stealth which is usually something I hate. Luckily it seems like we're able to choose if we want to take a more aggressive path in this game which I'm quite happy about. There's three skill categories which we level up by using them. Stealth, combat and alchemy. If you rely a lot on stealth you'll level up your stealth and if you rely a lot on combat you'll level up combat and so on. I haven't really done enough to level up anything yet so I can't say much about the system at this time.
Thoughts
So far I'm having decent fun with this game. The story hasn't done much to grip me yet but at least the visuals are quite awesome. I find myself stopping to enter photo mode quite a bit even though the photo mode is quite weak compared to other games. I did notice that the game looks a lot better overall once I increased the contrast in the photo mode a bit. Sadly I can't use NVIDIA Freestyle with the PS5 to add filters to the game so I had to increase the contrast on my monitor. It helped a bit but the graphics still feel quite bland.
I hope the story picks up as I go on. If it doesn't it's unlikely that I'll go back through the game to pick up missing collectibles and trophies after my first blind playthrough. The first game was good enough for me to want to do that so I hope this one can live up to its predecessor eventually.
I don't mention anything of the story in this post and that's because I don't want to spoil anything for those that haven't played the first game. In short; there's a plague, there's rats and it's all somehow tied to your little brother. The first game pieces together a lot of the puzzle. This game sets out to finish the puzzle. I'll keep it at that for now. If you haven't played the first game then go do it.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.
The game looks amazing, although you are right when you talk about the graphics are very dull, but the story as you say is what makes the game is not bad, I am of those that a video game has a great story, so the fighting style is lousy, if you have a great story I'll be there.
Luckily the story did pick up in the end.
That's...sad to hear... I guess it's just a 'story first' kind of game.
Some games be like that. It picked up throughout the game though. Great ending.
I have both games pending, this one and its prequel. I'm surprised to see what you say about the visual style, I had read that this one, compared to the first one, had an important graphic jump. Maybe it's because of the gray and dark area, maybe when you get to a more illuminated place it will stand out more. It is also a little sad that it is more of the same mechanically, hopefully it will improve as you progress.
The graphics got a bit better after the prologue but they still feel a but washed out and soft around the edges. I'm missing a bit of sharpening.
I played the first one and it's simply brutal! Reading your post I see that there is a reaction very similar to what happened to the Jedi Fallen Order players with the new Jedi Survivor. The first game was so good, I think expectations were so high that then the second volume is stigmatized by the shadow of the first title.
I am very eager to play this second part (of both games) since the first ones were excellent. I would like to see how you progress in this game. Hugo is bigger, I hope I don't have to carry him so much. xD Thanks for share!
The game isn't bad in any way. It's just that it's more of the same. The rats aren't as surprising and scary anymore. I'm still very excited to continue the game and see where the story goes.
Of course, the shock of the rat madness has already passed. I sure would love to see where it all goes.
Seeing that you love to try new games is really cool. Also,the game should be an interesting one and the one you’d need to each your brain to play it since it is something like a puzzle
I should try it out though
Ufff yo tambien tuve la oportunidad de guardar el juego gratis que dio Epic, he visto que es genial pero todavia no lo he jugado, tengo tantos pendientes en steam que todavia no he disfrutado muchos de los que ha regalado epic