BLACKTAIL
Developer: The Parasight | Publisher: Focus Entertainment
BLACKTAIL is a dark fantasy adventure where players explore a fairy-tale world, hunt with a bow, complete quests, and shape Yaga’s morality through their choices.
Developed by The Parasight and published by Focus Entertainment, BLACKTAIL is a first-person action-adventure game built around archery, exploration, morality choices, and a dark fairy-tale retelling of the Baba Yaga legend. Its strange characters, unsettling story, and morality system give the game a strong identity, with choices that are not always as obvious as simply being good or evil.
Gameplay Experience: 13/25
The controller layout feels surprisingly natural, and BLACKTAIL’s morality system gives the early hours some interesting tension, especially when seemingly harmless actions can push Yaga toward good or evil. Unfortunately, the combat never develops into something equally satisfying. Fights often turn into backpedalling while firing arrows, using the pushback ability to create space, or dropping a broom to pick enemies off one at a time. Several bosses also felt poorly balanced for how slow and awkward the combat can be, making it easier to exploit safe spots or broken positioning than fight them as intended. There are a few genuinely good encounters, particularly the tree boss, but they are surrounded by clunky platforming sections, repetitive enemies, and side activities that feel more like padding than something worth seeking out.
Presentation & Immersion: 14/25
The game is at its best when it leans into its strange fairy-tale atmosphere. The writing, voice acting, and odd cast of characters give the world personality, and the way familiar children’s stories are twisted into something darker helps keep the story interesting for much of the game. Visually, though, it is much less consistent. Some characters and locations are nicely detailed and stylized, but large parts of the world feel several years older than the game actually is, with smooth, dated-looking textures and environments that rarely stand out. A few stranger character designs still stand out and are well designed. The story remained the strongest reason to keep moving forward, but even that pull started to fade as the game wore on.
Design & Technical: 15/25
There are some clever ideas here, but the way they are put together is inconsistent. The morality system is the strongest part, especially because choices are not always clearly signposted and can sometimes punish assumptions rather than obvious intent. Exploration is easy enough to follow, and the progression systems give some reason to engage with the world, but several quests feel padded or grindy rather than meaningfully designed. BLACKTAIL also struggles with its side-scrolling platforming sections, which are awkward to control, while some boss encounters expose technical problems more than mechanical challenge. One major fight even bugged out badly enough to leave the boss stuck in the environment, turning an already frustrating encounter into an accidental cheese. There is enough structure here to keep the game functional, but too many rough edges make it feel less polished than it should.
The Skinny About Blacktail
Final Considerations: 10/25
BLACKTAIL (Steam Link) has enough originality to make a strong first impression, but not enough consistency to carry the experience all the way through. The strange fairy-tale story, unusual characters, and morality system kept the game interesting longer than the combat or exploration ever could, but by around 21 hours that was no longer enough. Several side quests were easy to abandon, boss fights too often felt frustrating rather than rewarding, and the overall experience gradually became something to push through rather than look forward to. There is a more interesting game buried inside BLACKTAIL, but too much of what surrounds its best ideas feels awkward, dated, or underdeveloped. Not Recommended.
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