It's good, but at what cost? An analysis of A Plague Tale: Requiem
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- Has A Plague Tale: Requiem learned from the mistakes of the first game? Watch me spend too long trying to explain why the answer is mostly yes, and sometimes no.
Hope you enjoy! :)
Footage used from (in order of appearance) - A Plague Tale: Requiem, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Gears 5, The Last of Us Part I, Assassin's Creed Unity, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, The Last of Us Part II, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Spec Ops: The Line, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
A deep dive analysis and critique of A Plague Tale: Requiem. I guess you could call it a video game video essay.
0:00 Introduction
1:00 Overview and genre
3:45 More freedom
7:42 Some steps back
12:44 Following design tropes
20:15 The Rats make Plague Tale Plague Tale
22:40 Brothers - A tale of narrative gameplay
30:30 Plague Tale’s attempts of narrative gameplay
40:45 Analysis of the plot
1:00:50 A meaningful ending
1:12:03 The power of ambition
1:14:34 Conclusion - Hry
Wtf how does this not even have 1,000 views?!? Glad I found this hidden gem of a channel🙏
Very glad you've enjoyed the video!
Amazing video! Glad the algorithm recommended this. I know it’s a bit on the nose but I find the game does an excellent job of demonstrating the many different ways we cope with the impending loss of a loved one with a terminal illness.
Thanks for the comment, really glad you liked it!
Yes, I really appreciate the game's rather realist approach on the loss theme.
42:00 You cannot stress enough what a masterful performance Robyn Wolf did for Amicia. She played her very real and grounded, not melodramatic, and Wolf's talent to express thought and emotion through her eyes are fully projected by Amicia's character model (see Amicia's "Thank you" scene at Marseille). Gestures like the attempt to shake the anxiety off the hands is real as they tingle or get numb, so in some playthroughs those suffering from it comment on its realism. It is also a scene which documents if someone has emotionally connected to the character as some players beginn to talk to her and try to give emotional support, like Amicia can really hear them. As a virtual photographer I also found out that some of Robyn's acting for Amicia is hidden off camera during the cutscenes and you can see it when you move the camera towards Amicia in photo mode; one is Amicia being choked to death by the farmers during which the camera zooms onto Hugo instead of showing Amicia's struggle and her panic, fear and anger in her face, and another one is her fight to save Sophia from the soldier at her ship, in which the camera stays behind Amicia all the time, while you can see her physical struggle in her face and Robyn played her with her eyes closed while stabbing, not looking at the wound she is inflicting through the knife, showing the inner distance to the violence she inflicts. A little one is the scene of Beatrice blocking Amicia entering Hugo's room and the camera does not show Robyn playing Amicia getting on her toes and peaking over Beatrice's shoulder into the room, showing her desperation to know about the wellbeing of Hugo. While many highlight Charlotte's voice acting, Robyn already provided Amicia as a fully fledged character with the body and facial acting alone, without any voice: You know every emotion and thought of her even if you switch off the sound. I think, Wolf provided one of the most impressive motion capture acting for a character, that even holds up with some of the best motion capture performances done for movies. Amicia's realism comes from Robyn (and Charlotte was guided by her performance).
Brilliantly written, I see McBurney getting tonnes of credit (rightly) for her voice performance, but the physical performance is much more rarely praised. I'm very glad that you've brought more attention to Robyn Wolfe's contribution. The physical performances elevate the storytelling in Requiem by a lot.
Yes, I found it a little unfair that only one award nominated Robyn and Charlotte, while others only named Charlotte. It is probably the reason why Charlotte did not win one, because the other nominated actors also provided the mocap.@@Pixel_Whip
at 56:00 when you talk about Arnaud and his reason to help Hugo and Amicia actually there is a another reason revealed in the final fight between that bald kind and Arnaud just before Arnaud's Death
The Dialgoue between them goes something like this:
Bald King Guy: are you trying to take revenge for your son? It' s War Arnaud !
Keep in mind this is not exact transcript of the dialgoue (LOL)
But I swear there is a dialogue like this between their fight and I like to see Arnaud's reason to help Hugo and kind of share this special bond with him was because he lost his son to the war
Great comment. This is absolutely true. The game is a bit subtle about it, but it's clear that Arnaud wants revenge on the count over his son. It's also clear that he wants to team up with Hugo to use his powers to kill the count for this revenge. However, I still feel that the change from enemies to friends is too sudden. The game never explores this dynamic between Amicia, Hugo, and Arnaud, and it doesn't feel natural even though there is an underlying (and crucially unexplored) reason.
I think Sophia said something about that Arnaud finally found purpose in life, thats why he sacrificed himself at the end for the kids.
