It will be due to its Franco-Spanish origins that Microids e Pendulo Studios they decided to engage in the risky adventure of creating a video game on Blacksad, well-known comic book character, but beyond a good name behind him, it would certainly have needed even more time and dedication. The development of Blacksad: Under the Skin it was troubled in itself, but perhaps waiting a few more months would have been more beneficial to a title that, although narratively intriguing, turned out to be very poor on a playful and catastrophic level on a technical level. Before going into detail, it is important to underline that with a little more forethought - and a ton of hours of beta testing - the result would most likely have been better, also in terms of the rhythm and alternation of the various phases.
Balck and Noir
The story of Blacksad: Under the Skin it clearly takes place in a true noir-style New York, as exactly the character and comic book stories want. However, it is not about the world as we know it, because in this all the inhabitants are anthropomorphic animals (with features in a certain sense "human"). This setting is very particular, and opens narrative glimmers everywhere. The game is, as expected, a case to be solved. The owner of a boxing gym, Joe Dunn, a very famous lynx in the industry and a war veteran (but also a musician if necessary!) Died. Hanged with a rope in the center of the ring, everything suggests suicide ... but things are never what they seem, are they? And this is where John Blacksad comes into play, hired by Dunn's own daughter under the advice of one of the boxers at the gym, a friend of John's. From here on an interesting investigation begins, which will see us dig much deeper than one might expect at first glance, with the darkest secrets of the city and the sports sector that will inexorably come to the surface.
Although sport will clearly be the backdrop for all 10 hours of play, there will be no shortage of it even deeper and more demanding themes, treated with respect on more than one occasion: for example you will have to deal with racism, betrayals, family problems, health, but also clandestine trafficking, and everything that comes before you will put you in front of moral dilemmas . Our actions, our reflexes, our way of responding, and all the choices related to morality and money will be summarized in a special section called "my Blacksad", where you can browse to check what kind of cat you have been.
Graphically pleasing and musically engaging, the atmosphere created by the game manages to give a particular feeling. We do not get to perfection with the essence of "noir", but all in all the personality of the protagonist and the background of the Big Apple manage to make an excellent contribution.
Gameplay ...
Blacksad's gameplay is what, in a sense, we can expect from any third-person graphic adventure. The active points with which you can interact will only be visible once you are close, whether they are a reading or an object to be collected. Every dialogue and every clue will be pinned by our cat detective in a notebook, which will be constantly updated with the information we will discover on each suspect and / or character. There is no inventory, as the very few items you will need will be collected and used automatically when the right opportunity arises.
The puzzles that the game confronts us are fundamentally mental, never environmental, and can be solved simply by acting or talking with the various characters. Many of the parts of the game will reveal themselves to the actual very easy, with insights that will be pitted too easily by yourself (sometimes anticipating Blacksad himself). In the game it will also be possible die, maybe if you have not answered a QTE in time or you have done the wrong action: in that case the game will restart from a few moments before, making this feature almost useless (indeed, very tedious in a couple of cases).
All the key information that we collect will go "in the head" of John, and from there, when it is reported, we will be able to make deductions, since we have collected enough clues. However, this inevitably implies that, in the event that this link is not clear to the player, everything can be resolved with a clear and limpid try & error. Trying to enrich the already good background of the game (the narrative sector and the plot are still successful works), 100 sports cards hidden in the most disparate places, a series of welcome collectibles which, however, do not have an impact on the game results.
What gives the coup de grace, however, are the phases of movement: our cat, while we control it, seems anything but an agile cat, getting bogged down at every corner, with uncertain general controls and, worse than anything else, without the ability to walk quickly, forcing us even to long stretches of walking to a disarming slowness.
… And Bugplay
All that is good in the narrative sector of Blacksad: Under the Skin, however, comes taken of weight and massacred to the sound of bugs, glitches, and various technical problems. The biggest problem is that these also affect the gaming experience a lot, sometimes even forcing the player to replay entire scenes (especially if you stop the game in the middle of one of them). In addition to the dozen problems related to the aforementioned movement, there are quirks due to the QTE, but also more on the purely technical side, such as the loading of the textures in the scene changes, very slow, the graphics of the keys that remain on the screen after having broken into a door (even preventing us from walking), invisible walls that appear on an open door preventing us from entering, or points with which to interact that simply do not activate. Many other problems occurred during the test, and we didn't even take note of all of them. Really a shame.
