Resonance: A Plague Story Legacy faces a tough balancing act. Can it transfer away from its predecessors’ terrifying waves of rats and nonetheless ship a supernatural terror that ties into rewarding environmental puzzles? Can it ditch the collection’ sibling protagonists and nonetheless inform a shifting story centered on two individuals studying to lean on each other? And might it add fierce, frenetic fight to the franchise’s method as a brand new gameplay pillar with out abandoning its core identification as a puzzle sport? At instances, Resonance succeeds–especially throughout its stronger first half–but it too usually loses its footing. And because the sport more and more misses the mark, it additional distances itself from what labored so properly within the first two A Plague Story video games with out including something to make up for the loss.
Set in 1334, about 15 years previous to the primary two A Plague Story video games, Resonance follows Sophia as a substitute of collection protagonist Amicia de Rune. As a younger lady, Sophia was forcibly injected with blood that causes her to have visions of a long-lost civilization. Eager to treatment her of those visions, her father finally finds and travels to the island that she has seen in her visions, however in his makes an attempt to uncover the island’s historical past, he’s killed by a mysterious and terrifying beast. Wanting to find what her visions imply and find out about what really occurred to her dad, Sophia travels to the island along with her finest pal, Leni, in tow.
The story, particularly within the first half, is superb. This collection has constantly carried out a implausible job of shortly build up characters or conditions in its introductions to be narrative buy-ins which can be solely there to be destroyed or yanked away early on and create emotional stakes: Amicia’s blissful household life within the first sport, the hope that Amicia’s life had returned to a point of normalcy within the second sport. Resonance does the identical. You really spend fairly a little bit of time attending to know Sophia in Europe and the pretty blissful life she has with the adopted household of smugglers she grew up with earlier than a tragic occasion forces Sophia to go to the island. There’s an actual sense of desperation in her story, and the stakes of what could occur to her or Leni if she have been to return to her allies empty-handed and with out solutions are abundantly obvious.
Leni and Sophia have an odd dynamic. Narratively, it is fairly good. There’s some angst beneath the playful banter of the 2 buddies that means there could possibly be romantic emotions pushing the 2 collectively, and the 2 play off each other in cutscenes extremely properly with their very completely different ability sets–Sophia is a fighter who can muscle by issues that require energy, and Leni is a pickpocket who’s adept at getting out and in of locations she does not belong.
However that is by no means mirrored within the gameplay. Leni can maintain her personal in a combat simply in addition to Sophia can (she even one-shots whichever enemy she’s coping with as quickly as you deal with the second-to-last foe) and frequently helps out with pushing open heavy doorways and shifting partially caught levers. And on the similar time, Sophia can squeeze into any spot Leni can and is often the lead on tips on how to remedy puzzles (as a result of she’s you, the participant!). The story does a terrific job of framing that these two are solely succeeding as a result of they’ve each other, however then this framing is repeatedly struck down each time the cutscene ends and management returns to you. Once more, all of it feels very odd, like Resonance is holding onto its partnership framing for no different cause than that the primary two video games used it.
The mysterious, newly found island that Sophia and Leni discover themselves on is shortly revealed to be Crete, what was as soon as house to Minoan society and, if the myths are to be believed, a minotaur-inhabited labyrinth. The characters do not know that–it’s 1334, so all of these tales have but to be uncovered once more.
This can be a terrific framing for a puzzle sport. As Sophia, you carry a e book loaded with drawings out of your childhood visions, your dad’s early makes an attempt to discover the island, and all of the follow-up expeditions that the smuggling gang undertook after his passing. There is not any writing–it’s all a collection of drawings. And utilizing these drawings, you need to determine tips on how to retrace the steps of those that got here earlier than, whereas additionally discovering your personal method ahead when sudden roadblocks pop up.
To assist in her and Leni’s exploration, Sophia possesses an artifact that dates again to the Minoan society that after lived on the island. The sphere can redirect gentle to disclose hidden symbols left behind with invisible paint, and in addition open doorways that require lining up beams of sunshine to hit sure factors on a wall. These puzzles centered round using gentle are not often sophisticated, however contribute to the sensation of Sophia and Leni being clever dungeon delvers who’re uncovering long-lost historical past.
The method feels as I think about archaeology to be–I do not consider Sophia’s journey is in any method correct to uncovering forgotten ruins and unraveling historic mysteries, however the idealized fantasy of it’s properly represented right here.
Crete can be a gorgeous place to discover. The island is brightly lit and filled with vibrant greens, reds, and blues, whereas the pale bronze of statues, damaged weapons, and easy equipment mark Minoan society. Resonance additionally has the perfect soundtrack of the collection, sticking to strings to border most of Sophia’s journey as a grand journey or odyssey, and crucially plucking on the stress as soon as the supernatural terror begins to rear its head.
It takes Resonance longer than another A Plague Story sport to disclose its monster, however as soon as it does, any semblance that this will probably be a enjoyable {couples} journey for Sophia and Leni is gone. The beast is creepy, slinking by the darkness of the island’s underbelly in quest of any and all life. In these darkened areas, Sophia turns into coated in softly glowing blue lights, and she or he leaves a path of luminescent tracks each time she’s not crouch-walking. The beast can use these trails to trace her, nevertheless it additionally will pause to take a hauntingly raspy sniff of the air–if Sophia is just not behind cowl when this occurs, the beast will sniff out the blue lights on her and pursue her. The beast’s solely weak spot is gentle. It burns away upon touching any gentle supply, and so encounters with the beast are a collection of tense stealth sections as you bravely enterprise into the darkish to succeed in the subsequent supply of sunshine.
