Learn more about how Nvidia's RTX 4090 GPUs and DLSS 3 delivers the next generation in fidelity and smoothness: www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/dlss/. Thanks to Nvidia for sponsoring the video.
DLSS 3 is scam with fake frame inserts that do nothing but inflate fps number - as 120fps in DLSS 3 plays like 60fps, DLSS 2 is still superior with better image quality and less caveats. We don't need your paid opinion, we got more than enough analysis from HUB and DF
THANK YOU VERY MUCH for including Steam Deck portions in your reviews! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE continue to do so, I know not everyone cares and I know it's extra work but a lot of us do like to know what will work well on our Decks or whether we'll be buying a game while planning on sticking with our main rigs. Thanks so much again!
Even for those without Decks, I think it'll be a good representation for people on hardware below his main computer! Plus we get to hear what unexpected games can run fine on a Deck.
Hard agree, I'm gonna get a Steam Deck in the new year and really want to know more about how games run on it, definitely have a good idea but stuff like this is so great!
I really hope Charlotte McBurney gets nominated for a game award/BAFTA award. She was once again fantastic as Amicia and I can’t imagine anyone else playing the character but her. Amicia and Hugo’s relationship reminds me so much of Lee and Clementine from Telltale’s “The Walking Dead.” Two sets of phenomenal characters with even more phenomenal voice acting performances
@@Greenjoker4 As someone with just a bare knowledge of French and Medieval history, there is no perfect solution. The English language actors were the only ones that the writer and narrative director worked with directly and directed. They also performed the mocap and are also the only ones that fit their ages. I listened to the French dub, and though it’s good it’s clearly adult women trying to sound younger to play Amicia, Hugo, and Lucas. Also the French Vitalis sounded like he was trying too hard to come off as evil. Not a single language option matches the lipsync Also in that region of the South of France, at the time they would not be speaking French. Instead they would be speaking Occitan which was also the language of the aristocracy. The rest of France would be speaking Middle French which is completely incomprehensible to Modern French speakers. The English likewise would be speaking two languages. The nobility and gentry such as the knights would be speaking Norman-French because England was colonized by the French from Normandy. The more common born such as the footmen, archers, and laborers that we encounter would speak Middle English which is completely incomprehensible to Modern English speakers.
@@Meowtro are you talking about the voice acting in both plague tale games? If so then I understand ppl not liking it. Even though I believe the VA’S for Amicia and Hugo did a great job. However, if you’re talking about the voice acting for the walking dead being subpar then I completely disagree with you in that regard. Dave Fennoy and Melissa Hutchinson gave two of the best voice acting performances of all video games in my opinion. Their chemistry was on point and believed every line they said. And don’t get me started on Lee’s death scene. It’s not surprising that Melissa Hutchison won a VGX award for her performance as Clementine and that her and Dave were both nominated for Bafta’s.
Honestly, I played this game for the past 4 days so I'm still fresh from that ending. But I think this could be one of the most underrated games this year. Everything about It hits so good. Yes it does get the little bit repetitive during the last couple of missions, but honestly , I felt fine with that as the characters felt so fucking amazing. The Chemistry between Amicia and Lucas was so good. Arnaud and Sophia being brilliant side characters who honestly had some of the best moments, and then Hugos and Amicias Chemistry is also still there. I honestly found it all so amazing. I 100% ask anyone to give it a try
Fantastic writing and editing on this one, as always. Also, thank you for taking the time to include Steam Deck in your awesome reviews. Very much appreciate it.
I have been really looking forward to checking this one out, i enjoyed my time with the first game and kinda felt like it flew under the radar a bit. Hopefully the performance issues will be fixed and A Plague Tale Requiem gets the recognition it deserves. If you haven't already played the first game i personally recommend it, you wont be disappointed.
@@RoyD2 yea I played it on Xcloud which is equal to a series s and would not have guessed performance being an issue. Its a beautiful game, And I only notice short lived drops in one setpiece moment.
I absolutely adored the first game. I had no expectations going in to it and it completely blew me away. I've been waiting for this sequel ever since it was announced. I'm about 5 hours in right now and I've been loving it so far. I have noticed some issues with story focus and pacing, but Amicia and Hugo's bond is just the best thing ever and I love both of them
@@coreyconnor9145 It was great. I didn't like it as much as the first, though. I think it has some pacing issues, especially near the middle before the island and again near the end. Like the first game the relationship between Amicia and Hugo drives the whole game and I loved it all the way through. Although I will say I wasn't a huge fan of the ending. I'd give the first a 9.5/10 and I'd give this one an 8.5/10
@@firefly5677 what about the ending didn’t have you too pleased? i feel as if it was the only way to make it not be a ‘superhero/villain’ game. i think the storytelling was superb, over both games, and the graphics were incredible in the second. feel the end of the game became a bloodbath as amicia was thrown in a lot of combat situations but i thoroughly enjoyed that change of pace. both games to me were 9.5/10
Best game i have ever played, didnt think it could match the first one, but this is just a masterpiece, delivering in all sections. Emotional, puzzle, sneaking, and the crossbow is an amazing addition. For me it was running very smooth with 3080ti, ryzen 5800, 5120*1440 With fps between og 50-100+ Everyone should play this amazing game.
REVIEW: For Anyone wondering if you should play this game, you should. Just like the The Last of Us, this game invokes such massive amounts of emotions it’s not even funny. When I played the OG Plague Tale, I didn’t really get very attached to Alicia and Hugo. I can’t say that about this game. Yes, the beginning chapters are a bit slow but it picks up nearly half way through the game. The ending chapters are like dark fantasy compared to Innocences quasi-historic game. I can tell you that the characters and story were the highlights for me. Combat was improved and the graphics were amazing. Optimization sucks, and yeah I have a 1080gtx but I still made it work by lowering the resolution by 80% on high. I was waiting for the best next narrative driven game since The Witcher 3 and this was it. Fantastic.
I am just so deeply deeply stoked that this game got a second chapter. Amicia and Hugo are characters that feel really human. I'm glad Asobo was able to expand the systems in the sequel WITHOUT sacrificing that excellent world building and characterization that made the first game so beautiful. Thank you for introducing me to some of my favorite recent characters, Skill Up!
I really appreciate adding the Steam Deck to the setups you test on when it comes to technical stability, since how playable a game is on the Deck is generally a pretty good indicator of how playable it is on desktop Linux. When devs fix bugs and breakages for Steam Deck, those fixes generally apply to desktop Linux as well. Drawing attention to games not working on the Deck helps bring in Linux support where there otherwise wouldn't be.
Awesome review. I’m playing on Series X and it looks gorgeous. The game’s 3D audio is really good on headphones too. I saw an interview with the developers that said this is the final game in the series… so I’m looking forward to seeing how it ends!
Such a great, emotional and heart-wrenching story. I wish so much success on these devs and writers. Can't get enough of narrative videogames that stick with you. Brilliant.
Happy to say that the recent patches have significantly improved performance. On a 2070 Super, intel i7-8700k at high 1440p with quality DLSS I get 60-85fps and very rarely if ever drop below 60
It's one of the most beautiful games I've seen. Whether it be the first game, Microsoft Flight Simulator or Plague Tale Requiem, they craft absolutely stunning experiences. I cant wait to check it out tomorrow but am going to finish the first game first which I never got to do completely. The performance issues are concerning.
I just finished Requiem last night. It was a little too long in my opinion but overall a great game and story. It ran great on my PS5, very minimal bugs. The characters were very believable and I really felt for Amicia and Hugo and really cared about them throughout the story.
I loved the first game. One of the best of all time. The gameplay, medieval setting, characters. And the incredible music. But most importantly the emotional impact. Major hopes for this one now. It’s ok if it’s different, they should be. “More of the same” isn’t always good.
Can't believe requiem the sequel is finally out. I don't know how much more darker this game will be. I hope there will be more flexibility with combat. I like the voice actor of amicia hope she get nominated for the game awards she gave a good performance in innocence And i saw other people's playthrough for requiem it seemed more emotional.
