PLAGUE TALE REQUIEM [2022] STEAM PC REVIEW

🏆  MASTERPIECE  🏆

The positive:

💗 More ambitious, action-packed, and surprisingly more emotional and meaningful

💗 The overall presentation & visual art are stellar as before

💗 Small changes to the formula allow for a more complex stealth sandbox

💗 Amicia experiences PTSD from all the violence she endures

💗 A masterpiece in storytelling and worldbuilding

💗 I love Amicia & her ability to adapt and overcome impossible odds

💗 The performances across the board are superb

💗 A strong focus on letting go, about accepting your fate

The negative:

👎 Both Ps5 & XSX  struggle to run the game at 30FPS in 2022

👎 On PC it melted my RTX 2060: even in 1080p, all low less than 60FPS

👎 Better looking games were run on that card with no problem at 1080p

👎 Had to upgrade to an RTX 3080ti to run it at 4k solid 60FPS

A Plague Tale: Requiem was released in 2022 and is everything that one could want from a sequel to the 2019 Innocence masterpiece. It's more ambitious, action-packed, and surprisingly more emotional and meaningful. The story remains as engaging as ever, with a heavy commitment to his cast of compelling characters. The overall presentation is stellar as before, but the graphics are on a whole new level of stunning quality, along with the visual art. feels like a spread of the wings, to forge an unmistakable identity. But despite the technical and creative achievements, Asobo only got one Award and few nominations. I'm sure that given time, they will get more recognition. I consider Requiem to be the 2022 Game Of the Year (GOTY). 

CHOOSING THE PLATFORM

Both PS5 and XSX run the game at 30FPS. That's disappointing. They should have included a 60FPS mode even if it lowers base resolution to 720p. I got the PS5 version as always, given the dualsense features, but could not bare those 30-frame slideshows. So I ended up with the Steam version, Requiem melted my RTX 2060: even in 1080p, and everything set to low the game struggled to get 60FPS, in some cases getting sub30. That never happened with other games. So I had to wait until recently when I was able to upgrade to an RTX 3080ti. And It was worth it! 4k solid 60FPS with everything maxed out its a visually stunning experience.

STELLAR PRESENTATION

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a beautiful game, with vibrant colors and masterfully detailed wilderness areas. Whereas Innocence was dark and gloomy, Requiem shines full of life with gorgeous places to explore. From Stunning green countryside, animals, and peasants to the dreary, stormy, rain-drenched coastline. The visual art and the presentation are top-notch. Requiem is still primarily a linear experience, but it offers far more freedom than the original game. 

STORY & GAMEPLAY

Requiem takes place 6 months after the events of the 1st game. Amicia and Hugo seem to finally have found some peace and quiet.  But as ever, trouble does arrive,  in an early misunderstanding and confrontation that leads to a new trauma for Hugo, which triggers the dormant plague again.  You will be cracking heads with rocks from Amicia's sling once more, hunted by soldiers and mercenaries, while the dark swarm starts chewing through everything. Meanwhile, Hugo keeps dreaming about an Island where the Macula is trying to take him, and he convinces Amicia to chase the dream as the only way he can truly heal. 

There is an improved quality of movement and resource management, enhanced skill sets, and expansive level design to encourage more creative interaction with your surroundings. They also expanded the crafting system, allowing for a new set of tools. These changes allow for more complex stealth sandboxes, filled with hiding spots, vantage points, and shortcuts. After completing the chapters, there's always a lingering sense that you could have done things differently.

AMICIA EXPERIENCES PTSD

I decided to focus the core review on a revolutionary aspect of Requiem and the mainstream critics it received: They Way Amicia reacts to the violence around her. We are used to enjoying games with over-the-top action and shooting like uncharted, we love those games and we don't even pay attention to the impossible situation of murdering so many human beings in the race to get to the treasure 1st. Nathan Drake has to kill hundreds if not thousands of enemies in every adventure and he doesn't even twitch. He might be a psychopath since he even cracks jokes when enemies are thrown into the air by the regular explosions. There is no emotional toll or even a reflection like "is the treasure worth killing so many people?" Nah we just roll with it and give the game a solid 10. I love the Uncharted games though, they are plain fun!

Despite the emotional fidelity of Amicia and Hugo's reactions to events, I felt Innocence lacked the emotional impact on a teenage empowered female warrior of having to kill and endure so much. Sometimes they had their moments but they collect themselves and continue to push on. 

What a nice surprise to see Amicia in Requiem experience Post Traumatic Stress from all the violence she endures, even with the well-realized characters we see in modern games, with realistic reactions and emotions, developers are still not addressing this issue. But to my surprise, this groundbreaking unprecedented feature was not received as something positive by mainstream critics. The collective complaint is that "it was not properly implemented as it comes and goes and Amicia never properly deals with it" I don't understand, are they asking that Amicia remains under the PTSD effects during the entire gameplay experience? o would you rather have Amicia go to therapy 3 times a week and ask Hugo to hold the plague until she can get better? 

Having the Hero wondering why are her hands shaking, or having a panic attack with trouble breathing as she is overwhelmed by the violence of the situation was unprecedented for me, I have never seen that level of situation realism in a videogame. Of course, she has to shake it off and continue to survive!!! It's the 14th-century people didn't even know what those symptoms meant back then, and the mainstream critics that never say anything about the dumb hero cracking jokes after killing everybody getting so worked up about Amicia not going to group therapy during the plague to solve her issues, is really confusing. 

CONCLUSION

Requiem is a masterpiece in storytelling and worldbuilding with solid mechanics that propels the narrative forward even when it occasionally stumbles. The performances across the board are excellent. It is a cruel story to experience, but it also tells a very human and powerful tale that's worth seeing through to the end. A unique rat-infested dread that makes this 14th-century France setting worth returning to.

The Story is about letting go, about accepting your fate, I felt it was a personal challenge for me to overcome the ending since I got so attached to the brothers. During my playthrough of both games, I developed the most admiration and respect for Amicia, her ability to adapt and overcome, even endure the most impossible situations, made her someone to look up to, even though she is so young.