These sections are terrifying, particularly the primary one because the beast is launched and also you lastly get to see what killed Sophia’s father. These moments keep fairly constantly creepy too, with the sound design of the beast’s methodical actions and determined respiration making a tense and frantic environment each time it exhibits up. And Resonance continues to lift the bar with every encounter, including new varieties of obstacles to think about (like tips on how to discover security in areas the place the beast can dim the sunshine, or there is no gentle by any means) and extra varieties of enemy terrors for Sophia to come across at midnight. It is definitely probably the most memorable take I’ve ever seen of Crete’s notorious minotaur.
Determining what the beast is and its motivations turns into the most important driving thriller of Resonance. As Sophia ventures nearer to the minotaur’s lair, she encounters an increasing number of that’s unfamiliar to her however very a lot understood for us because the participant, however the sport’s reframing of those long-familiar myths is an attractive draw. Sophia quickly begins having visions of being Theseus, the Greek hero who we all know slayed the minotaur, however their story feels fairly completely different from the story we all know. They aren’t a divine adventurer, however are as a substitute a gladiator who rose to fame by collaborating in some form of competitors; they usually have a secret settlement with Daedalus, the famed inventor of the labyrinth.
These visions are stunning, reimagining what Minoan society may need regarded like on the peak of the Bronze Age. They’re additionally great energy fantasies as Theseus is a far stronger warrior than Sophia.
Fight is merely advantageous in Resonance. Sophia can strike, block, dodge, and parry, and in addition has a grappling hook to seize and yank enemies towards her. The troopers that adopted Sophia and Leni to the island are available your typical number of commonplace, nimble, shield-bearing, spear-wielding, and heavy enemy sorts, every of which has a singular tried-and-true methodology of taking them down. The problem of fight comes all the way down to crowd administration, ducking and weaving and parrying lengthy sufficient for a gap to current itself. Sophia (and Theseus) can take two hits earlier than the third kills them, and well being is barely regained by executing an enemy, encouraging you to combat aggressively and finish conflicts swiftly or to maintain a weaker enemy alive for a simple stab-and-heal whereas whittling away at a a lot stronger foe.
These temporary and violent dances are a enjoyable break from the puzzle-solving within the first half of the sport, however within the latter half–especially the ultimate few hours–Resonance begins throwing large teams of enemies at you, and that is when the fight system falls aside. Resonance does not have a lock-on characteristic, so coping with particularly giant teams of enemies clumped collectively is a ache, and I discovered myself frustratingly dying actually because I used to be making an attempt to assault a selected enemy I had simply surprised, just for Sophia to wail towards the impenetrable protect of a wholesome goal as a substitute.
The ending of Resonance can be simply far weaker than the primary half. Sofia both travels alone or with a far much less attention-grabbing NPC. The choice to have her journey solo I can understand–it ups the strain throughout moments when the beast is looking Sophia, and in addition ensures that these tense moments aren’t ruined by the companion messing up and breaking stealth. That will have in all probability sucked. However Sophia’s different companion is a poor tradeoff for moments when Leni is not there–the sport does such a superb job of villainizing this different character as much as that time within the story, that for Sophia to then be compelled to work with them for a number of chapters feels off-putting.
The choice to make Sophia journey with a companion in any respect, once more, feels just like the lingering ghost of the older video games dictating what the method must be. The moments the place Sophia is touring solo clearly showcase that she will carry a sport on her personal, but when we needed to have her discuss out loud to another person to progress the story, I am baffled that the dev crew did not go for the way more intriguing selection of one way or the other making the ghost of Theseus work.
Resonance additionally begins going slightly too far into the bodily trauma porn ultimately, even giving Lara Croft from the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy a run for her cash. There comes some extent the place seeing a personality survive getting tossed round, crushed, and bloodied makes you begin to surprise if the character is superhuman. When that happens, the fantasy of this being a narrative of an atypical girl grappling with the ramifications of discovering a supernatural energy begins to crack, and also you cease worrying a few protagonist as soon as you have seen them survive a near-death expertise half a dozen instances.
Maybe worst of all, the ultimate moments of Resonance have a lore downside. In the event you’ve performed these video games, you can begin piecing collectively what is going on on within the latter half of the story, and the ultimate large reveal will finally hit you want a freight prepare. If you recognize the ramifications of Resonance’s thriller and completely superior conclusion, it may be the perfect finale within the collection. However if in case you have no thought what, for instance, the Prima Macula is, the final 5 hours of this sport’s story will make little or no sense to you and the finale will in all probability be a complicated dud. You may nonetheless get the emotional payoff of Sophia having acquired the solutions she was in search of, however the sport does not present the required context to totally perceive what these solutions imply.
So, as unusual as it’s to say, if you wish to play Resonance and you have not performed each of the earlier A Plague Story video games, you have got homework. This isn’t a prequel that tells a narrative that may stand by itself, neither is it a great on-ramp for the collection.
General, I preferred Resonance: A Plague Story Legacy. I feel it provides a priceless chapter to the general mythos of the collection, and manages to carve out its personal identification in a number of locations with out persevering with to depend on fan-favorite Amicia or the fear of contending with waves of rats. However you need to be such a fan of the collection already to take pleasure in it to the identical extent as I did, and even then, shortcomings in fight and the companion system maintain the sport again, particularly in a latter half that appears to tug as you get nearer to the conclusion. I would like individuals to play Resonance, however I am unable to ignore that any sport that requires doing homework beforehand to take pleasure in is a bit missing. In the event you try this homework although, Resonance simply stands moreover the opposite A Plague Story video games as a terrific AA, story-driven expertise.