Loved the review. JUST A HEADS UP for peeps interested in DLSS 3 - it’s essentially DLSS 2 plus frame generation, aka “fake frames”. The added AI generated frames have trouble with signs and other details when in motion, and most importantly, DO NOT REDUCE input latency like traditional frames. So it makes things look smoother without making them “feel” smoother compared to frame generation off (just DLSS 2 on). So yea, don’t turn frame generation on for competitive games cuz it’ll make ur image less consistent and doesn’t reduce input latency. Also, DLSS 3 works best with fps higher than 100. It looks considerably worse at 60 fps, which u would think is when you’d want the extra frames. So I imagine the 4060’s, 70’s and 80’s will struggle to use frame generation to its full capacity, assuming you want more smoothness in the video and not how the game feels. Just letting folks know what they’re getting into!
When I played it the first time; I hated Hugo so much. Hugo, whining then I grew attached to the little turd as I played through. And my god; by the end I started to adore him. Such a great story and writing to make you care about the characters.
Thank you for the review! I think I like the most Amicia's character in the Requiem, how it progresses, the voice acting was also phenomenal. It's not that Amicia suddenly grew numb to killing and was venting her frustration - that's not the whole picture at all. She took upon herself a role much greater than herself. It was very interesting to see how her interests clashed with her mother's, how Amicia decided that she knows better what's right for Hugo. He was basically her only reason to live after everything they went through. And compared to mother... Amicia probably felt for the first time needed and really responsible. It was a lot. The supporting cast was also very good, I liked them all a lot, I was glad to be with them (at least something positive in these bleak times). Some sequences (underground temple for example) were giving me goosebumps, the locations were so well thought-out. That all said, I kinda agree about pacing and... the feel overall. I liked the game. But... I liked only parts of it, not the whole. It's kinda strange. At least here I could sympathize with all our main cast lol (looking at you, last of us part 2... interesting parallel btw)
"The Pond" is not a place or location, but rather a place in time. The only reasonable chance to find a cure for the macula is in the future due to the advent of microscopic study of diseases. The Pond is symbolic of a petry dish, which is the basin used to see into the microscopic world via the microscope. Also, bodies of water were some of the very first places used to gather samples to be studied when the microscope was invented. And a petry dish is simply a tiny pond. Debate me. The next macula carrier will be a Doctor's child or baby sibling, thus setting up the doctor as the perfect role as the protector of the next macula carrier.
To this day, Hugo saying he was hungry to his sister with a broken voice was one of the most heart melting things I've ever experienced. I started donating charities after this...
Your description of the two games' escalation in plot makes me think of the Condemned series. Same thing: a background element starting to grow too big, to the point the "Big Serious Plot" overwhelmed the intimate emotions.
I personally love when sequels feel different. It makes me feel like the story is actually unfolding and changing. Along with the characters we follow. I beat innocence on PS4, PS5, and PC. I plan on junking out on this one too! Thanks as always for the wonderful and insightful review.
I was surprised about this review. You liked the game and recommend it but i was shocked i felt opposite to you. First game was awesome but this sequel is for me better. I love the story and felt pacing was great, and i absolutely did not feel it was too long, i would have wanted it to last forever :). I think this is one of the best games i have ever played. The way i felt after finishing it is something i have never felt before. I guess the game moved me more than any other game has. Edit: Regarding the performance. They must have improved it, i played it on a Series X with my LG C1 4K TV. Dont think the Series X runs the game in native 4K but it was at least upscaled and looked amazing. FPS was not 60 but it felt smooth so must have been more than 30.
The first game was great, but man, that tone shift really threw me for a loop. The game began with two children struggling to survive in an awful, death-ridden world, and by the end I was fighting a clergyman who was inside a rat tornado that was turning into giant rat tentacles to squash me. I was just staring at the screen thinking “…dafuq?”
That's kind of where I'm worried. I loved the beginning, as it felt very "real", and just happened to be set in this fantasy-style black death where the plague was dialed up to 11. I didn't even inherently hate the turn toward Hugo's weird disease and the harder focus on alchemy (though I still preferred the first bit)-it still kind of seemed like a good story, but a little more fantasy. And then you get to the rat pope tube in the mold cathedral. And that was a bridge too far.
Yeah, it just shows how bad this game runs. For example, my 4090 does Cyberpunk every setting max WITH psyco raytracing and DLSS 2 Quality at 60 fps-ish. If this game without Raytracing is hitting 60ish with DLSS 2....Jesus, this game needs some heavy optimization work done to it. Hope I get to try DLSS 3 on this game but man it sucks to hear how hard this is going to be for everyone.
@@soaringspoon yeah like this is a pretty good benchmark for a 4090 for how badly optimized it is, the fact that a 2080Ti can barely hit 60 at 1440 medium with DLSS 2 is ridiculous
yeah very impressive... barely 60 fps. I dunno how you think thats insane and impressive, this game doesnt even show how good it is, what a weird comment. Its also a shame Nvidia overprices it so much because they think they can scam us all.
@@selectionn look at benchmarks and then talk lmao, yeah the game is trash polishwise and can have 100fps at 4k Ultra with DLSS 2 with a 4090 unlike a 2080Ti that can barely hit 60 tops and that is at 1440p at medium and with DLSS, yeah totally uninpressive... and I never said WOW DUDE A 4090 IS A STEAL THANKS NVIDIA FOR GIVING ME FOOD, the card is good period, the price is another thing and the optimization of the game is another thing, but sure keep mixing stuff to make everyone be against you I guess.. I trust more people like gamer nexus and digital foundry than a random on a youtube comment lol. Performance is one thing and another is price, neither of us will get a 4090 or a ferrari, or I can't watch the F1 because those cars are too expensive? what a logic lol
Another wonderful review, Ralph. Always a joy watching your excellently written and fair reviews. It's a shame i will not be playing this game for a long time since an RTX 4090 would probably cost me my house where i live. Keep em coming, Mate!
Bravo on the Deck coverage(or intent to in this case). Been playing Scorn on mine over the weekend and even though I have a PS5 and a beefy gaming PC, it's become my main gaming device. Keep it coming!
Thank you for the high quality review and the great as always editing. I must say though, I find it slightly unfair to state the game has performance issues because you tested it on a GPU from 2 generations ago. I agree that it would be great to see it run speckles on 20 series, I am on that generation as well, but I also believe developers should keep pushing graphical development further and further. I would rather tone down to medium graphical settings for 1440p than be stuck on console level graphics for years and years. And let's be honest with each other, you completely disregarded the fact that there is a 30 series in there that probably runs the game perfectly fine. Don't get me wrong, I love what you do and end hope you keep the varied points of view coming.
I played on PS5 and most of the time I found the 30fps to be very stable. But in scenes like millions of rats and fire everywhere it does drop significantly. Never did for me during combat which is great since it didn't really have a negative effect on my playthrough
Yea……..I got a HUGE frame drop when I got caught in rats and had to use the fire sling to get out and it killed my frames on the series S, really hoping they patch in a performance mode to get 60fps.
The first game definitely stunned me how it pulled me in so seamlessly into it's world and story. Definitely a gem of a videogame, though I heard performance woes on the PS5 platform.
The game had some intense sequences and emotional moments at times, especially the ending but I felt at least to me that the narrative drags out for too long and it can become repetitive( with too many running sequences) in the middle of the campaign. Every single character its given a back story and all have chemistry with each other. Graphics wise the game looks stunning, especially when The Runes reach the Island, the waves and the sand on the shore look so realistic and beautiful to look at when the sunset hits the horizon(chef kiss). This time around the world feels richer in detail and more interactive with NPCs than the 1st game. The devs did a great job at using the tools at hand creatively and cleverly to pass through the waves of rats in your surroundings. Exploration is rewarding and the puzzles are straightforward. Overall, this game delivers and it is easily one of the best on gamepass. If you like narrative-driven games with a decent/great story to tell, and you like the 1st game. Then this is a must.
Im not sure how ill feel about the shift to being so action oriented. I think the reason the first game worked so well was because stealth was required. Amicia is just a child after all, and taking on armed guards was not something she was remotely trained to do. I guess I'll reserve judgement til I get my hands on it
There are some sections that are really combat intensive that I think they would have been better off scrapping stealth. With one section in particular that made me want to drop the game in the last third because I knew it would have been made much more manageable with some kind of dodge feature or lethal melee combat (there is strangle but it's only good for one enemy type)
@@TicTacPilgrim that very last couple of missions were ROUGH in the first one and it somewhat soured my view of an otherwise GREAT game. Still would give it a 7-8 overall, but the rest of it was a 9 and the final bit was maybe a 6, felt they dropped the ball on level design, enemy placements, and how they interplay with the mechanics hard. That being said, the Hugo missions were somewhat enjoyable tbh, I didn’t think I’d like them but they were pretty good
I'd highly recommend playing in French with subtitles as that's where it's set. I can't comment on the English Voice Actors but the French ones were incredible for Innocence!
