Blacktail Review

Child murder is such a strange overarching implication of many classic fables we tell our children. Two of the three little pigs were murdered. Little Red Riding Hood, attempted murder. Humpty Dumpty, need I say more? With this in mind, it’s no wonder that The Parasight latched onto an idea of dark whimsy for Blacktail, an action-adventure survival game steeped in folk stories and fairy tales. This begs the question, which of the three little piggies is Blacktail exactly; straw, sticks or stone?

Blacktail puts you behind the mask of Yaga as she tracks down her lost sister in a whimsical and beautiful land beset by corruption. Following a ghost down the rabbit hole, Yaga finds herself coming to terms with her memories, people she might’ve once called friends, and her trauma manifesting as a mask. It’s a story with a lot of spinning plates that’s delivered in a slightly convoluted fashion. With lots of characters and motivations to understand, the story is a process of trying to piece together the events leading up to the beginning, namely why Yaga is the way she is, and her relationship with the witch Baba. Nevertheless, when the plates fall there are some touching moments, particularly in regard to finding one’s self-determination through reconciliation. At least if you walk the path of good as I did, because as everyone knows, being evil is a loser activity.

Ah, the child murder house

Stuck in a rigid binary of good and evil, Blacktail’s morality system is an unfortunate call back to a bygone era with some added bells and whistles. Both small and large choices have that familiar problem of steamrolling your considerations in favour of boosting your alignment for gameplay benefits. It projects that feeling of not wanting to go half-chub on good or evil, as becoming your best or worst self is clearly the more advantageous option. You’re highly encouraged to engage with morality this way too, as greater buffs unlock the further you go in either direction. I find it unfortunate because it places emphasis on the gameplay outcomes without drawbacks or consequences, rather than using morality as means of questioning the player with narrative repercussions. The entire Mr. Larva and Ant-Queen story arc embodies this issue perfectly. A fun side story with two entwined minor characters that’s ultimately unfulfilling beyond its capacity to help boost your moral status and the lack of meaningful reaction to the player’s choices.

Stumbling upon opportunities to be a noble soul or mischief maker is a serene adventure made up of two parts, questing and exploring. Side quests are the best way the world reveals itself, having you take part in the brewing tension between the Mushrooms and the Cursed before they hunker down for winter. Long-winded conversations are a major detractor here, with a lot of the quests’ structures being largely the same. This isn’t to say there aren’t diamonds in the rough, like navigating a battlefield full of enemies that turn to stone when gazed upon or parsing through spider bureaucracy. An overall redeeming quality is seeing how each quest progresses between the seasons and how they even frequently nod to choices made in other questlines.

I am the shooter on the grassy gnoll

Getting lost in the eccentric lands and exploring the nooks and crannies is the oh-so-perfect porridge to questing’s middling bowls. The breadcrumb trail has many diversions, and nine times out of ten the scenery itself had me wondering what’s inside a cave or castle, and over the next hill. Most of these locations exist purely for exploration rather than questing, and it’s all the more rewarding for it. Hiding important crafting materials in these locations encourages the act of exploring but it honestly knows that there are weirder places off the beaten path that become the real carrot on the stick. Traversal is made a skilful joy through the use of teleporters that Yaga can jump to by landing an arrow through a gateway, and by stringing these together you wouldn’t realise fast travel doesn’t exist. This is before the fact that Blacktail reveals it’s lightly dusted with Metroidvania-Esque returning to previously locked areas with newly acquired equipment, most of which stems from your bow, the driving force of combat.

Weaving through the battlefield, dodging, and letting fly a barrage of arrows is as satisfying as it sounds. However, a small shadow that’s cast over Blacktail is its whole-hearted focus on archery gameplay. It never really shakes this overwhelming sense of wanting to be able to do more with combat. The expansive skill tree, morality-based magics, and three different arrowheads do enough to spice up the flow, but for the most part the strategy of planting your broom and then shooting your enemies never really changes. Strafing backwards and quick firing almost yearns for a melee weapon. To be clear though, what’s provided is very fun, especially when you start chaining teleports together mid-combat to get the better of those stinky gnolls.

Every rose has its thorn, and Blacktail is certainly no different. Throughout the 25-hour journey I encountered some nuisance bugs like enemies spawning under the map or hit detection being off on gnoll enemies. The sharpest thorn is reserved for the checkpointing. Blacktail irregularly autosaves, and with saving being a bonfire-like situation there are moments where large swaths of exploration and progress can be lost due to such an antiquated system. This isn’t helped by the fact that platforming is an awkward, floaty endeavour that all too often leads to Yaga taking great plunges to her death and rebirth across the map.

What them lips do

Final Thoughts

In a way Blacktail reminds me a lot of Fable: The Lost Chapters, a flawed game I love dearly, specifically in the way it places emphasis on your morality and then fails to follow through, narratively speaking. Like Fable though, Blacktail is an enjoyable experience despite its noticeable shortcomings. The exploration, the traversal interlinked with combat, and some humorous quests are in fact the brick house that stands strong. Blacktail does an admirable job building something unique of the bricks that came before, and most importantly captures the essence of what makes fairy tales so iconic…child murder.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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