BLACKTAIL Review: A Wild World Of Confusing Fun

PC Review Code Provided by Focus Home Entertainment

Focus Entertainment and THE PARASIGHT have launched what has to be the strangest game I have played in a while. BLACKTAIL is a game that brings the open-world adventure to a strange world of mythology and magic where you have to fight off against various enemies while completing tasks that help bring you closer to your ultimate goal; finding the truth behind the lost memories. The question is, how entertaining is this adventure?

Story

Take on the role of Yaga, a young girl accused of witchcraft and expelled from her medieval settlement following the mysterious disappearance of her twin sister and lifelong protector Zora. However, the truth falls in what happened to them can only truly be found in the living memories of her past. This leaves her with no other option than to hunt down those memories in hopes of unraveling the mystery hidden within her own lost memories.

Along the way, she’ll have to use her trusty bow, crafting arrows and potions while gathering materials to survive in the ominous woods. There’s a lot of ground to cover and moral choices to make that will guide her down the path to becoming a good or evil witch. Worst of all, a witch only known as Baba is somehow mixed up in this mess… adding yet another piece to this confusing puzzle of lost memories.

As far as the story goes, it is honestly really hard to follow while playing the game. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with the information and atmosphere as everything feels so fantastically surreal. This isn’t a game you will want to rush because if there is one thing I took away from this experience, it is that no amount of confusion can’t be understood given time to process the reality around you. The more I played through a section of the game, taking the time to uncover secrets in different parts of the map and fighting enemies, the more I came to understand it.

Gameplay

Every bit of combat in this game will revolve around your bow. From the start of the game, you pick up your bow, gather some sticks and feathers, craft a few arrows, and then shoot your first target practice item. This is something you will do often in the game, even in the midst of combat, so be sure to understand this aspect of the game as your life literally depends on it. To be fair, it is pretty straightforward - you gather sticks and feathers when you can so you can craft arrows on the fly.

After some time you will gain the ability to use a magic force push power that is effective in the same way a ‘shield bash’ type move would be. It can kill small creatures and push back actual enemies, but it doesn’t really do much damage. However, it does get those enemies with shields to be open for an attack and get annoying hard-to-kill, or even unkillable, enemies to back off while you face the bigger threats.

By the end of the first chapter of the game, you will notice that everything is there at your fingertips already. Every item you will use to craft is already listed and you know where to find it. You will have reached The Hut which has the cauldron you use to improve your skills and abilities, which you will notice also take the items you use for crafting in order to improve along with some special items like Teeth and Shellocks. Also, the crafting wheel is as small as it looks but also holds everything you need.

Once you can craft everything, you will find you have three different types of arrows, two types of potions, and a staff. Each arrow has its own specific use and can be used to fight with, however, I preferred the standard wooden arrows in most fights. Each potion has its use, where one improves your hunting prowess and the other is a poison antidote. As for the staff, this is a luring mechanism where you can plant it on the ground and most enemies will be attracted to it, giving you a chance to either kill a few of them or get out of there.

The only thing you can’t craft that you will wish you could are health items. Instead, to heal you will need to find wild berries and eat them. They are pretty bountiful, but it can be frustrating when you happen to not see them often.

When it comes to moving around the world, it will be vast and wide at first where you have to run everywhere, but after some progression, you will unlock some fast travel options. At the very start of the game, you will immediately have access to teleport to The Hut at any time since it is where you can upgrade your abilities and skills by interacting with any black cat you see in the world - the black cat next to The Hut simply takes you back to the last black cat you interacted with. Second, you will unlock the option to shoot an arrow at a specific stone you will see all over the place and by doing so it teleports you to it. Lastly, you will be able to teleport between standing stones with a looking hole on them - these will tell you where they will take you by looking at the map and matching the colors (ie: Red icon will take you to the other Red icon).

If you ever get lost, you will have your main mission marked on your map with a red X. However, there will be some moments when the marker is placed in a section of the map that you haven’t traversed yet. I personally found these to be more frustrating than they should have been, but when this happens that means you simply have to traverse the map to find how to get there yourself.

As for some of the side stuff you can do in this game, you will need to balance your morality meter where you want it. There are options to improve your good and bad morality all over the place. For one, you will find a weird plant that traps birds in it - setting it free is good and killing it is bad. You will also come across two side story characters, the evil black ant queen and the traveling larvae merchant. Helping the merchant with his troubles gives good karma while helping the black ant queen in her war conquest gives bad karma.

You will also be able to find chests all over the place. These chests are the only way to get certain items, such as teeth. If you want to keep getting your skills and abilities up, be sure to open these when you find them. Also, keep in mind that the game will let you gather endless material even though you can only hold a certain amount so try to keep tabs on if you are actually gathering material or going through the motions. I would suggest making your ability to hold more of each material a focus upgrade in the skill tree.

Audio and Visual

When it comes to the graphical aesthetics of this game, it is hands-down beautiful! The landscape, the lighting style, and even the general environment are all so very well done. At times, it does give a more gothic beauty aesthetic, but the game is by far a title that is enjoyable to look at. Some of the enemies weren’t much to look at, but they did fit the art style which is about what you would expect.

When it comes to sound effects, I would say that it is pretty standard. The parts of the sound design that stick out are the voice acting and music because they did a wonderful job making the world sound as authentic as it was visually surreal. As long as you are having fun with the gameplay, this is a title that will not be annoying to hear or boring to look at any time soon.

Replayability

As the game is pretty massive, I would say the replayability falls mostly in the player’s drive to complete as much of the game as possible. If you focus on the story aspect, you will still end up traversing quite a bit of the map and finding a lot of stuff, but if you really search through everything and talk to all possible characters, you will find even more lore, quests, and items around. That said, I don’t see a reason for someone to beat the game and then start over.

What It Could Have Done Better

I constantly felt lost in this game and it would get pretty frustrating pretty quickly. Right from the start, it throws so much information and weirdness at you that it is honestly hard to follow. It would have been better if there was a bit more of a buffer between getting missions from talking mushrooms to fight a dragon and the beginning of the game.

Giving players the freedom to run around the map is always a fun aspect, but there wasn’t a single time where the marker of where to go didn’t end up frustrating me as I had trouble finding the path there. If you are going to put the destination outside of the known map, it should be fairly obvious what direction to start going to get there.

Verdict

BLACKTAIL is pure entertainment hidden behind a confusing journey! This is a game that will need patience from the player and the willingness to journey through a wild world to find your own way. Even with that said, it is a truly memorable experience that is enjoyable - especially once you take the time to get all the confusing bits figured out. The combat was well done, the enemies were diverse, the environment was beautiful, and the lore was definitely unique. If you have the patience for it, then this is a game I would recommend.

BLACKTAIL is available now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.