Asobo Studio actually made its mark with A Plague Story: Innocence again in 2019, and whereas I wasn’t totally offered on the sequel and felt it was considerably of a step down from the unique, Resonance: A Plague Story Legacy is precisely the sort of inventive shift the sequence wanted.
I had an opportunity to play two sizable missions from the upcoming journey and got here away wanting extra. The developer’s willingness to maneuver past the established formulation, whereas bettering the fight and pacing, makes for a extra partaking and assured expertise. Listed below are my early ideas on what I performed.
Sophia and the Beast
Resonance: A Plague Story Legacy is ready 15 years earlier than the occasions of the primary A Plague Story and stars Sophia, who was launched within the sequel. Within the preview, Sophia and her good friend Leni arrive at Minotaur Island searching for one thing each historic and deeply private. Given her background as a plunderer, Sophia is a succesful fighter who’s expert with a blade and is aware of her manner round long-forgotten ruins.
The island is fantastically rendered because of Asobo’s in-house engine and the crew has managed to create environments that really feel detailed but straightforward to navigate with out counting on aggressive traversal markers. There are often a number of paths to your subsequent goal, and taking time to discover typically rewards you with helpful loot, largely trinkets that present passive buffs.
Fight is the largest departure from earlier titles. Sophia can assault, kick, parry, and execute enemies with out continually needing to cover behind cowl. It’s not essentially the most advanced fight system, nevertheless it feels satisfying because of its contextual executions, which there are numerous. The digicam is pulled again sufficient to present you a transparent view of the fight arenas and the sport avoids indicators for incoming assaults for a transparent presentation. I significantly loved pulling archers from elevated positions utilizing the grappling hook and getting just a few slashes in as they crashed to the bottom.
Enemies are additionally extra aggressive than anticipated. Highly effective assaults are telegraphed with giant pink indicators and have to be dodged, whereas common enemies hardly ever wait their flip to assault. There are moments the place you’ll parry a number of incoming strikes in fast succession, and efficiently pulling it off feels nice. There’s some jank right here and there, however it is a preview construct, and the fight is already a serious step ahead in comparison with the earlier video games, the place your choices had been much more restricted.
Fight is just one a part of the gameplay loop. You’ll additionally resolve giant environmental puzzles to progress by way of a number of areas. Whether or not it’s redirecting a light-weight supply to unlock a door or following patterns to keep away from spike traps, these puzzles do a great job of retaining the pacing recent. The closest comparability can be Uncharted and the trendy Tomb Raider video games, simply not the fight. Missions are damaged up with character banter, traversal sequences, large-scale puzzles, and bursts of fight that assist preserve a gentle rhythm.
That’s solely true of the primary mission I performed (which was Mission 5 to be particular), nevertheless, as a result of issues take a dramatic flip within the second. After an unlucky improvement, Sophia finds herself trapped deep inside the website she has been making an attempt to unlock and comes head to head with a mysterious cosmic entity lurking beneath the island. It’s onerous to clarify, however this supernatural power can drain the life from anybody standing in darkness, decreasing them to ash inside moments in a reasonably grotesque method. What follows is a tense survival horror sequence the place staying within the mild turns into your solely technique of survival.
It’s a putting change of tempo and successfully conveys the creature’s terrifying presence. It lurks inside the shadows, strikes at unbelievable pace, and relentlessly pursues Sophia as she navigates a sprawling underground labyrinth. Somewhat than preventing again, you might be pressured to seek out cowl, transfer between mild sources, keep away from the creature’s gaze, and keep crouched as you seek for an escape route.
In simply two missions, Resonance: A Plague Story Legacy managed to remain recent, partaking, and surprisingly prepared to reinvent itself when obligatory. Whereas it doesn’t play very like the primary two video games, its tone, ambiance, and characters nonetheless really feel true to the world Asobo created.