@@fm_ography idk the performance of hugo and especially amicia and lucas in english are not worth passing up on the emotions they convey both joy and despair are second to none in gaming imo
@@fm_ography the voice actress for amicia i think was probably too young for any sort of fame (possibly parental decision) when the first game released ao she didnt really get the recognition she deserves but hopefully this time around (if she wants i guess) then she will no doubt win countless performance awards, seriously sells every single scene in the game perfectly
I think it's awesome that the first game got enough spotlight that Asobo was able to make a sequel with loftier ambitions. It's just a bummer that for most smaller studios that get a hit on their hands, those loftier ambitious usually just turn into a "bigger" game. Bigger isn't always better, and it certainly doesn't just equal more ambition or innovation. Still excited to play this one!
2:20 Well, that’s a red flag for me cuz I already think Innocence could have used some trimming. Gonna wait and see what some of my other trusted reviewers say about this one. Great review as always.
RALPH! DLSS 3 has a "Frame Generation" option that creates fake frames(like motion interpolation on a TV but more impressive) which CAUSES AN INCREASE IN INPUT LATENCY as the GPU is holding already rendered frames in order to create fake frames between the "real" frames. So you get better motion in exchange for worse input latency. Only use Frame Generation when the real frame rate is above 100fps as generating frames at say, 30fps would have way too high latency as a starting point then the GPU will do Frame Generation and add even more latency to the final render. You will have motion smoother than 30fps but more laggy in terms of input response.
"it's cool... but it's not a Plague Tale" Exactly. And your arguments are also precise are valid. This is the only correct, sincere review I've seen so far - contrary to the other advertisements dressed as one. Thank you for standing out from the crowd of shallow, seeing through the glitter / emotions, and speaking your mind!
I'm still psyched for this game. I absolutely loved the first one and hope I enjoy this one just as much. I'll find out tomorrow out I rate this knowing I might be a little conflicted, which is pretty normal for me since I always go in with tempered expectations.
Just finished the game last week and waited until I was done before watching your review. Good news is that performance (at least on Xbox) seems to have improved a ton after an early update, as the jitteriness I noticed in the first few levels was gone for the majority of my playthrough. I echo some of your feelings about the differences in the game compared to the first. The larger scale and generally greater focus on freedom makes the pacing feel less fine-tuned compared to Innocence, which admittedly prevented me from blowing through the story in a couple of days like I did with that first title. I really found a groove several hours in, though, as I stopped worrying about the "meta" and allowed myself to play and react regardless of how that would affect my progression. I suspect that a future replay with my improved understanding of the changes to gameplay and tone will make me appreciate Requiem's upgrades and adjustments more. I think the biggest triumph here is the acting. I don't remember the last time I was this deeply connected to a game world by its characters, and that's due primarily to how strong the performances are. Even when the writing veered into melodrama and got a bit too fantastical for my tastes, the cast grounded it and made it all emotionally and narratively engrossing.
I can’t wait to test out my hardware with this game. I have an RTX 3090 FE + Ryzen 5900x. I’ve played every major modern game in existence, and I’ve never needed to play any game without ray tracing, at less than 4k, or less than 60fps. I don’t see this game bucking that trend. Although I legitimately look forward to the first games that really give my PC a struggle.
Booted up mine for the first time today with the current patches on Series X on an LG CX with VRR and Dolby Vision enabled. My experience was a gorgeous game with no performance issues at least for now. Only into Chapter 2, but enjoying my experience so far.
Your review is spot on. I loved this game as much as Innocence, maybe more in some parts and less in others; but you seem to really have played both games thoroughly and it shows. I wish you didn't complain as much about performance in the first part of your review, especially considering it's that one part of the game on the town that performance drops a lot. The vast majority of the game plays well. I think the strongest atribute of A Plague Tale: Requiem as well as it's prequel is the story and the characters, and I humbly believe both games deliver and are bound to become classics.
I learnt yesterday that the recommend GPU is RTX3070 for this game... I knew this is going hard on most pc gamers who are likely running a 1060. I was genuinely hyped for this game, but I'm not going in day one. The price of the game or GPU is not my main concern. Past experiences (cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring) tell me that playing new games on day one is never the best idea if you value smooth performance. I'll wait till they fix all the performance issues.
I despise the narrative of pidgeonholing IP's to some limited product instead of letting a story naturally- or supernaturally- grow beyond the natural confines of the small origins of characters. More games need to break that limiting framework, even within a single entry into the IP evolving from a quest for survival, into a quest to thrive, and into a quest to overcome/conquer. Random add on: I likewise despise the limiting framework of games basically scrapping all these open worlds they invest so much into creating only to then drop. Imagine what could be developed if they would heckin reuse their worlds, adding new stories, new mechanics, filling in missing gaps, and so on. Imagine taking all Witcher 3's assets to tell a new story in the world.
In the next game Amicia will get guns, a long braid and she'll change her name to Laura or something. I'm with you on this, I prefered the first one. The "puzzles" to get past or get rid of rats was the interesting part, fighting humans is not. This one seems to rely mostly on fighting humans. Honestly turning it into a medieval survival horror would have been more intersting than a Tomb Raider/Uncharted action fest.
Great review as always! How noticeable was the input latency brought on by frame generation on the 4090? Even with reflex enabled, a few other hardware reviewers have said it feels as though you are running at something like 60fps when achieving 150fps. Most have been saying that the framerate is incredible, but responsiveness and image quality suffer (due to the generated frames being much lower quality than DLSS2.0 or native). It would be a shame if frame generation can't be used in competitive titles because of it.
@@TerraWare Ah great! It's good to know that it isn't too distracting in action-adventure titles. I think e-sports titles running at very high (400+ fps) will be the real test though because input latency is much more noticeable in those games.
@@JustS0meK1dd It sounds like it would be counterproductive to turn on in e-sport games since latency is paramount not that you'd have to anyway considering the 4090 has ridiculous rasterized performance anyway.
I'm really happy that the Romani gypsies featured in this game look like how they should with brown skin since they are of Indo European descent in real life
@@gamz yeah it is. My pc has a 2080ti which is still faster than a 3070, a Ryzen 5 3600 and 32 gigs of ram. I should be able to play this game no problem then. I wonder if the day one patch will fix it.
21:00 I disagree that "Requiem" is less allegorical. I think in fact, it is still allegorical and offers even much more metaphors. Amicia here is clearly a metaphor for child soldiers and she easily stands now for the young women in Ukraine who were normal citizens a year ago and now experience death around them and through their own hands, and struggle to maintain their humanity and compassion like Amicia does in "Requiem". The rats are much clearer now a metaphor for sociopathic hate reflected back into the world by individuals like Hugo, having lost their empathy and compassion through their experience with violence. While the story and the characters play in the 14th century, much of it is about what is happening today in our world (including the proliferation with nuclear weapons and what the ones causing it are driven by, and what could trigger an event like WW3).
The naughty dog label you give this game fits perfectly from my experience seeing gameplay. It's like a mash of uncharted and tlou, but in a good way. And with a lot less controversy too
Very interesting. I watched the IGN review before this one. In the IGN review, they basically said the game was just more of the same as the first one. You are saying the games are completely different. This is why I usually watch multiple reviews, everybody has different thoughts.
Same. I always felt like the first game was like a toddler with crazy potential but needed room (and money) to grow. Gonna change my location to NZ and boot this up tonight.
@@FKDotFitzgerald I love the first game but the levels were so inconsistent to the point i was yelling at the screen at times lol . This feels way more fleshed out and has much better physics in general.
Skill Up is always great but I think this last video might be one of my favorite pieces of gaming criticism ever?? Idk it was just really nuanced and I was so impressed with how well you articulated how the game was good but in a way that was disappointing to you in the context of the series. Plus the technical advisement is top notch! Awesome video.
