My first chance to play Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy was filled with surprises. Telling a different tale to the rat-filled adventures of Amicia and Hugo, the change in direction to a more out-and-out action adventure, and with Sophia taking over as a much more capable hero when it comes to fighting, it was a real treat that left me keen to see more. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long.
Picking up shortly after the end of our previous hands-on, Sophia and Leni are continuing deeper into the island of the Minotaur, and engaging with a new set of trials and puzzles. Thankfully these are more out in the open compared to the previous chapter, giving us a kind of ruined, yet still idyllic Mediterranean backdrop to explore.
There’s a similar tone to the adventure through this section, variously running into soldiers that have brute-forced their way to this part of the island, and then switching to solving puzzles, but there’s a more open structure to overcoming the locked door blocking your path. From this central chamber, four doors open to four different areas, each of which contains a symbol that is needed to open the path ahead.
It’s largely familiar stuff, continuing to play with bouncing light off mirror dishes and revealing hidden markings with the Minoan sphere that she holds, but it also gains a new ability. Now it can also split light into red, blue and green beams, able to point and direct them at coloured jewels to trigger ancient mechanisms. There’s a knack to it, as the angles and spread of these beams remains fixed, but can be rotated around to solve the puzzles when stood in the right place.
And then it all goes wrong, Sophia and Leni are captured and their fates hang in the balance as the clue-filled journal and Minoan orb are taken from them. It’s only Sophia’s ability to Quantum Leap her way back and inhabit the mind of the ancient Greek hero Theseus that is able to reveal the final symbol they need. As with the earlier chapter, Theseus’ journey is a brutal tournament of hand-to-hand combat, as throngs of armoured competitors fight for the right to proceed and pass through. It’s a real shift from the short and sharp skirmishes with Sophia and indulges in the gory delights of a blood sport tournament. It also adds to the intrigue behind the game’s story, as Sophie has been haunted by these visions, and we get to explore these parallel time periods.
Something that has sat with me a little since the first hands-on is that the animation in Resonance does feel quite rough compared to other top-tier titles. It’s less of an issue to me while playing than looking back at footage, but Sophia will snap into animations when needed. That no-doubt aids in responsiveness, but I would hope that there’s some kind of animation blending to make it look more natural and really elevate this game to the top-tier adventure titles.
But where Resonance can really shine is with its inventiveness. Sophia ends up tumbling down into the deep dark maze below the surface of the island, and you’d think at this point that, oh, she’s just going to run into the Minotaur around about now. That’s far from the case, as some other kind of terror emerges to hunt Sophia and another hapless fellow that fell down – he doesn’t last long, truth be told.
It’s a truly inventive monster, one that feeds off a kind of bioluminescent trail that is left behind you as you run, sprint, leap and jump. And as it feeds, it races along the path to try and catch and drain Sophia of her life. The creature’s design and behaviours are truly fantastic and feel utterly original, though admittedly, you are still essentially falling back on the tried and true of stealth horror games of staying behind cover, going slow and picking your moments for when to run. There’s also the Plague Tale staple of needing to find and use puddles of light to keep Sophia safe from danger.
Even with Resonance taking a step back toward the tone and action of the previous Plague Tale games through this chapter, it still feels more front-foot and action-oriented, in keeping with more broadly action-adventure trappings of this game.
This latest chance to play Resonance: A Plague Tale was filled with plenty more surprises. From the continuing action-adventure with more narrative twists and turns to tumbling into the dark horrors below the surface. Once again, I’m left wanting to see more of what Asobo has cooked up. Once again, I’m also thankful that the release in late August is creeping closer and closer.
