BLACKTAIL

The gameplay is a bit slow, but it makes sense due to the fact your main weapon is a bow, so it doesn't overwhelm you too often. Good story, very fun characters too.

Blacktail is a gigantic surprise to me and not at all what I was expecting when I started. While I expected an action game with interesting mechanics and a cliché story, what I got was the opposite, a phenomenal setting/story and mediocre action. The star of Blacktail is the amazing Slavic folklore setting. It's incredible! I was completely immersed. I read almost everything available, from Almanac entries to item descriptions and even quest descriptions. There is just so much to unpack and learn from this strange folklore. Talking about strange, the story starts with a child called Yaga being hunted by the peasants that think she's a witch after her sister and some kids from the village vanish. During the pursuit she stumbles upon THE HUT™. Meanwhile, some sort of corruption called "The Roots" gets unleashed on the land by The Hut, and things unfold in an interesting way. I don't want to spoil anything else. It's a good story worthy of paying attention. Most of the dialogue revolves around Yaga (MC) and "The Voice," which is a mysterious voice that Yaga speaks with and at first has no real explanation. Their interactions are fun, The Voice loves to pester Yaga, and it's fun to follow. The characters are great, especially the Mushrooms and their shenanigans, but I also love the Larva and the Black Cat. Their delivery is also very convincing, great cast! The game has a morality system. Who is your friend, who is your enemy, and which characters are the quest-givers or enemies depends on that system. While the "Grand" mushrooms and Larva will love good karma, the "Cursed" mushrooms and the Ant Queen will love bad karma. But the morality system is very twisted, it's not as black and white as it seems, and there are very interesting nuances in the design. Especially about the "flying vermin." Graphically, Blacktail is remarkable. It has a colorful, oversaturated vibe that really feels like a fairytale. Lush trees, particles, honeycombs, will-o'-the-wisps, and stars that are akin to children's drawings compose beautiful landscapes that I really didn't get tired of taking copious amounts of screenshots (49 to be exact) of while being completely mesmerized. The game has 4 main areas, one for each season of the year. Autumn is just completely spectacular, the perfect mix of enchanting and grim. Sadly, the gameplay is the weakest aspect of Blacktail. The combat feels very weightless, the bow does not feel like a real bow, there is no arrow physics, the arrows are hitscan (2/3 of them at least), and it feels like a pistol that you have to hold to shoot. Also, the enemies are not fun to fight, some are very pesky, while others use shields and are super annoying to deal with. At the second half of the game, I avoided combat as much as possible and just ran past most enemies. Also, the upgrade mechanics are not really that useful, it's mostly QoL hidden as upgrades or weak improvements over what you already have. Combat variety also suffers in the form of how to interact with it, you only have your bow, 3 different arrows (one of which is almost useless), and some sort of magic "push." That's it. Besides having better physics, I really wish the game had more meat in the bones when talking about combat, it's very prominent in the game, and I am not sure why it's so simplistic. As for technical aspects, Blacktail ran at 200FPS 99% of the time during my playthrough. The performance was stone solid in almost every situation, most of the drops were derived from using the teleports in long distances. Also, when I started playing, there was this sparkling effect over light and reflections, I was not sure what was wrong. Then a few minutes in I decided to tweak the graphics, and when I disabled FXAA, things got significantly better, even though I had to turn the miserable TAA on… Blacktail is unique. It taught me a lot about Slavic culture like no other game. It has its funny parts, but it's mostly a pretty somber game with creepy stories, and not everything is as simple as it seems. My complete playthrough getting all achievements (which is not something I planned) lasted around 23 hours, the counter shows 30h, but it's mostly because I'd drift away and do something else quite frequently in the first few hours, and it was hard to invest time in it. I attribute that to the weak combat, which is also what holds Blacktail back from being truly sensational. The game only got interesting later on when the story developed, however, I truly love Blacktail, and I strongly recommend it. A Great Day to be a Stick, isn't it? 🪾