The first game is so well written and so beautiful that it gets a pass on having really terrible gameplay. I'm sceptical on playing the sequel due to the last 2 or 3 levels of the first game just falling apart and completely undoing all its hard work with terrible gameplay mechanics to the point I almost quit the game that I had been thoroughly enjoying. Fingers crossed for this one.
After playing the first few hours of this game I thought to myself "This seems like it's about a 3/4 talking to 1/4 playing, reminds me of Uncharted too much to really be enjoyable". And here Skill Up has directly confirmed my suspicions.
hey @skillup I'm not sure if its an issue that you'd like to address... But if you did use footage from the first one would you be able to tag the footage as the first one when it appears. I think it'll help to compare the graphical fidelitey. Sometimes i couldnt tell.
It's just a bit of a shame that console players will potentially have to wait 2-4 years in order to play it in a decent state, whereas us PC players can already get a fairly decent experience with the right hardware. I hope they manage to optimise it for the XB/PS only players sooner rather than later, so they aren't waiting on the PS5 Pro, upgraded XSX, or even PS6/NextBox
Awesome review, beautifully written als always, and the fact that you feel like the game is so vastly different in feel from the first one makes me all the more excited. As someone who liked Innocence, but thought it was good and not amazing, I'm eager to see if this one can do more for me. That being said, I've already played the first few hours and loved what I got to play, so I know a bit of what's going on. I really, really like your reviews, but I made a similar comment in the past and will continue to do so. I feel like your videos always show more of the game than they should, and you even told a bit more than I woul've liked to know. You know, the swashbuckling Uncharted adventure on an island, and so on and so forth? I really feel like that could've been left as a surprise for people.
Tbh, I feel the verdict doesn't really go with what is being said in the review. Most of it sounds negative (at least to me). The game is longer for no real reason, the performance is bad that it might not even be playable, the story focuses more on the supernatural elements which I think no one really though was the best part of the first game, the MC is now suddenly a super strong warrior that can kill entire garrisons because I guess these aren't warriors completely removing this sense of being in a world where everything (even the rats) are stronger than you and you have to find a way through that etc. I would say the best thing from this review is the fact that the skills are dependent on your play style but even that could be a problem since it funnels you into using the same thing until the end instead of just switching between them whenever you want. If the story or levels had consequences from that play style (like in Dishonored) then I would actually prefer that. In total, I never thought the original was even that great to begin with. It was another one of these "story driven games" but again one that completely forgets that it is a game as well. Not using any elements of being a game to enhance the story for example. The gameplay is just there, because they wanted to sell their story as part of a game. Still, the gameplay made sense in the setting and now they reduced everything even more that made it at least a bit interesting.
I started playing this before I went away on holiday and look forward to picking it up again once I get home. I'm usually not one for stealth games but I really like the visuals, setting and voice acting in this game so far. It's pretty scary, even though I'm an adult man playing as a teenage girl. She's much braver than I am.
Hey Shill Up, are you aware of like a day one patch that went out for this to improve performance? I'm playing the Xbox PC Game Pass version on a 10900K and modestly overclocked RTX 3070 which should be very similar to your RTX 2080 Ti. I just walked through the same market area in the first town you demoed at 1440p Ultra settings with DLSS set to Quality and I'm getting about 70 FPS average. Could your issues have been a review build problem?
Excited for this game, the first one really surprised me in a good way when I gave it a random shot based on some positive reviews I’d seen. It really brought me back to some of my favourite young adult adventure novels I’d read in my teens!
I already viewed Plague Tale: Innocence as being darker in the areas of tone, themes, and content when compared to TLOU P2 with much less levity; truth be told it was one of my favorite aspects of both titles. I truly cannot see how heavier material is a negative, especially when in the case of both aforementioned series the exploration of pain, loss and depravity of humankind in times of panic were a primary reason for the success of the initial entry.
If they would just gave more of Innocence, then people would have bitched that they didn't give us more. So they are damned if they did or they're damned if they didn't. I for one am excited that they went further and beyond the first!
I slept on the first game until late last year. It absolutely blew my mind, such a beautiful story. Brimming with heart. I absolutely loved it. Hoping requiem has a similar effect
You got some balls for saying what you said about TLOU part 2... and I respect you for that. Continue the honest, good work skill up. Can't wait for your GOW Ragnarök review
@@omensoffate, I keep seeing people knock him for his cyberpunk review at launch but he clearly stated all it's flaws, the scummy review tactics, and the fact that he did not get a console version. His review was based solely on the PC version, which was significantly better than the console version and he pretty much said it was a decent but flawed game. That sounds pretty honest if you look at it objectively.
Learn more about how Nvidia's RTX 4090 GPUs and DLSS 3 delivers the next generation in fidelity and smoothness: www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/dlss/. Thanks to Nvidia for sponsoring the video.
DLSS 3 is scam with fake frame inserts that do nothing but inflate fps number - as 120fps in DLSS 3 plays like 60fps, DLSS 2 is still superior with better image quality and less caveats. We don't need your paid opinion, we got more than enough analysis from HUB and DF
Shill up
give me $1900 first.
I'm surprised the RTX 4090's power draw didn't cut off the rest of the video
no thanks
THANK YOU VERY MUCH for including Steam Deck portions in your reviews! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE continue to do so, I know not everyone cares and I know it's extra work but a lot of us do like to know what will work well on our Decks or whether we'll be buying a game while planning on sticking with our main rigs. Thanks so much again!
Even for those without Decks, I think it'll be a good representation for people on hardware below his main computer! Plus we get to hear what unexpected games can run fine on a Deck.
I just got my deck and it’s awesome
Hard agree, I'm gonna get a Steam Deck in the new year and really want to know more about how games run on it, definitely have a good idea but stuff like this is so great!
Hopefully this helps pushing Valve to release the steamdeck in Straya
This.
I really hope Charlotte McBurney gets nominated for a game award/BAFTA award. She was once again fantastic as Amicia and I can’t imagine anyone else playing the character but her. Amicia and Hugo’s relationship reminds me so much of Lee and Clementine from Telltale’s “The Walking Dead.” Two sets of phenomenal characters with even more phenomenal voice acting performances
I wonder how much she got paid...
Ngl i kinda hate the voice acting. Either keep it french or lose the terrible accent.
Really? The voice acting in these games is pretty subpar.
@@Greenjoker4 As someone with just a bare knowledge of French and Medieval history, there is no perfect solution.
The English language actors were the only ones that the writer and narrative director worked with directly and directed. They also performed the mocap and are also the only ones that fit their ages. I listened to the French dub, and though it’s good it’s clearly adult women trying to sound younger to play Amicia, Hugo, and Lucas. Also the French Vitalis sounded like he was trying too hard to come off as evil. Not a single language option matches the lipsync
Also in that region of the South of France, at the time they would not be speaking French. Instead they would be speaking Occitan which was also the language of the aristocracy. The rest of France would be speaking Middle French which is completely incomprehensible to Modern French speakers. The English likewise would be speaking two languages. The nobility and gentry such as the knights would be speaking Norman-French because England was colonized by the French from Normandy. The more common born such as the footmen, archers, and laborers that we encounter would speak Middle English which is completely incomprehensible to Modern English speakers.
@@Meowtro are you talking about the voice acting in both plague tale games? If so then I understand ppl not liking it. Even though I believe the VA’S for Amicia and Hugo did a great job. However, if you’re talking about the voice acting for the walking dead being subpar then I completely disagree with you in that regard. Dave Fennoy and Melissa Hutchinson gave two of the best voice acting performances of all video games in my opinion. Their chemistry was on point and believed every line they said. And don’t get me started on Lee’s death scene. It’s not surprising that Melissa Hutchison won a VGX award for her performance as Clementine and that her and Dave were both nominated for Bafta’s.
I can't remember the last time I cried with a game. What a journey
I can 1 month ago when I finished requiem
Honestly, I played this game for the past 4 days so I'm still fresh from that ending. But I think this could be one of the most underrated games this year. Everything about It hits so good. Yes it does get the little bit repetitive during the last couple of missions, but honestly , I felt fine with that as the characters felt so fucking amazing. The Chemistry between Amicia and Lucas was so good. Arnaud and Sophia being brilliant side characters who honestly had some of the best moments, and then Hugos and Amicias Chemistry is also still there. I honestly found it all so amazing. I 100% ask anyone to give it a try
Fantastic writing and editing on this one, as always. Also, thank you for taking the time to include Steam Deck in your awesome reviews. Very much appreciate it.
