SPOILERS
If you've not played this game, but plan on getting it, this will spoil basic end gameplay. This is the 2nd phase of the final battle. Leave it to evil men wearing religious hats to create a race war of rats. It's pretty much like a chess match, you need to lure Vitalis' white rats to attack at the sides to clear the way for Hugo's black rats to attack the rats protecting Vitalis.
Once Hugo's rats kill the ones protecting Vitalis, he's open for slinging a rock at his head. The 2nd round involves extinguishing a brazier Vitalis makes appear in the center, which the black rats cannot go near. The 3rd round involves more white rat attacks. The trick is to avoid being trapped and eaten by the white rats in the 3rd round.
There's far more to this game than just having Hugo command rats though, which only happens mostly in the final 2 chapters (16 total). It has a lot of stealth, which at times can be challenging to pull off. There's also quite a variety of human enemies to deal with. Besides plague crazed civilians that chase you and alert guards early on, there's a battle with an armored guard that involves destroying his helmet with rock throws while evading him. When the helmet is finally destroyed, he's open for a rock slung at his head.
Later on you get the skill to make a toxin that you sling at armored guard's helmets, which makes them take them off right away. You must however immediately rock sling them, or they will chase you down and kill you. There are also many guards carrying lanterns and torches in areas where torches and braziers are used as lamps. By then you have the skill to make a concoction that extinguishes flames, and also releases rats from underground near torches keeping them there. You also have the skill by then to have Hugo summons rats at them, but only while holding his hand.
There are also big knights in heavy armor that carry big fire maces. Since shortly after extinguishing their mace they can drag it on the ground to make it spark and relight, you need to lure them near freed, unoccupied rats (those already feeding won't respond), before extinguishing their mace.
One of the tougher battles is against Nicholas, a high ranking captain. In this battle you are with Hugo holding his hand. You have to extinguish several braziers and torches. In this battle, Nicholas makes his sword catch fire to easily resist rats. You have to make sure you're hidden from Nicholas' view, or you won't be able to extinguish his sword. Further more, when he gets near braziers he relights them. On top of that, you must successfully extinguish his sword 3 times and summons rats to engulf him before he finally dies, as he somehow relights his sword after the rats engulf him the first two times.
This is said to be just an Action Adventure Stealth game, and it has no difficulty settings, but it does a pretty good job of bordering on survival horror, and it can be challenging enough in many places to have to load checkpoints after dying several times each. However I found many of my deaths to be a matter of not knowing certain things. Like I thought I had to extinguish the maces the big knights carry without being seen by them, but stealth is not necessary in that case.
I highly recommend this game, and it's getting rave reviews. There's also a sequel coming October 18th called A Plague Tale: Requiem. My only slight nit pick is at times the edge of the screen can have a kind of yellow/gold glow to it. I thought it wouldn't be a problem switching back to fullscreen mode after trying borderless. It only lessened, but didn't remove it completely. It's really not enough of a problem to be a deal breaker by any means, and overall the game looks fantastic graphically and performs quite well without bug problems.
If you've not played this game, but plan on getting it, this will spoil basic end gameplay. This is the 2nd phase of the final battle. Leave it to evil men wearing religious hats to create a race war of rats. It's pretty much like a chess match, you need to lure Vitalis' white rats to attack at the sides to clear the way for Hugo's black rats to attack the rats protecting Vitalis.
Once Hugo's rats kill the ones protecting Vitalis, he's open for slinging a rock at his head. The 2nd round involves extinguishing a brazier Vitalis makes appear in the center, which the black rats cannot go near. The 3rd round involves more white rat attacks. The trick is to avoid being trapped and eaten by the white rats in the 3rd round.
There's far more to this game than just having Hugo command rats though, which only happens mostly in the final 2 chapters (16 total). It has a lot of stealth, which at times can be challenging to pull off. There's also quite a variety of human enemies to deal with. Besides plague crazed civilians that chase you and alert guards early on, there's a battle with an armored guard that involves destroying his helmet with rock throws while evading him. When the helmet is finally destroyed, he's open for a rock slung at his head.
Later on you get the skill to make a toxin that you sling at armored guard's helmets, which makes them take them off right away. You must however immediately rock sling them, or they will chase you down and kill you. There are also many guards carrying lanterns and torches in areas where torches and braziers are used as lamps. By then you have the skill to make a concoction that extinguishes flames, and also releases rats from underground near torches keeping them there. You also have the skill by then to have Hugo summons rats at them, but only while holding his hand.
There are also big knights in heavy armor that carry big fire maces. Since shortly after extinguishing their mace they can drag it on the ground to make it spark and relight, you need to lure them near freed, unoccupied rats (those already feeding won't respond), before extinguishing their mace.
One of the tougher battles is against Nicholas, a high ranking captain. In this battle you are with Hugo holding his hand. You have to extinguish several braziers and torches. In this battle, Nicholas makes his sword catch fire to easily resist rats. You have to make sure you're hidden from Nicholas' view, or you won't be able to extinguish his sword. Further more, when he gets near braziers he relights them. On top of that, you must successfully extinguish his sword 3 times and summons rats to engulf him before he finally dies, as he somehow relights his sword after the rats engulf him the first two times.
This is said to be just an Action Adventure Stealth game, and it has no difficulty settings, but it does a pretty good job of bordering on survival horror, and it can be challenging enough in many places to have to load checkpoints after dying several times each. However I found many of my deaths to be a matter of not knowing certain things. Like I thought I had to extinguish the maces the big knights carry without being seen by them, but stealth is not necessary in that case.
I highly recommend this game, and it's getting rave reviews. There's also a sequel coming October 18th called A Plague Tale: Requiem. My only slight nit pick is at times the edge of the screen can have a kind of yellow/gold glow to it. I thought it wouldn't be a problem switching back to fullscreen mode after trying borderless. It only lessened, but didn't remove it completely. It's really not enough of a problem to be a deal breaker by any means, and overall the game looks fantastic graphically and performs quite well without bug problems.