1:01:00 To me the story is an allegory rich with metaphors, and at its core it is about preserving your compassion and empathy, to not lose your soul, in a world filled with hate and violence. Both Amicia and Hugo deal with this inner struggle, and due to their different stages of maturity Amicia prevailed at the end and Hugo lost.
Amicia for example is a metaphor for young people forced into committing acts of violence, even though it goes against their nature, like child soldiers or young people forced into war due to an outside force (see young women becoming a soldier from one day to another in Ukraine). One core aspect of Amicia is that she is not who she wants to be (and one reason for her distance to her mother is her mother's order to protect Hugo made her a killer in "Innocence").
Hugo is a metaphor for both a WMD (atomic bomb) and for individuals with a psychological state predisposed to become sociopathic due to traumatic events in their childhood. The Macula illness in his blood is a metaphor for sociopathy, and its stages describe the progression of sociopathy in a young mind.
The count is a metaphor for power hungry psychopaths grasping for WMDs to have control and protection (see his "We are born to keep the fire aflame" speech).
The rats are a metaphor for the destructive effect sociopathic individuals have, that direct their hate unreflected against everyone in their path, in the end even standing for the radiation going out from a Ground Zero when Hugo goes "nuclear" and pushes the button as retaliation against everyone for him believing his sister got killed.
The story talks a lot how violence and hate causes trauma and as effect such traumatized individuals carry this on to the next generation. And how Amicia in the midst of it becomes part of the problem but deep down knows this is the wrong way and constantly struggles to leave the path of escalation. You can always see symptoms of her inner struggle bursting out, which is what makes her redeemable: She learned as a child to protect herself with violence, but she also knows this is not the way, and wants to escape, "want rest".
"Requiem" is a masterpiece in allegorical story telling. It effectively uses this form to teach about the human condition. While phantastical and not of our time, at its core it is about a truth and who we are. And when you look into the news: "Requiem" happens in Ukraine or now Palestine, where people struggle to keep their humanity, their compassion and empathy after a trauma because of violence and hate, and how it continues from generation to generation.
36:00 While I agree with most souvenirs being optional is okay, I have to disagree with Amicia's breakdown moment. This is such a pivotal moment not only for her character arc but also for establishing an emotional bond between the player and the character, because her breakdown is very simple, raw and truthful, which enables you to truly empathize with her, as everyone had such a moment on way or the other, mostly in the youth, when you are more easily overwhelmed by pressure. And it is a moment only you share with her, no other character in the story knows about her inner state, so you have this exclusive with the character. Some comment about this scene they wanted to give her a hug, an emotional response you only have when you are with a real individual. Also the motion capture performance by the animator (not Robyn Wolf this time, as she only did the cutscenes with fixed camera angles) gets lost with many keeping the camera behind Amicia's back, but the character model shows her crying. This should have been a mandatory scene (a room containing a pickup item like a key to progress) with fixed camera to highlight the performance.
This is a fair point. I think there's still some merit to the spontaneous nature of the breakdown moment. The player expects most of these moments to be fairly benign yet touching moments, so when the breakdown moment happens, it's impact is a lot more intense as it subverts the expectations of what a souvenir moment can be.
However, I agree that the moment could be more narratively effective if it were given it's own cutscene. Perhaps the souvenir moment could have been left, and an additional similar moment could have been made into a cutscene.
I suppose my perspective here is that any players who miss this moment do witness a weaker narrative because its one of the most relatable moments across the entirety of the two games. But at the same time, the spontaneity of makes it impactful in its subversion of expectations, and there's probably a lot of solutions which could bridge this gap as you've suggested.
I agree, the narrative is weaker when they miss it. But I think in general such a scene with the main protagonist simply breaking down and admitting to not want to go on is so unusual, even outside games, that it would have been surprising in any form.@@Pixel_Whip
20:00 Fun fact: The rats are actually not 3D objects but 2D sprites driven by a particle system. That's why they could render that many. The illusion of 3D comes from the 2D images for the sprites being prerendered 3D graphics and relation to the position of the camera the correct corresponding 2D image of the 3D rat is displayed. Source: Interview by YT channel julienchieze at Asobo Studios.
Thanks for directing me to that video, its super interesting. While this isn't a rare technique, it still helps to highlight the technical proficiency of Asobo.
maybe this is a future of gaming industry
I'm curious what you think of the alternate Lucas ending. Even though it doesn't change much, I personally think it was unnecessary.
i want a APT3 with amicia and hugo( as by some theory it is possible hoga can be back ) only. If not then should start a new IP
Don’t see how Hugo can come back from death😂😂😂 He’s gone dude.
@@Loophole23742 you gotta check some theories