Finished it a couple days ago....wow just wow. That ending...wow
Bleak, just bleak -.-
Made me cry
You need to play more games if that’s what you think.
@@moonmoon2479 for example?
I have been really looking forward to checking this one out, i enjoyed my time with the first game and kinda felt like it flew under the radar a bit. Hopefully the performance issues will be fixed and A Plague Tale Requiem gets the recognition it deserves. If you haven't already played the first game i personally recommend it, you wont be disappointed.
Runs a plague tale innocence with a R7 240 2gb DDR3 at 80% resolution scale of 720p, used reshade AMD CAS and DELC sharpen, and it still looks good.
I played it on xbox series s. Not bothered with any graphical issues, just enjoyed myself alot!
@@RoyD2 yea I played it on Xcloud which is equal to a series s and would not have guessed performance being an issue. Its a beautiful game, And I only notice short lived drops in one setpiece moment.
I absolutely adored the first game. I had no expectations going in to it and it completely blew me away. I've been waiting for this sequel ever since it was announced. I'm about 5 hours in right now and I've been loving it so far. I have noticed some issues with story focus and pacing, but Amicia and Hugo's bond is just the best thing ever and I love both of them
how’d you find the game? personally thought it was magnificent
@@coreyconnor9145 It was great. I didn't like it as much as the first, though. I think it has some pacing issues, especially near the middle before the island and again near the end. Like the first game the relationship between Amicia and Hugo drives the whole game and I loved it all the way through. Although I will say I wasn't a huge fan of the ending. I'd give the first a 9.5/10 and I'd give this one an 8.5/10
@@firefly5677 what about the ending didn’t have you too pleased? i feel as if it was the only way to make it not be a ‘superhero/villain’ game. i think the storytelling was superb, over both games, and the graphics were incredible in the second. feel the end of the game became a bloodbath as amicia was thrown in a lot of combat situations but i thoroughly enjoyed that change of pace. both games to me were 9.5/10
Best game i have ever played, didnt think it could match the first one, but this is just a masterpiece, delivering in all sections. Emotional, puzzle, sneaking, and the crossbow is an amazing addition.
For me it was running very smooth with 3080ti, ryzen 5800, 5120*1440
With fps between og 50-100+
Everyone should play this amazing game.
This is GOTY for me. Story, charactes, voice acting, world design, visuals, awesome gameplay and Amicia and Hugo are amazing characters.
Yep
goty over elden ring? lmaoooo
REVIEW:
For Anyone wondering if you should play this game, you should. Just like the The Last of Us, this game invokes such massive amounts of emotions it’s not even funny. When I played the OG Plague Tale, I didn’t really get very attached to Alicia and Hugo. I can’t say that about this game. Yes, the beginning chapters are a bit slow but it picks up nearly half way through the game. The ending chapters are like dark fantasy compared to Innocences quasi-historic game. I can tell you that the characters and story were the highlights for me. Combat was improved and the graphics were amazing. Optimization sucks, and yeah I have a 1080gtx but I still made it work by lowering the resolution by 80% on high. I was waiting for the best next narrative driven game since The Witcher 3 and this was it. Fantastic.
I am just so deeply deeply stoked that this game got a second chapter. Amicia and Hugo are characters that feel really human.
I'm glad Asobo was able to expand the systems in the sequel WITHOUT sacrificing that excellent world building and characterization that made the first game so beautiful. Thank you for introducing me to some of my favorite recent characters, Skill Up!
Hugo was an annoying little shit in the first one. He should have died in the Plague and a new character should have emerged.
Doesn’t this review pretty directly state that the grounded world from the original absolutely was sacrificed?
@@gamingblowsofficial I’m guessing this guy likes the rat king stuff
@showbizonastick like you'd know
@showbizonastick She’s like 15. 📸🗿
I really appreciate adding the Steam Deck to the setups you test on when it comes to technical stability, since how playable a game is on the Deck is generally a pretty good indicator of how playable it is on desktop Linux. When devs fix bugs and breakages for Steam Deck, those fixes generally apply to desktop Linux as well. Drawing attention to games not working on the Deck helps bring in Linux support where there otherwise wouldn't be.
This game is definitely a diamond.
A bit rough around the edges but pretty damn beautiful
Awesome review. I’m playing on Series X and it looks gorgeous. The game’s 3D audio is really good on headphones too. I saw an interview with the developers that said this is the final game in the series… so I’m looking forward to seeing how it ends!
Nice seeing you here, Karl. Glad you're enjoying this one.
Well, they said there won't be a second game in the plans but here we are...haha
@@jesseomollo9405Cool! They did leave it a little open in the interview too. So maybe there will be another game.
Can you tell us what’s the framerate on series X?
@@wujekbandzior It's horrible, not stable and felt like it never hit 60. I shut it off before the tutorial was even over
Such a great, emotional and heart-wrenching story. I wish so much success on these devs and writers. Can't get enough of narrative videogames that stick with you. Brilliant.
Happy to say that the recent patches have significantly improved performance. On a 2070 Super, intel i7-8700k at high 1440p with quality DLSS I get 60-85fps and very rarely if ever drop below 60
It's one of the most beautiful games I've seen. Whether it be the first game, Microsoft Flight Simulator or Plague Tale Requiem, they craft absolutely stunning experiences. I cant wait to check it out tomorrow but am going to finish the first game first which I never got to do completely. The performance issues are concerning.
Which platform?
you clearly havent seen much then. The game looks good but it does not justify the shitty performance.
@ Well if he has a 4090 he is fine.
@@theblackswordsman9951 you got me there. :)
This game really needs some more attention. I'm afraid that just like the first one it's going to get overlooked, despite it being a true masterpiece
Can't wait to try this. Loved the original. Along with the Senua sequel these are the games I've been hyped for most.
I just finished Requiem last night. It was a little too long in my opinion but overall a great game and story. It ran great on my PS5, very minimal bugs. The characters were very believable and I really felt for Amicia and Hugo and really cared about them throughout the story.
I loved the first game. One of the best of all time. The gameplay, medieval setting, characters. And the incredible music. But most importantly the emotional impact. Major hopes for this one now. It’s ok if it’s different, they should be. “More of the same” isn’t always good.
Oh my God the characters especially.
Can't believe requiem the sequel is finally out. I don't know how much more darker this game will be. I hope there will be more flexibility with combat. I like the voice actor of amicia hope she get nominated for the game awards she gave a good performance in innocence And i saw other people's playthrough for requiem it seemed more emotional.
Loved the review. JUST A HEADS UP for peeps interested in DLSS 3 - it’s essentially DLSS 2 plus frame generation, aka “fake frames”. The added AI generated frames have trouble with signs and other details when in motion, and most importantly, DO NOT REDUCE input latency like traditional frames. So it makes things look smoother without making them “feel” smoother compared to frame generation off (just DLSS 2 on). So yea, don’t turn frame generation on for competitive games cuz it’ll make ur image less consistent and doesn’t reduce input latency.
Also, DLSS 3 works best with fps higher than 100. It looks considerably worse at 60 fps, which u would think is when you’d want the extra frames. So I imagine the 4060’s, 70’s and 80’s will struggle to use frame generation to its full capacity, assuming you want more smoothness in the video and not how the game feels. Just letting folks know what they’re getting into!
When I played it the first time; I hated Hugo so much.
Hugo, whining then I grew attached to the little turd as I played through.
And my god; by the end I started to adore him.
Such a great story and writing to make you care about the characters.
It was his voice that irritated me but at the end of the day he's a 6 year old going through hell so feel for him
Thank you for the review!
I think I like the most Amicia's character in the Requiem, how it progresses, the voice acting was also phenomenal. It's not that Amicia suddenly grew numb to killing and was venting her frustration - that's not the whole picture at all. She took upon herself a role much greater than herself. It was very interesting to see how her interests clashed with her mother's, how Amicia decided that she knows better what's right for Hugo. He was basically her only reason to live after everything they went through. And compared to mother... Amicia probably felt for the first time needed and really responsible. It was a lot.
The supporting cast was also very good, I liked them all a lot, I was glad to be with them (at least something positive in these bleak times).
Some sequences (underground temple for example) were giving me goosebumps, the locations were so well thought-out.
