Warning: The content in this game may be disturbing to some readers. Reader Discretion is advised.

You know, there are always some topics that are hard to talk about when we review games here on Phenixx Gaming. Not because we don’t want to, but we have a self-imposed rule that keeps us fairly clean for most articles. We aren’t against it, we just prefer to keep articles open to a wider perspective audience; today’s topic isn’t entirely for that broad readership, but rather a more adult group. Today we’re going to talk quite a bit about some very adult and very disturbing scenes.

Blacksad is an anthropomorphized black cat and detective in a highly romanticized depiction of the latter portion of the mid-20th century. Starting in the 2000s as graphic novels by the Spanish author Juan Diaz Canales and his colleague, and illustrator of the series, Juanjo Guarnido; the two have released five books with a prospective sixth and seventh coming soon. Over the last week, I’ve been rushing through the novels and playing the recent game. Both have surprised me in ways I didn’t think would happen.

As a big cuddly feline detective in a nice though fashionable Disney-style tv animation style and a world full of color and charm. You wouldn’t expect it to sit beside the blackest of comedies or darkest of stand-up sets. However, from the word “go,” in both the novels and game, you’re treated to sex, murder, scandal, and everything the graphics would tell you it isn’t. With pornography for Furries to the dark, depressing, and downright grim scenes. Any version of Blacksad opens with what can only be described as crime scenes, with dead bodies, and many deaths in horrific ways. Examples of this are a young woman shot in her own bed, and a businessman hanging on the rope.

The reason I’m comparing both is the soul reason I like Blacksad: Under The Skin, the source material so compelling. Graphic novels, while they have been around for quite some time, they have passed over my head until reading the entirety of Death Note earlier this year. Now, I have another series to add to that little box of things I like.

The game, on the other hand, is in my wheelhouse for whacking things with my stick of criticism. Being hard on it feels wrong, not because I’d be hitting something with animals in it, but because it does function well enough. The problem is we know it when it was done very well with another graphic novel series that have adult themes, death and despair, and a bit of good ol’ fashioned violence. Yes, I’m talking about the times we were all blubbering over the ending to season one of The Walking Dead. It not that Pendulo Studios are reinventing the wheel, it’s that they have taken it back to wood instead of rubber, alloy, and whatever else a wheel is made of.

Blacksad is filled with QTEs that fall out of nowhere like a skydiver without a parachute, dialogue options with sentences to choose from in seconds, and every adventure game’s trope; smashing two rocks together. Well, metaphorical rocks anyway. As a detective, these rocks aren’t a screwdriver, acid, and a cat stuck up a tree (that would be insensitive), they are the clues and pieces of the puzzle you need to solve the crime with. That’s where we’re no longer talking about Telltale’s formula, however, we’re talking about Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes series.

Neither series are a bad place to start your concept from, though both seemingly are hard to improve on. The reason I think the Telltale rather than the Walking Dead comparison works is how old and clunky some sections feel. Through story elements, some portions do ramp up and build to that moment of having to hammer A or quickly read the soliloquy your about to hear. Then there are moments where, for some reason or another, it doesn’t feel right for me to be in control. For lack of a better explanation, it all feels like the end of a TV show and I’m jabbing the controller from my slumber to get to the next episode.

With all the problems I have with Blacksad: Under the Skin, the simple and enjoyable neo-noir plot feels satisfying. Either from a dumb perspective of my enjoyment of animation and adult themes, or from this idea that Canales and Guarnido have done what they set out to do: Anthropomorphize them yet keep the characters believable and human. Ahead of the first novel, there is a letter about both authors, this piece talks about how the characters are meant to be reminiscent of Lauren Bacall, Ernest Borgnine, or even James Woods. With those larger than life actors in mind, you get a sense of how it is fiction but touches reality.

The story isn’t without cliques. Far from it, in fact; because the game is meant for adults, there is this sense of awareness that it isn’t going to be a blockbuster drama hit. The dialogue is fairly plain and wouldn’t put you out of your way after a lengthy day at work. More so that the dark themes of a hanging, sex, violence, racism, and all the others taking that spot of complexity while the dialogue pulls you along. A couple of times in both the novels and the game, there have been the odd references to “humans” and the “animal kingdom,” without referring to wildlife or how you or I would refer to ourselves as human. It keeps it simple.

For all that praise, there will come the stick of criticism again: The performance of Blacksad: Under the Skin is dreadful. For the Xbox One S, I have seen massive frame drops, hard crashes, huge lag spikes as sections of the game load, and loading times taking up to one minute-thirty, maybe even two minutes. Scenes will still be loading basic textures twenty or thirty seconds into a cutscene, and then it will end in just the same amount of time, if not less. All of that is putting aside a bug that locked me into a dialogue camera while still being able to move.

I assume this came from exiting the game soon after speaking with a character, the autosave thought I was still talking to him, and I was forcing myself back in at the second between dialogue and adventure. All I know is I had a moment of despair. In the pause menu, there isn’t a “save” and “load” option, but rather a book of what has previously happened. It was something I had considered to be a handy little reference to the novels, yet provided no purpose other than to refresh you on the story so far. Unbeknownst to me at the time, you can press A to go back to that conversation or piece of the action.

This brought about another issue I feel is dated and we should have grown out of by now. Once you’ve entered a scene, piece of lengthy dialogue, or anything that isn’t moving around the adventure gameplay world, you are stuck in that scene. Accidentally started a piece of lengthy dialogue you’ve heard three times already? Tough, there’s no skip button. I think you can tell, I’ve spoken to several characters I shouldn’t have again.

Though as I’m fumbling around, the case of a gym owner hanging over his own ring, after falling in love and keeping his gym de-segregated, is so simple yet entertaining. The source material is so full and engaging that no matter how trite the gameplay or dialogue might be, the world is worth expanding on. That is something I hope is not only done with possibly another game, but with more novels to work with, more characters to flesh out and build on.

As a final addendum before I give my resolution, I have more of a personal issue with Blacksad and games of its ilk. I’ve had this same issue with Telltale games at times, but an option to slow down dialogue options would be nice. As a dyslexic, the sudden pressure to read even a short sentence in a short period of time isn’t comfortable. If Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man can tweak QTEs to be more accessible, something to alleviate that pressure of those decisions should be an acceptable request.

In conclusion, Blacksad: Under The Skin isn’t the best game or the best adventure game, however, it is a brilliant way to get the source material out there. Maybe with another game expanding onto other cases, playing with both the source material in the books and creating more to build a bigger universe, might just do it. As one case, with a lot of references back to the series, it is enjoyable but isn’t a “must-have.”

An Xbox One review copy of Blacksad: Under The Skin was provided by Microïds for this review.

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Blacksad: Under The Skin

$49.99 USD

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Great source material.
• Beautiful setting.

Cons

• Quite back performance and crashing.
• Uninspired gameplay.