Sophia is a fan favourite from A Plague Tale: Requiem, a key ally of Amicia and Hugo on their perilous journey. But before becoming the famous Sea Scorpion, Sophia had her own adventures that pulled her into a world of darkness. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy takes place 15 years prior to the events of Requiem, showing the trials that Sophia had to overcome and what led her to become a pirate.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is primarily a story about lost innocence, the trauma of grief, and betrayal, wrapped up in a game that is part action adventure, and part horror. It begins with Sophia as a young child in a convent where nuns are experimenting on her, causing her to be tormented by visions, even after being rescued by her family, a group of plunderers and pirates who raise her.
These formative years and a major loss steers Sophia into becoming one of the best fighters in the gang, though she is not invincible. Three hits are enough to take her down, though health is regained for finishing off a foe, encouraging an aggressive approach. In addition to parrying enemy attacks or kick down their defence, Sophia has a grappling hook that she can use to pull some enemies and is able to throw dropped weapons at targets. Dodging is also necessary, both as enemies come at you from all sides, and because tougher enemies have unblockable attacks – signalled with a red glint.
There is a decent amount of enemy variety with different soldier types from standard infantry armed with swords, to knifemen who move quickly, archers that will shoot from a distance, spearmen that will deflect the grappling hook, and brutes that take quite a few hits to take down. Naturally there are more dangerous enemies later on in Resonance.
As the game progresses Sophia learns new skills that harness her connection to the past and visions of the legendary warrior Theseus, giving her additional abilities that help level the field against the soldiers she comes up against. Additionally, if you take your time exploring you can find new swords that bestow specific boosts, charms that give advantages and passive abilities, and Resonance points which can be spent on a small set of skills. They reward you for scouring the environments for tombs and chests, though Resonance points simply being small glints in the world is a bit basic. You earn them from overcoming fights as well, so could have been a more imaginative system.
Asobo has taken the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, adapting it with a different spin that works very well narratively. As Sophia lands on and explores the Minotaur’s Island she gets visions that seamlessly transition back in time to when the Minoan civilisation was at its height. As Sophia heads deeper, the Minotaur’s myth plays out through these visions, showing how and why Sophia is connected to them and what befell the Minoans. Sophia and Theseus’ tales are intertwined, with both following complicated family relationships, loss, and attempts at redemption.
For Sophia this complicated relationship comes with Faro, her adopted father figure. As the years have passed, Sophia and Faro’s relationship has broken down, fuelled by mistrust and grief. Both lost the same figure they looked up to, and while Faro has tried to support Sophia his own growing obsession with island has led him to push Sophia and much of his gang away, isolating him with the singular goal of getting the island’s treasure. For Sophia, she sees her protector abandoning her and using her for her visions. Their relationship underpins much of the game, and how the shared loss drove them apart.
As her adventuring partner, Leni is Sophia’s closest friend and is more supportive, but there are moments as they journey across the island where their relationship hits challenges – Leni struggles with Sophia’s own drive to explore the island. In the ancient past, you see a similar dynamic being playing out, again dealing with a loss of a family member and the extreme strain it puts upon them.
As you would expect, the Labyrinth is a key part of Sophia’s journey from which a truly distinctive monster wields its power. There is only one way to stop this beast and that is to reach the centre of the labyrinth. You cannot fight it, you cannot stop it, and you can only barely outrun it. The only refuge you have is that it stays to the dark and avoids the light. Not so useful when you need to go into the darker spaces and deep underground…
Beneath the surface, the air is filled with a shimmering blue dust, coating Sophia leaving a glowing trail behind her. This is how the creature tracks its prey, with the only way to avoid it being to move slowly enough that you don’t leave a trail and breaking line of sight. Easier said than done, at times.
These parts of Resonance have been put together fantastically. There are moments when you are holding your breath, wondering if you could run and make it to safety before the monster gets you. Other times you may panic and the monster will more than likely get you too. The atmosphere is elevated by many of these sections taking place within darkest sections of the world, with ruins covered in a growth and corpses of past victims. There is a sense of claustrophobia as the outstretched arms of the dead seem to be reaching for Sophia, and you want to solve the puzzles as quickly as possible to escape.
Light plays a central role both within the story and in how you solve puzzles. In the story, light is needed to push back the darkness and the monster, and you will spend a lot of time trying to find and activate light sources to help you progress while pushing the monster back.
Sophia also has a sphere that ties in with the Minoan trials and uses light in three different ways. One acts as a blacklight to reveal hidden symbols and trails, another breaks white light into red, green and blue beams that need to be lined up with corresponding crystals. The sphere can only be used when it has a source of light, making it useless in the darker areas. Some of the puzzles do require manipulating light and mirrors, creating paths to allow for a target to be illuminated. The more complicated ones do require you to explore the environment to find covered crystals and clues that can only be spotted if you shine the sphere’s light in the right area. None of the puzzles feel impossible and just require a bit of patience to figure out.
Another thing that helps elevate the Resonance experience is the combination of the visuals, music, and acting. The music has a Greek influence to it, mixed with vocal only moments that add a haunting element. In the most tense areas the music matches very well, adding to the anxiety of trying to escape the monster. The island’s environments contain a number of ruins which capture Minoan architecture, sometimes exaggerating it in jaw dropping ways, while the labyrinth is a great horror setting. Kudos also has to go the actors that bring the characters of Sophia (Anna Demetriou), Leni (Lisa Delamar), Faro (Ben Homewood), and the rest to life, giving them real personality as the stress of the situation impacts each of them in different ways. A technical weakness you could pick upon would be the animation within combat, snapping from one move to another, though this could also be a deliberate choice to keep the action as responsive as possible, and really didn’t bother me while playing.