That all said, I kinda agree about pacing and... the feel overall. I liked the game. But... I liked only parts of it, not the whole. It's kinda strange.
At least here I could sympathize with all our main cast lol (looking at you, last of us part 2... interesting parallel btw)
I personally loved the rat king stuff in the end of innocence so I'll definitely be checking this out
I really appreciate the included Steam Deck reviews, it's awesome!
Inclusion of chapters is really helpful :) thanks for your work!
"The Pond" is not a place or location, but rather a place in time. The only reasonable chance to find a cure for the macula is in the future due to the advent of microscopic study of diseases. The Pond is symbolic of a petry dish, which is the basin used to see into the microscopic world via the microscope. Also, bodies of water were some of the very first places used to gather samples to be studied when the microscope was invented. And a petry dish is simply a tiny pond. Debate me. The next macula carrier will be a Doctor's child or baby sibling, thus setting up the doctor as the perfect role as the protector of the next macula carrier.
To this day, Hugo saying he was hungry to his sister with a broken voice was one of the most heart melting things I've ever experienced. I started donating charities after this...
loser
Lmao Hugo is six feet under
Your description of the two games' escalation in plot makes me think of the Condemned series. Same thing: a background element starting to grow too big, to the point the "Big Serious Plot" overwhelmed the intimate emotions.
I personally love when sequels feel different. It makes me feel like the story is actually unfolding and changing. Along with the characters we follow. I beat innocence on PS4, PS5, and PC. I plan on junking out on this one too! Thanks as always for the wonderful and insightful review.
It’s 30 fps on ps5 right? This new game?
@@babyyyz7948 sadly. But I suspect it will be patched and improved in the future. It's probably because of Ray-Tracing shadows.
I was surprised about this review. You liked the game and recommend it but i was shocked i felt opposite to you. First game was awesome but this sequel is for me better. I love the story and felt pacing was great, and i absolutely did not feel it was too long, i would have wanted it to last forever :). I think this is one of the best games i have ever played. The way i felt after finishing it is something i have never felt before. I guess the game moved me more than any other game has.
Edit: Regarding the performance. They must have improved it, i played it on a Series X with my LG C1 4K TV. Dont think the Series X runs the game in native 4K but it was at least upscaled and looked amazing. FPS was not 60 but it felt smooth so must have been more than 30.
The first game was great, but man, that tone shift really threw me for a loop. The game began with two children struggling to survive in an awful, death-ridden world, and by the end I was fighting a clergyman who was inside a rat tornado that was turning into giant rat tentacles to squash me.
I was just staring at the screen thinking “…dafuq?”
That's kind of where I'm worried.
I loved the beginning, as it felt very "real", and just happened to be set in this fantasy-style black death where the plague was dialed up to 11.
I didn't even inherently hate the turn toward Hugo's weird disease and the harder focus on alchemy (though I still preferred the first bit)-it still kind of seemed like a good story, but a little more fantasy.
And then you get to the rat pope tube in the mold cathedral. And that was a bridge too far.
Same here.
I discovered the first Plague Tale through GamePass and I absolutely loved it, so I'm super excited to play Requiem tomorrow on GamePass as well.
Is insane how the 4090 performs, is extremely impressive, is a shame such a small amount of people will buy it due to pricing tho
Yeah, it just shows how bad this game runs. For example, my 4090 does Cyberpunk every setting max WITH psyco raytracing and DLSS 2 Quality at 60 fps-ish. If this game without Raytracing is hitting 60ish with DLSS 2....Jesus, this game needs some heavy optimization work done to it. Hope I get to try DLSS 3 on this game but man it sucks to hear how hard this is going to be for everyone.
@@soaringspoon yeah like this is a pretty good benchmark for a 4090 for how badly optimized it is, the fact that a 2080Ti can barely hit 60 at 1440 medium with DLSS 2 is ridiculous
yeah very impressive... barely 60 fps.
I dunno how you think thats insane and impressive, this game doesnt even show how good it is, what a weird comment.
Its also a shame Nvidia overprices it so much because they think they can scam us all.
@@selectionn look at benchmarks and then talk lmao, yeah the game is trash polishwise and can have 100fps at 4k Ultra with DLSS 2 with a 4090 unlike a 2080Ti that can barely hit 60 tops and that is at 1440p at medium and with DLSS, yeah totally uninpressive... and I never said WOW DUDE A 4090 IS A STEAL THANKS NVIDIA FOR GIVING ME FOOD, the card is good period, the price is another thing and the optimization of the game is another thing, but sure keep mixing stuff to make everyone be against you I guess..
I trust more people like gamer nexus and digital foundry than a random on a youtube comment lol.
Performance is one thing and another is price, neither of us will get a 4090 or a ferrari, or I can't watch the F1 because those cars are too expensive? what a logic lol
The price isn’t really the issue… they’re just sold out absolutely everywhere.
Another wonderful review, Ralph. Always a joy watching your excellently written and fair reviews. It's a shame i will not be playing this game for a long time since an RTX 4090 would probably cost me my house where i live. Keep em coming, Mate!
Yeah Ralph is one of the very few reviewers who is articulate and clear in his reviews
Inflation is the Federal Reserve's fault, buddy, not any one company. Move to Venezuela and figure this out by yourself.
Bravo on the Deck coverage(or intent to in this case). Been playing Scorn on mine over the weekend and even though I have a PS5 and a beefy gaming PC, it's become my main gaming device. Keep it coming!
Thank you for the high quality review and the great as always editing.
I must say though, I find it slightly unfair to state the game has performance issues because you tested it on a GPU from 2 generations ago. I agree that it would be great to see it run speckles on 20 series, I am on that generation as well, but I also believe developers should keep pushing graphical development further and further. I would rather tone down to medium graphical settings for 1440p than be stuck on console level graphics for years and years. And let's be honest with each other, you completely disregarded the fact that there is a 30 series in there that probably runs the game perfectly fine.
Don't get me wrong, I love what you do and end hope you keep the varied points of view coming.
I played on PS5 and most of the time I found the 30fps to be very stable. But in scenes like millions of rats and fire everywhere it does drop significantly. Never did for me during combat which is great since it didn't really have a negative effect on my playthrough
Yea……..I got a HUGE frame drop when I got caught in rats and had to use the fire sling to get out and it killed my frames on the series S, really hoping they patch in a performance mode to get 60fps.
Great review, sounds like I'll love playing this game in 3+ years when it's on sale & higher end GPUs are a bit more accessible.
The first game definitely stunned me how it pulled me in so seamlessly into it's world and story. Definitely a gem of a videogame, though I heard performance woes on the PS5 platform.
The game had some intense sequences and emotional moments at times, especially the ending but I felt at least to me that the narrative drags out for too long and it can become repetitive( with too many running sequences) in the middle of the campaign. Every single character its given a back story and all have chemistry with each other.
Graphics wise the game looks stunning, especially when The Runes reach the Island, the waves and the sand on the shore look so realistic and beautiful to look at when the sunset hits the horizon(chef kiss). This time around the world feels richer in detail and more interactive with NPCs than the 1st game. The devs did a great job at using the tools at hand creatively and cleverly to pass through the waves of rats in your surroundings. Exploration is rewarding and the puzzles are straightforward.
Overall, this game delivers and it is easily one of the best on gamepass. If you like narrative-driven games with a decent/great story to tell, and you like the 1st game. Then this is a must.
Hearing that the game is more than double the length of the first kind of bums me a bit. I enjoyed the first and was happy with the length of that.
