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Blacktail is the kind of 00s adventure throwback that I want to see moreIt’s not going to get less weird
It’s not going to get less weird
I’ve been playingBlacktail, ostensibly for review, but with all the seasonal nonsense going on I haven’t played enough to give you a big wot I think. It’s worth writing about though, so here I am, doing that. It’s a weirdo little first-person action-adventure game where you play as the 16-year-old Yaga, who has been run into the forest because the local villagers think she’s in league with the witch Baba. If you know any European folklore you may have reason to suspect they’re right.
Yaga’s childhood friends have all vanished, along with her sister, and the game sends you off to breadcrumb trails around a bright, unreal forest, to find the memories of what happened to the unfortunate kiddies. Along the way you grow in power and skill, using different types of arrows with your bow, as well as lures and spells. I like Blacktail because it’s a little bit janky in ways that don’t break the game, and is absolutely committed to its own particular flavour of odd. It’s the kind of game you used to see a lot in the early-mid 00s, and just don’t get much anymore.
BLACKTAIL - Gameplay Overview TrailerWatch on YouTube
BLACKTAIL - Gameplay Overview Trailer
Everything in the game, even the monsters, is in primary, high-saturation colours, so it lends the whole forest a dreamy, storybook quality. The place is littered with huge rock formations that look like skeletal rabbits, and you sort of wonder why anyone built a village in the area because it’s clearly eldritch as hell. Each time you turn a new corner you find a new weird kind of landscape in front of you. There are snowy forests, weird swamps, a boss fight with a tree, fields full of exploding bees, an abandoned windmill full of cobwebs. It’s sort of a survival game, with specific save points, and you have to constantly forage for the things you need - even saving requires a red daisy, and they’re are also used to make other things like antidotes. There’s a morality system. Once, so far, a flashback has transported me into a 2D side-scrolling section. There’s a lot going on in this game, is what I’m saying.
Sometimes the enemy pathing goes on the wonk, and sometimes you can’t double-save at a shrine. Just little things like that. But Blacktail is also delightful and strange, and I started reading about Baba Yaga and realised how smart a lot of it is. It’s so specific that it reminds me of stuff likeGiants: Citizen KabutoorSacrifice. It’s not like them, but that’s why it reminds me of them. I’m currently chasing a weird zombie-ish deer towards a lair, because the knight mushroom with a horse growing out of it has turned the deer into a bomb. If that doesn’t sell a game, I don’t know what does.
