🐀🔥 A Plague Tale: Innocence | Review | Xbox Series X | 8/10 | "Something is rotten in 14th-century France" 🐀🔥 @APlagueTale #IndieGames #GameDev

Something is rotten in 14th-century France. And it's not just the literal thousands of corpses you encounter, walk over and occasionally make in this game. You play as Amicia de Rune, a teenage girl on the run from not only super-powered plague-carrying hordes of rats but also the Inquisition. Not the Spanish one - in this game, they're French and everyone expects them.

Genre-wise this is survival horror, necessitating copious amounts of sneaking and occasional violence. Amicia, with her younger brother Hugo in tow, must make her way through 17 chapters of mostly nasty stuff. You start the game on a jolly forest walk with your father Robert and your dog. You learn the basic mechanics of movement and using your slingshot - your key weapon - before things turn dark and you head for home, only for the Inquisition to turn up looking for Hugo, who lives in confinement due to as-yet-unexplained health problems. Escaping from the chateau while remaining unseen is your last not-so-gentle introduction to the things you'll be doing most during the game.

Although the game is based on historical events, eventually the plot evolves to include rogue alchemists and uncanny powers, with a Grand Inquisitor obsessed with both. The cast of characters is brought to life through great voice acting and beautiful graphics, meaning you genuinely care about the people you meet along the way. The excellent music is by Olivier Deriviere and draws you further in. The growing bond between the tomboyish, outdoorsy Amicia and the sheltered little boy Hugo is genuinely affecting, as well; one of the categories of collectable is flowers for Hugo's collection. He tucks each one into Amicia's hair, where it stays for the rest of the chapter, even if you're smashing skulls or running for dear life.

You generally contend with two things in this game: the soldiers in your way, and the rats, which are a ravenous force of nature that will strip you down to the bone if you make a false move. The guards you can sneak past or take out, but, at least up until mid-game, the only way past the rats is scaring them off with light, whether that's carrying a swiftly-depleting burning branch, or using a special slingshot round to light up torches and braziers to clear a path for yourself. And it's not just you who has to watch the light - the bad guys do too. Some of them carry lanterns to keep the rats away, but a well-aimed stone can result in lights out and the end of the line for them. Both categories of the enemy have one thing in common, though - if they get close to you, it's game over. As the game wears on you do get the odd second chance, but it's definitely better to get it right the first time.

Much as I enjoyed this game - and I really did - it's not perfect. The stealth sections mainly consist of avoiding or knocking out guards on often-predictable patrols, or using your slingshot to distract them so you can sneak past, while the rat-avoidance requires often quite simple puzzle thinking - light this thing, to enable you to get to another thing, then move a beam of light so you can run over there, etc. Although it's competently handled, for the most part, Metal Gear Solid did this years ago. Also, the game does commit the sin of having you walk around a place, talking to all of the other characters, just for a bit of exposition to move the plot along. And the occasional boss battles, with the notable exception of the final showdown, consist of circle-strafing while waiting for the opportunity to strike, meaning they are robbed of the impact they might have otherwise.

While these things annoy me, though, I ended up playing this for more than the gameplay. It's the storyline and execution that makes A Plague Tale: Innocence one to recommend.