Do we wear the mask or does the mask wear us?
While first-person adventure games have often relied on bows as a means of combating the wealth of monsters and mythical creatures around us, few rely on them as the only direct means of combat. Structured around Slavic myth and folklore, Blacktail beautifully tells the tale of Yaga, a young girl on the hunt for her lost sister, Zora. Armed with her handcrafted bow, a magical spell, and blamed for the missing children in her village, Yaga sets out to not only find her sister but to clear her name as well.
Throughout the roughly 10-12 hour journey across its colorful, intricate, and stunningly beautiful environments, you'll discover the fates of the missing children as well as what actually happened to Yaga's sister, as well as a few other closely guarded secrets unbeknownst to even Yaga herself, especially one surrounding a voice that guides Yaga on her quest, whether she wants to listen to her or not. This relationship often defines the adventure, and honestly, I don't think the game would have hooked me had it not been as effective and well-executed. Both Yaga and the voice give incredible performances that really make you emotionally invested in their journey.
Blacktail's story is one of its best qualities, as it should be, given it is constantly conveying its narrative to you, either through narrated scenarios by a cat you'll meet along the way, or through the conversations between Yaga and the voice, as well as a wealth of interesting mushroom creatures, small insects, and more. While games of this type, especially from small teams, can often lead to amateurish and laughable voice-acting, Blacktail has an incredible cast that clearly had a great time bringing such beautiful life to its small arrangement of interesting and memorable characters, especially Avalon Penrose's time here as the voice in Yaga's head. And, should you recognize her, she was Megaera in Hades, which lends to her credibility and capable skill.
While you might see a few things coming from its story, especially if you fully are educated upon the myths and legends of what the game offers, the journey to those moments was constantly rewarding, from well-executed storyboard cinematics to the writing that prevents characters from saying or doing anything that feels foolish or dumbed down to progress the story. There are several side quests to tackle, including a tower defense mode that was fairly entertaining but ultimately a bit shallow, I do have to say that the quality of these side quests sadly don't hold up to the writing and content built around the main path. That isn’t quite true for all of them, but the better part of them didn’t quite grab my full attention.
Despite that uneven quality, Blacktail remained constantly enjoyable, largely due to the stellar voice work and its fun little band of recurring supporting characters. From a pair of mushrooms that constantly need your help, an Ant Queen that plans her war with humanity, to several more than will often need your services in some way. They too are wonderfully acted and I have to say, it's refreshing to see games that don't feature the same four or five actors that populate nearly every game on the market.
These quests or characters don't just show up and fade away as your choices with them and their quests will play into a morality system that details the available skills you have as you lean more towards the dark or the light. It’s a system that is woven into not just your skills, but combat, scavenging, conversations, quests, and more, giving real weight to your choices that most AAA games often brag about featuring but then fumble the ball in making them truly matter.
To aid you on your adventure, dealing with small little goblins, magical fairies, carnivorous plants, to large crystallized trolls that chuck large boulders your way, Yaga is equipped with her trusty bow. As you gather feathers and sticks that are frequently laying about, you'll craft the arrows needed to shoot down your attackers, until you start needing additional resources to fashion more complicated ammo such as the honey or crystal variety you'll eventually discover, among a few other upgrades that pack a punch. While a small detail, but one I was very impressed by, the straps on the bow that shake and move as you walk around just really add that little extra to the immersion of wielding this simple yet brutal weapon. Little touches like this really go a long way and I very much appreciated it, regardless of how small and trivial it really is.
Apart from her bow, Yaga has a magical deflect skill that is the game’s answer to handling close-quarters combat, allowing you to deal a bit of crowd control. I do wish there was something else here to assist in attacking the enemies that get right up in your face, even a weak option like swatting at your opponent with your bow. This is largely due to the swarm-like nature of most enemies that the combat here doesn't always feel like it's been designed to work around, especially as your magical skill are tied to a recharging magical meter. You do have a dash and while you can upgrade it to dash farther and faster, it doesn't quite lessen the small issue that still remains. It doesn't cause Blacktail to greatly suffer, but it is a small annoyance that is present along your journey, regardless.
To aid in building up her bow and other various skills is an upgrade tree that requires numerous resources and the skill sheet to unlock the skill itself. These are found as you explore, complete side quests, and also found in chests that are sometimes tucked away. These skills grant you micro-upgrades to your bow, deflect skill, dash, and how many resources or arrows the young Yaga can hold. If I had to make one complaint, is that it doesn’t always convey what is available to you as it wasn’t until some time in that I accidentally realized that I had vitality upgrades available to me, allowing me to increase my health by almost double.
With each increase on the skill tree, you'll take your upgraded kit into battles with a few enjoyable boss encounters, albeit one optional one that I strongly suggest skipping. The encounters that are here do borrow some elements from each other, but always found ways to give them new life, even though the way to defeat them was still nonetheless identical. While fairly basic, the "Dragon" fight in the game's early moments was rather fun and pretty interesting, but this was mostly due to the circumstances around the actual battle itself.
Blacktail has a massive world to explore, but only sticking to the main story will result in you seeing but a fraction of it, given that the bulk of what is out there is left to discover through a series of side quests or just pure curiosity. From swamps to forests to dark caverns and snowy peaks, the world on offer here consistently opens up the more you peel away at it, offering up a world that begs to be explored and you are constantly rewarded for doing so. From chests of resources, skill sheets, and special buffs in the form of frog statues, there is a lot to discover should you take the time to do so.
Should you ever lose your way, Blacktail has an interesting mechanic that serves as a way to keep you on the path. As you look up in most cases, you'll find small wooden-carved owls resting atop a loose branch or on a cliffside. Shooting them out of their resting place will have them fall to the ground, the spirit contained within them flowing off into the wind, muttering your current objective to you. Granted, your current mission is always marked with a big red X on the map, but it's a nice feature that I came to greatly appreciate, especially after working through a side quest and attempting to get my bearings.
If I had to really criticize one large component to this beautiful adventure, it is that the platforming here doesn’t always feel delivered in a way that it should have been. Jumping and sprinting can often feel slow and lethargic, and Yaga can only mantle up specific places, which can often be spaced in ways where you really have to squeeze the last pixel width out of some jumps. More than a dozen times I either failed a jump that felt nearly impossible or would attempt to jump over the tiniest rock and be met with what felt like an invisible wall. These issues were not a constant problem but were still annoyances nonetheless. And while on a lesser extent, there are a few side-scrolling moments in the game that I won’t spoil what they are, but the jumping in those areas of the game felt just far too floaty.
Blacktail leans into its myths and folklore in ways I truly appreciated. And, given my ignorance of most of those stories, I was able to appreciate its well-crafted tale with little to no expectations on where it might end up, even as several plot beats end up exactly the way you think they will. I was well aware of some aspects of the Baba Yaga story, seeing different takes on the old tale, but Blacktail might be my favorite telling of this beloved myth due to the characters placed front and center in the story.
Blacktail is one of the best-hidden gems I’ve seen in a while, especially as the game was released a week after the Game Awards and when many people were likely tapped out during a busy holiday season. Blacktail may have a few platforming wrinkles that can be a tiny bit frustrating, but nearly everything else the game does is pure magic, offering a fun and memorable adventure with a few stunning performances that really have the title bring it home.
Developer - The Parasight S.A. Publisher - Focus Entertainment. Released - December 15th, 2022. Available On - PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows. Rated - (T) Blood, Language, Violence. Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.