Prequels are tough. In Resident Evil 0, protagonist Rebecca Chambers sees all kinds of things before making her way to the Spencer Mansion to live out the events of the first Resident Evil. During this, Rebecca, in all her experience, makes no mention of it to her imperilled teammates. This is one of the problems prequels pose, and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy echoes it with Sophia, too. Prequels are often developed after-the-fact. They might overexplain something to the point that it loses its mystique or, ironically, introduces more questions. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy does its best to avoid these pitfalls, but only by staying frustratingly vague. But while its connection to the Plague Tale games is sparse, Resonance still offers up a unique and fun take on arguably one of the most classical Greek mythology tales.
But you need to go in with the right expectations.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy takes place several years before the events of Requiem. You play as Sophia, a pirate, during her earlier days of plundering and well before she meets Hugo and Amicia. Following a heist gone wrong, Sophia is sent on the run to an island in Crete. Having grown up there with her now-missing father, Sophia knows the island. However, she is still eager to explore it and uncover whatever secrets her father was looking for. What follows is an intriguing, engaging story steeped in Greek mythology, with minimal connection to the mythos of both Plague Tale games.
From a narrative perspective, while Resonance has Plague Tale in the name, this game honestly feels anything but. Touted as a story that will elaborate on Sophia’s connection to the Prima Macula, Resonance admittedly does this in a way. But it answers questions nobody asked during the events of Requiem and ultimately feels like a side story with very superficial linkages to the other games tacked on. One major addition to the lore and the nature of the Prima Macula is revealed in the final act, but otherwise Resonance is entirely its own thing. I don’t make these assertions negatively, but those expecting more connective tissue with the rest of the franchise should keep their expectations in check.
That being said, what is offered here is pretty compelling. While I admit my eagerness to see how Resonance would connect to the other games kept me going through the slower opening moments, the underlying plot points about Theseus eventually took over. Sophia has a strange connection to Theseus, flashing back to key moments of his history on the same island and experiencing them firsthand. Those who know the story of Theseus and the Minotaur will enjoy the way Resonance takes that tale and twists it, with some surprises that aren’t traditional but fun and satisfying.
Regardless, the story told here (and the game attached to it) delivers. Resonance takes liberal inspiration from games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted to offer up an adventure reminiscent of those adventures. Sophia explores the island, where she’ll solve puzzles, evade strange creatures, and fight soldiers working for the factions she’s running from. It feels like a good mix of combat, exploration, and puzzles, introducing new elements throughout its runtime to stay fresh. Though how fresh is arguable given how much it’s borrowing from other games, but the takes on tried-and-true gameplay mechanics offered by Resonance kept me interested from beginning to end.
The first thing that stands out the most is the combat. A hybrid of games like Assassin’s Creed and Ghost of Tsushima, the combat is fairly typical and happens constantly. Sophia is much more able than Amicia in the previous games, so the shift to action makes sense here. She is outfitted with various swords, as well as a dagger that can be used at opportune moments to inflict critical damage. Other elements come into play later, but for the sake of spoilers I won’t mention them here; between the enemy types and combat abilities, the combat has enough variety to carry the whole game.
Too often these kinds of games have enemies circling the player, waiting to take turns attacking. I won’t lie and say that every single encounter in Resonance is like this, but most of them will have multiple enemies attacking you at once. There are multiple ways to control crowds or distant enemies too, so it feels balanced in that way, but I found it particularly refreshing to have to juggle so much at once. It also really cemented Sophia as the badass that she is.
When you’re not fighting, however, you’ll probably be exploring and solving puzzles. Puzzles take (very liberally) a leaf out of Uncharted’s book. Sophia is entrusted with a book full of her own and her father’s sketches from when they lived on the island. It includes drawings related to the puzzles throughout the game. This element feels a bit forced – I solved a few puzzles that were in the book without even looking at it. Looking back, Sophia just quipped, “I no longer need this now”, which highlights how it might not be useful to every player. Others found the book useful. To put it simply – the puzzles are good but familiar, though incredibly uneven in their implementation.
The other element unique to Resonance is “the creature”. Essentially, this game’s take on the Minotaur: the creature has a set of rules that are explained to you throughout the game as you spend more and more time with it. Again, I’ve purposefully kept the details to a minimum, as it’s satisfying to uncover everything about it as you progress deeper into the island. But the moments with the creature, where you boil them down to their core, running from safe zone to safe zone, are easily where Resonance feels most like other Plague Tale games. These segments are way more forgiving than the original Plague Tale – if you made a mistake, it would be hard to outrun it – but Resonance gives you tools and tech to get out of a sticky situation easily.
In terms of progression, while Sophia has no fancy alchemy like Amicia and Hugo, she can improve her stats by finding collectibles throughout the island. Sophia can bolster several skills with collectibles. Finding a bangle might improve her ability to withstand an otherwise fatal blow. Finding multiple bangles would improve the chance of that effect happening. It’s a simple system that encouraged me to explore off the beaten track (though Resonance is largely linear). It is a bit more refreshing than arduous skill trees to plough through. Resonance still has those, mind you, but it’s a much simpler system that’s respecable and consists of only fifteen-ish nodes total.
All in all, the game will last most players around fifteen to twenty hours depending on how quickly you get through the puzzles and the dicey moments with the creature. There is admittedly not a whole lot to do in the game once you finish, but I didn’t feel shortchanged at all by the story that Resonance is trying to tell. That said, I missed some collectibles, so a New Game + mode that let me mop those up would’ve been great, but it’s unfortunately absent here.
In terms of presentation, Resonance falls in line with other Plague Tale games. It looks great, though not quite as big-budget as the latest first-party AAA blockbusters, but at the same time a step above a lot of games that come out of teams of Asobo’s size. The move to the sunny islands of Crete definitely helps Resonance look distinct when compared to the first two Plague Tale games. Even more so as you dive deeper into the island and discover its secrets. But unlike Requiem at launch, Resonance supports both high framerate and high resolution modes, so having the choice from the get-go is great. Combine that with some of the clever particle and lighting effects that happen when you’re in the presence of the creature, and Resonance is a real looker.
But the greatest and strongest element of Resonance’s presentation is the soundscape. Resonance is incredibly atmospheric, largely anchored by its strong original score and soundtrack. The developers describe it as “deeply Mediterranean,” and I can see why. Many of the tracks are bolstered by a Greek choir and instruments like the bouzouki. The ambient score is similarly incredible, giving the game an almost alien-like quality the further that Sophia gets into the island. While I’d have loved some more battle tracks, the soundtrack is overall one of the strongest and most memorable I’ve heard in games so far. The cast is similarly strong, and although they don’t reach the loftier heights of the long-tortured Amicia and Hugo in the previous games, Anna Demetriou turns in an admirable performance as Sophia here.
As the sun sets on my time in Crete, it’s easy to reflect on what Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is not. It isn’t a tale deeply connected to the Plague Tale games nor is it reminiscent of those games much, if at all. Regardless, it is a great adventure game that, while a smidge derivative, is engaging from beginning to end. If you can get past the fact that its ties to the series it’s spun off from are minimal, you’ll be in for a wild and fun take on a classic mythological tale. And you won’t even miss the rats along the way.