After two fantastic A Plague Tale games, it feels like Asobo Studio has turned the third into its biggest uphill battle on purpose.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is a prequel — which are just inherently less interesting than sequels — there are no rats, it’s all about combat instead of stealth, and series protagonists Amicia and Hugo are missing in action.

Instead, you play as Sophia from A Plague Tale: Requiem. Remember her? No, me neither. She’s in the game to ferry you about in her ship and doesn’t leave all that much of a lasting impression.

Asobo Studio has made the latest entry all about her, though, as it turns back time 15 years to chart her upbringing and the mysterious visions she had as a child. Sophia’s been dreaming of a Minotaur Island and the myths that accompany such a place; what’s there ties into the Macula curse fuelling the entire franchise.

These story links and the cinematic direction of the game are just about the only ways it replicates the first two titles. If they were the developer crafting its own The Last of Us, then Resonance is more like its Uncharted.

Parkour and melee combat are front and centre with puzzle solving and story cinematics in between. It all comes together to form a solid narrative experience that I don’t think quite reaches the same heights as its predecessors.

The big differentiator is a considerable focus on swordfights.

Sophia has a full arsenal of attacks and a skill tree to upgrade them with, marking a departure from Amicia’s cowering stealth tactics and her sling. You can’t avoid enemy encounters; there are no stealth mechanics in the game whatsoever, so you’re forced to fight.

It’s basic at first, with the usual sword slashes, parries, and dodges you’ve seen 100 times before forming the foundations of every clash. While upgrades later on expand and greatly improve the combat system, its simple beginnings lend to Resonance’s biggest flaw: it takes far too long to get going.

I found the opening hours tough to enjoy, as an uninteresting plot setup meets elementary gameplay. The combat is so simple and the puzzles are so basic that I can see the game losing some people before its 15-hour campaign has really begun. You’ll slog through the first few chapters wondering what happened despite the pretty ocean and Venice vistas.

But then something happens, and everything changes.

Resonance has a replacement for the rat horde the series is known for, forcing the story and the action to finally pick up the pace. An entity is sucking the life out of anything with a heartbeat in the depths of Minotaur Island, and you’ll need to avoid its gaze whilst shining light beams at it to destroy its seemingly infinite tentacles.

This adds much-needed depth to the game as it finally reveals its entire hand. Through combat, puzzle-solving, and evasion, Resonance becomes a solid Plague Tale experience… eventually.

By this point, the combat system will have more to offer as it develops into something worthwhile. I’m struggling to recall another game where its skill tree has such a significant impact on the feel and enjoyment of its fights; the upgrades expand and greatly improve your moves to where they have more functions and power.

It’s more than just attack, parry, and dodge at this point: a grappling hook lets you pull soldiers towards you, special strikes deal damage across a wide area, and your deflections trigger extra effects. With everything unlocked, the game justifies its move away from stealth and into traditional sword action; what’s there is enjoyable and something to build on should Asobo Studio want another combat-focused entry in the saga.

Puzzles have been part of the franchise since the beginning, though, and Resonance doubles down on them in satisfying fashion. Primarily, they’re based around a device Sophia finds on the island that projects light. She can use this to line up light beams with the correct colours, or position mirrors to reflect those beams to where she needs them.

Other brain teasers involve symbol matching and referring to the journal belonging to Sophia’s father, who visited the island when she was young. He made some progress through Minotaur Island and jotted down his findings in a book Sophia takes with her; this creates a fun dynamic of referring to what he discovered and then expanding on the findings as you solve the puzzle.

There aren’t any entirely new concepts to uncover, but the mental tests provide an engaging way to break up the combat and traversal sequences. By the second half of the title, Resonance builds a good flow between the three.

I find myself constantly coming back to that: once the game has gotten over its slog of an opening, it offers a consistently strong story experience. The gameplay pillars complement that focus through entertaining interactions and scenes.

It wouldn’t be a Plague Tale game without some stunning panoramas on top, and while Resonance has examples of that, I can’t help but feel it’s fallen short of what the first two instalments managed.

The vast majority of the game takes place on Minotaur Island, which is surrounded by beautiful ocean views. Head inside to interior sections, though, and so many of them are let down by fuzzy and blurry visuals. I even played the whole thing in the 30 frames-per-second Quality Mode on a PS5 Pro for the best graphical experience possible — I didn’t come away impressed.

You can also go with a Performance Mode targeting 60FPS, though there’s a very noticeable drop in visual quality between the two. As the series has always been about cinematic splendour, I stuck it out with the Quality Mode at 30FPS.

Or, that’s at least what it tries to achieve: the title suffers from significant frame rate drops throughout the whole campaign. I’m not talking the odd single-digit drop; you are going to notice when the game chugs and becomes more of a stop-start chore for a second. The Performance Mode fares much better — again on PS5 Pro — but you’re trading in a lot of the graphical shine to attain that steadiness.

Asobo Studio redeems itself somewhat with some light but effective use of the PS5 DualSense controller’s feature set. Haptic feedback replicates the pitter-patter of Sophia’s footsteps as she jogs and sprints around the depths of Minotaur Island, enhancing the feel of exploration.