I have prior familiarity with Blacksad graphic novels, and game generally work just fine on its own. It is considered non-canonical even though it takes place between Volume 2 and 3, seeing the way Blacksad reminisces about a certain actress, for example. That's besides the point as we have a somewhat troubled P&C adventure game to review here so let's get to it.

Taken at face value Blacksad is precisely what it appears to be – a detective story featuring a world set during the 1950's very much like own, except populated by anthropomorphic animals of all varieties where humans would normally be. Our titular character is as black cat and fits that Noir private investigator presentation as accurately as they come. After dealing with the fallout of an adultery gone awry, Blacksad's case proper begins as he's asked by one Sonia Dunn to investigate why her uncle, owner of a local gym, would commit suicide.... if it even was suicide. Needless to say this premise is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg that goes far deeper than first appears as New York City's more undesirable elements may be involved as well.

Knowing me this is where I would wax poetic about the world and its lore, but Blacksad does this thing where a clearly unreal world of canine police officers, very serious matters of racism between Black and White animals, as well as historical events mimicking our own with more fur or scales involved somehow all come off as perfectly grounded and believable. Game doesn't present any of this as magical, like The Wolf Among Us or Discworld Noir would considering they're both in familiar investigative territory, but rather it's the mundanity of it all that becomes the defining feature. Story also adheres to this principle albeit if you're familiar with mystery stories at large you know very well they thrive on narrative complications and curve balls. Hell, Blacksad himself occasionally ponders on how proper Noir protagonists or stories would turn out in his situation.

Characters themselves are rather important here which makes me all the more confused why game feels like not even putting that much of a spotlight on regulars let alone the side characters. John Blacksad himself is our protagonist and a WW2 veteran which, surprisingly, actually comes up as the war was still fresh on everyone's mind as former soldiers have to get acclimated for better or worse. Blacksad is almost a textbook Noir protagonist with sharp wit, plenty of know-how and number of connections, but at the core you get to decide how much of a heart of gold he has. Both of his regular collaborators, detective Smirnov and report Weekly are present but don't get that much attention which, if there's a single other character I'd shine a spotlight on would have to be Sonia Dunn as she's torn between honoring her father's legacy with the gym, uncovering what happened to him or just giving up altogether. Not really a femme fatale character I expected there to be. Others range from your criminal figures like bookies and enforcers, doctors with shady pasts and plain flawed people trying to make a living while sticking to principles or dealing with mistakes. It's certainly both familiar and varied cast.

Going by the fluff bits above you'd think I rather liked Blacksad even if it does air on the side of genre conventions, and you'd be right. If this wasn't transitioning into gameplay and technical talk which is where we come across some stumbling blocks.

Singular impression I got from the game is how it buckles under the weight of both technical performance and issues. Which is staggering when you realize it's not doing anything extraordinary. Putting aside frequent loading screens, which even with an SSD felt chunky enough, there are some fundamental problems here I have a difficult time excusing given the release date of 2019. What do I mean by that? Game controls like a throwback to those unfortunate yesteryear days when P&C adventures were still figuring out how to work on consoles... which translated to PC in the form of awkward WASD controls while hunting for hotspots you can interact with. This is where Blacksad looks up to Telltale games in a sense it does away with that kind of “pixel hunting”, aside from collectible stickers, while also inheriting other negatives as well I'll get into.

Prior to that it's imperative to point out when controls rear their ugly head they really do it with high scores. I dreaded navigating around levels with these cumbersome controls, and total absence of running to go along with it. Our private detective gets caught up on every piece of geometry and after you add invisible walls whenever there's a semblance of one space I was actually happy when the game shifted gears, did away with exploring already tiny locales and just embraced the full on-rails experience as scene transitions do all the moving. There was a level where you have to not only move around in pitch darkness, but also use your flashlight to light up hotspot. Double the control shenanigans, double the chance to miss collectibles you have to shine the light on first to find. Joy.

Negatives I brought up earlier can be summarized in a single fragment – there are no puzzles in Blacksad. I rather like obtuse “get mustache from a cat” insanity genre was once known for, but here devs chose to eschew inventory puzzles altogether. What you get instead is A) greater focus on a dialog system and B) deductions where you combine clues to get new information. Former leans into “your choices matter” style of narrative with endings being dependent on whether one side character lives or not, and how you handle the very finale. I felt neither of these were explored to their full potential and lack of fast forwarding in dialog made me quickly abandon any notion of replaying the game. Which is, admittedly, facilitated by letting you start from any earlier point versus continuing from your autosave.

I had a personal hangup when it came to presentation which was mainly about how Blacksad looks. It took a while for me to get used to the fact his design is just wonky when adapted into a 3D model. Kinda like a painted smooth doll with glued-on cat ears. It grew on me, though. Game itself looks pretty decent with special attention paid to materials of all things. Those suits everyone wore in the '50s definitely look the part. Characters stick to their graphic novel designs aka men have more animal features while women tend to be racier “attractive models with minor features” kind of deal. Putting my prior level geometry concerns aside I do wish we got to explore more of New York City. Soundtrack? Perfectly appropriate Jazz.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

You can almost feel this modern P&C adventure buckling under technical duress. I may be the weirdo here, but Blacksad became a lot better after it [structurally] turned into this on-rails affair and less "cumbersomely navigate levels getting stuck on every object and fight loading screens". I'm not sure if I enjoyed playing it THAT much beyond ties to the source material as it was an awkward reminder of those days when adventure games were figuring out how they would work on consoles as far as control schemes went. Blacksad obviously subscribes to the Telltale formula and makes me wish devs used the deduction system better. Or at least had proper puzzles. End result is a murder mystery that just barely edges into my good graces because I liked the familiar setup.