Video game openings are tough. Not only do they have to establish a setting and story stakes, they also have to teach you how to play the damn thing. The new James Bond, 007 First Light, excels in throwing you into a kick-ass stealth section in Iceland before pivoting to a lightning-fast tutorial montage in Malta. It’s an excellent way to open a game.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, the latest in Asobo Studio’s Rat Game series, has quite the opposite opening. It drags and drags, and after the first couple hours, I started wondering if I should drop the game entirely. Thankfully I didn’t, because eventually I hit sections where I got to kick dudes to death, and combat flipped from “fine” to “fun.” The game really opened up in all areas, and showed that, sometimes, sticking with something past initial disappointment pays off.

The game starts when protagonist Sophia is a child, and it takes forever to teach you its controls, which are rather basic. Sophia is thrown into a fighting pit three separate times so you can learn Resonance’s combat, which never evolves much past this opening sequence. You use one button to parry, and another to attack. Off you go.

Sophia does have a kick ability that’s used to break opponents’ guard. It adds some variety to combat, and is a great tool for quickly disposing of weak foes, especially after I upgraded it to have Sophia perform a follow-up kick too.

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