I love it when dark fantasy stories get weird and conceptual. This game does that, and It’s fantastic
Im not sure how ill feel about the shift to being so action oriented. I think the reason the first game worked so well was because stealth was required. Amicia is just a child after all, and taking on armed guards was not something she was remotely trained to do. I guess I'll reserve judgement til I get my hands on it
There are some sections that are really combat intensive that I think they would have been better off scrapping stealth. With one section in particular that made me want to drop the game in the last third because I knew it would have been made much more manageable with some kind of dodge feature or lethal melee combat (there is strangle but it's only good for one enemy type)
@@TicTacPilgrim that very last couple of missions were ROUGH in the first one and it somewhat soured my view of an otherwise GREAT game. Still would give it a 7-8 overall, but the rest of it was a 9 and the final bit was maybe a 6, felt they dropped the ball on level design, enemy placements, and how they interplay with the mechanics hard. That being said, the Hugo missions were somewhat enjoyable tbh, I didn’t think I’d like them but they were pretty good
"It runs like runny fucking ass"
"I recommend this" - Shillup
I'd highly recommend playing in French with subtitles as that's where it's set. I can't comment on the English Voice Actors but the French ones were incredible for Innocence!
unless youre french there is no need to do this at all the voice work in english is absolutely stellar in both innocence and this
@@sneaky5141 oh there's no explicit need for it, no but being set in France I felt it was more true to the narrative. Maybe I'm just a snob tho lol
@@fm_ography idk the performance of hugo and especially amicia and lucas in english are not worth passing up on the emotions they convey both joy and despair are second to none in gaming imo
@@sneaky5141 well damnit now imma have to go play the whole thing again
@@fm_ography the voice actress for amicia i think was probably too young for any sort of fame (possibly parental decision) when the first game released ao she didnt really get the recognition she deserves but hopefully this time around (if she wants i guess) then she will no doubt win countless performance awards, seriously sells every single scene in the game perfectly
I think it's awesome that the first game got enough spotlight that Asobo was able to make a sequel with loftier ambitions. It's just a bummer that for most smaller studios that get a hit on their hands, those loftier ambitious usually just turn into a "bigger" game. Bigger isn't always better, and it certainly doesn't just equal more ambition or innovation. Still excited to play this one!
2:20 Well, that’s a red flag for me cuz I already think Innocence could have used some trimming. Gonna wait and see what some of my other trusted reviewers say about this one. Great review as always.
RALPH! DLSS 3 has a "Frame Generation" option that creates fake frames(like motion interpolation on a TV but more impressive) which CAUSES AN INCREASE IN INPUT LATENCY as the GPU is holding already rendered frames in order to create fake frames between the "real" frames. So you get better motion in exchange for worse input latency.
Only use Frame Generation when the real frame rate is above 100fps as generating frames at say, 30fps would have way too high latency as a starting point then the GPU will do Frame Generation and add even more latency to the final render. You will have motion smoother than 30fps but more laggy in terms of input response.
Checkout Hardware Unboxed's DLSS 3 video for an analysis of DLSS 3.
Looks badass, either way people would’ve been made it changed too much or too little.
What?
"it's cool... but it's not a Plague Tale"
Exactly. And your arguments are also precise are valid.
This is the only correct, sincere review I've seen so far - contrary to the other advertisements dressed as one.
Thank you for standing out from the crowd of shallow, seeing through the glitter / emotions, and speaking your mind!
I'm still psyched for this game. I absolutely loved the first one and hope I enjoy this one just as much. I'll find out tomorrow out I rate this knowing I might be a little conflicted, which is pretty normal for me since I always go in with tempered expectations.
Just finished the game last week and waited until I was done before watching your review. Good news is that performance (at least on Xbox) seems to have improved a ton after an early update, as the jitteriness I noticed in the first few levels was gone for the majority of my playthrough.
I echo some of your feelings about the differences in the game compared to the first. The larger scale and generally greater focus on freedom makes the pacing feel less fine-tuned compared to Innocence, which admittedly prevented me from blowing through the story in a couple of days like I did with that first title. I really found a groove several hours in, though, as I stopped worrying about the "meta" and allowed myself to play and react regardless of how that would affect my progression. I suspect that a future replay with my improved understanding of the changes to gameplay and tone will make me appreciate Requiem's upgrades and adjustments more.
I think the biggest triumph here is the acting. I don't remember the last time I was this deeply connected to a game world by its characters, and that's due primarily to how strong the performances are. Even when the writing veered into melodrama and got a bit too fantastical for my tastes, the cast grounded it and made it all emotionally and narratively engrossing.
Damn, everyone was ready for that review embargo to be lifted 😂 Got like 20 notifications for this game review all at once
Scheduled publishes? Not that insane but okay.
@@zetterburger someone’s upset. U literally just repeated what I already said
@@NeThZOR someone’s upset. U literally just repeated what I already said
I can’t wait to test out my hardware with this game. I have an RTX 3090 FE + Ryzen 5900x. I’ve played every major modern game in existence, and I’ve never needed to play any game without ray tracing, at less than 4k, or less than 60fps. I don’t see this game bucking that trend. Although I legitimately look forward to the first games that really give my PC a struggle.
Huge fan of the first game and I’m glad to see this game getting praised. So excited for this new experience.
Booted up mine for the first time today with the current patches on Series X on an LG CX with VRR and Dolby Vision enabled. My experience was a gorgeous game with no performance issues at least for now. Only into Chapter 2, but enjoying my experience so far.
My favorite part is when they yelled it's Ratatouille Time.
Your review is spot on. I loved this game as much as Innocence, maybe more in some parts and less in others; but you seem to really have played both games thoroughly and it shows. I wish you didn't complain as much about performance in the first part of your review, especially considering it's that one part of the game on the town that performance drops a lot. The vast majority of the game plays well. I think the strongest atribute of A Plague Tale: Requiem as well as it's prequel is the story and the characters, and I humbly believe both games deliver and are bound to become classics.
I learnt yesterday that the recommend GPU is RTX3070 for this game... I knew this is going hard on most pc gamers who are likely running a 1060.
I was genuinely hyped for this game, but I'm not going in day one. The price of the game or GPU is not my main concern.
Past experiences (cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring) tell me that playing new games on day one is never the best idea if you value smooth performance.
I'll wait till they fix all the performance issues.
Works with a 1060 6gb. Sure frame drops do happen but it works. Had a worse experience with Elden Rings performance.
I despise the narrative of pidgeonholing IP's to some limited product instead of letting a story naturally- or supernaturally- grow beyond the natural confines of the small origins of characters.
More games need to break that limiting framework, even within a single entry into the IP evolving from a quest for survival, into a quest to thrive, and into a quest to overcome/conquer.
Random add on: I likewise despise the limiting framework of games basically scrapping all these open worlds they invest so much into creating only to then drop. Imagine what could be developed if they would heckin reuse their worlds, adding new stories, new mechanics, filling in missing gaps, and so on. Imagine taking all Witcher 3's assets to tell a new story in the world.
Love your content my man. By far my fav TH-camr! Keep up the great work!
In the next game Amicia will get guns, a long braid and she'll change her name to Laura or something.
I'm with you on this, I prefered the first one. The "puzzles" to get past or get rid of rats was the interesting part, fighting humans is not. This one seems to rely mostly on fighting humans. Honestly turning it into a medieval survival horror would have been more intersting than a Tomb Raider/Uncharted action fest.
Yeah agreed. I'll never understand why developers think the only ways to improve a game is to make it harder or longer. And this story...JFC.
Great review as always! How noticeable was the input latency brought on by frame generation on the 4090? Even with reflex enabled, a few other hardware reviewers have said it feels as though you are running at something like 60fps when achieving 150fps. Most have been saying that the framerate is incredible, but responsiveness and image quality suffer (due to the generated frames being much lower quality than DLSS2.0 or native). It would be a shame if frame generation can't be used in competitive titles because of it.
I tested it a bit in Spiderman, looked and felt pretty good on a C1 oled.
@@TerraWare Ah great! It's good to know that it isn't too distracting in action-adventure titles. I think e-sports titles running at very high (400+ fps) will be the real test though because input latency is much more noticeable in those games.
@@JustS0meK1dd It sounds like it would be counterproductive to turn on in e-sport games since latency is paramount not that you'd have to anyway considering the 4090 has ridiculous rasterized performance anyway.
Great. Thanks. Your title is all I needed to know, won't even watch the vid, after having played the first game, I'm hyped!
Will buy after they polish the game, if it was performance perfect, i would have bought it day one
I'm really happy that the Romani gypsies featured in this game look like how they should with brown skin since they are of Indo European descent in real life
They're of Indian descent, not 'Indo-European' descent.
The optimization has to be a problem. There is no way this game should be bringing the 2080ti to it's knees. I'm sure it will be fixed.
Who knows, the reccomended specs for ultra 1080p at 60 FPS is an RTX 3070 or RX 6800, with either an R5 3600 or i7 8700K, it's really heavy.
@@gamz yeah it is. My pc has a 2080ti which is still faster than a 3070, a Ryzen 5 3600 and 32 gigs of ram. I should be able to play this game no problem then. I wonder if the day one patch will fix it.
21:00 I disagree that "Requiem" is less allegorical. I think in fact, it is still allegorical and offers even much more metaphors. Amicia here is clearly a metaphor for child soldiers and she easily stands now for the young women in Ukraine who were normal citizens a year ago and now experience death around them and through their own hands, and struggle to maintain their humanity and compassion like Amicia does in "Requiem". The rats are much clearer now a metaphor for sociopathic hate reflected back into the world by individuals like Hugo, having lost their empathy and compassion through their experience with violence. While the story and the characters play in the 14th century, much of it is about what is happening today in our world (including the proliferation with nuclear weapons and what the ones causing it are driven by, and what could trigger an event like WW3).
The naughty dog label you give this game fits perfectly from my experience seeing gameplay. It's like a mash of uncharted and tlou, but in a good way. And with a lot less controversy too
“This feels like a Sony game.” - that’s one of the biggest compliments you could give any game.
Very interesting. I watched the IGN review before this one. In the IGN review, they basically said the game was just more of the same as the first one. You are saying the games are completely different. This is why I usually watch multiple reviews, everybody has different thoughts.
27:20 Lap 1 out of 1. such commitment to the required formula 1 part of the sponsorship ^^
Everything Skillup said he didn’t like (performance aside) has me hyped as hell. Different strokes and all that
Same. I always felt like the first game was like a toddler with crazy potential but needed room (and money) to grow. Gonna change my location to NZ and boot this up tonight.
@@FKDotFitzgerald I love the first game but the levels were so inconsistent to the point i was yelling at the screen at times lol . This feels way more fleshed out and has much better physics in general.
Skill Up is always great but I think this last video might be one of my favorite pieces of gaming criticism ever?? Idk it was just really nuanced and I was so impressed with how well you articulated how the game was good but in a way that was disappointing to you in the context of the series. Plus the technical advisement is top notch! Awesome video.
The first game is so well written and so beautiful that it gets a pass on having really terrible gameplay. I'm sceptical on playing the sequel due to the last 2 or 3 levels of the first game just falling apart and completely undoing all its hard work with terrible gameplay mechanics to the point I almost quit the game that I had been thoroughly enjoying. Fingers crossed for this one.
LMAO
Agree and really don't understand why no reviewer mentions that. It's almost all praise, which is weird.
After playing the first few hours of this game I thought to myself "This seems like it's about a 3/4 talking to 1/4 playing, reminds me of Uncharted too much to really be enjoyable".
And here Skill Up has directly confirmed my suspicions.
hey @skillup
I'm not sure if its an issue that you'd like to address... But if you did use footage from the first one would you be able to tag the footage as the first one when it appears.
I think it'll help to compare the graphical fidelitey. Sometimes i couldnt tell.
Focus Home might be one of the last publishers that still pulblishes actual no BS Games.
I actually appreciate that this game is built to be truly next gen and not cross gen. Even though doesn't run great now it will age better.
It's just a bit of a shame that console players will potentially have to wait 2-4 years in order to play it in a decent state, whereas us PC players can already get a fairly decent experience with the right hardware. I hope they manage to optimise it for the XB/PS only players sooner rather than later, so they aren't waiting on the PS5 Pro, upgraded XSX, or even PS6/NextBox
Mother "Fetch some nightshade from the herbalist." Amicia goes totally Postal2 and comes back with a high body count and covered in blood. Love it!
Awesome review, beautifully written als always, and the fact that you feel like the game is so vastly different in feel from the first one makes me all the more excited. As someone who liked Innocence, but thought it was good and not amazing, I'm eager to see if this one can do more for me.
That being said, I've already played the first few hours and loved what I got to play, so I know a bit of what's going on. I really, really like your reviews, but I made a similar comment in the past and will continue to do so. I feel like your videos always show more of the game than they should, and you even told a bit more than I woul've liked to know. You know, the swashbuckling Uncharted adventure on an island, and so on and so forth? I really feel like that could've been left as a surprise for people.
Tbh, I feel the verdict doesn't really go with what is being said in the review. Most of it sounds negative (at least to me). The game is longer for no real reason, the performance is bad that it might not even be playable, the story focuses more on the supernatural elements which I think no one really though was the best part of the first game, the MC is now suddenly a super strong warrior that can kill entire garrisons because I guess these aren't warriors completely removing this sense of being in a world where everything (even the rats) are stronger than you and you have to find a way through that etc. I would say the best thing from this review is the fact that the skills are dependent on your play style but even that could be a problem since it funnels you into using the same thing until the end instead of just switching between them whenever you want. If the story or levels had consequences from that play style (like in Dishonored) then I would actually prefer that.
In total, I never thought the original was even that great to begin with. It was another one of these "story driven games" but again one that completely forgets that it is a game as well. Not using any elements of being a game to enhance the story for example. The gameplay is just there, because they wanted to sell their story as part of a game. Still, the gameplay made sense in the setting and now they reduced everything even more that made it at least a bit interesting.
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate that Ralph finally learned how to pronounce Nvidia correctly? 😋
I started playing this before I went away on holiday and look forward to picking it up again once I get home. I'm usually not one for stealth games but I really like the visuals, setting and voice acting in this game so far. It's pretty scary, even though I'm an adult man playing as a teenage girl. She's much braver than I am.
She honestly goes through hell and back. I could never
Hey Shill Up, are you aware of like a day one patch that went out for this to improve performance? I'm playing the Xbox PC Game Pass version on a 10900K and modestly overclocked RTX 3070 which should be very similar to your RTX 2080 Ti. I just walked through the same market area in the first town you demoed at 1440p Ultra settings with DLSS set to Quality and I'm getting about 70 FPS average. Could your issues have been a review build problem?
Thanks for Steam Deck performance. I love seeing that in reviews, would love to see that continue
damn, all the things you counted as a negative sound like positive to me (aside from performance issues), im totally getting this game :D
Excited for this game, the first one really surprised me in a good way when I gave it a random shot based on some positive reviews I’d seen. It really brought me back to some of my favourite young adult adventure novels I’d read in my teens!
I already viewed Plague Tale: Innocence as being darker in the areas of tone, themes, and content when compared to TLOU P2 with much less levity; truth be told it was one of my favorite aspects of both titles.
I truly cannot see how heavier material is a negative, especially when in the case of both aforementioned series the exploration of pain, loss and depravity of humankind in times of panic were a primary reason for the success of the initial entry.
If they would just gave more of Innocence, then people would have bitched that they didn't give us more. So they are damned if they did or they're damned if they didn't. I for one am excited that they went further and beyond the first!
I slept on the first game until late last year. It absolutely blew my mind, such a beautiful story. Brimming with heart. I absolutely loved it. Hoping requiem has a similar effect
It was ok… kinda dragged tbh and was a bit corny.
Don't listento JLB. The story is quite great but it can be depressing. So, beware.
3070 ti /Ryzen 5800x3d/1440p/dlss quality. 80-110 fps starting area. This cpu has been such a big improvement.
Ofcourse! I was 100 % sure this game would be awesome. I loved the first one! 😌
its a walking simulator, you really gonna listen to shill up. i mean for christ sake he was even given a free graphic card lol
1st one was pretty mid
@@WhySoSeriousSenpai Are you just some hate watcher bruh
@@dontmatter4423 your comment is pretty mid tbh
@@Vince888 damn salt bois in here? make my day even more kid
As always, a great review. I loved the first game and the way it was quite 'niche'. I'm looking forward to seeing if I agree with your criticisms.
You got some balls for saying what you said about TLOU part 2...
and I respect you for that. Continue the honest, good work skill up. Can't wait for your GOW Ragnarök review
He hyped up cyberpunk before it came out. Honesty? Ehhhh
@@omensoffate to be fair everyone was hyped up about cyberpunk
@@omensoffate everyone did lmao how was anybody supposed to know that game would be the mess it was?
@@omensoffate, I keep seeing people knock him for his cyberpunk review at launch but he clearly stated all it's flaws, the scummy review tactics, and the fact that he did not get a console version. His review was based solely on the PC version, which was significantly better than the console version and he pretty much said it was a decent but flawed game. That sounds pretty honest if you look at it objectively.
i dont get why you say that, what he said are what a lot of people were saying about TLOU2.