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Unlock the witchcraft secrets of the Black Book | First Impressions - Black Book RPG
2K View2023-04-27
Black Book RPG is a witchcraft-themed adventure role-playing game that puts players in a dark and mystical world inspired by Russian folklore. Developed by Morteshka and published by HypeTrain Digital, the game features an intruiging story, a beautiful art style, and adventure RPG mechanics.
The game follows the story of Vasilisa, a young sorceress who embarks on a journey to uncover the secrets of the Black Book — an ancient tome of immense power — to revive a loved one. Set in a fictional version of 19th century Russia, the game combines elements of mythology, history, and folklore to create a rich magical world that players will find captivating and engrossing.
Black Book features a card-based combat system. Or rather, "page-based". As wielder of the Black Book, Vasilisa collects magically ever changing pages and comes up with her own line-up to battle demons.Players collect these pages which represent spells and abilities and use them strategically in battles against supernatural creatures.
In addition to combat, the game also features role-play decision making, puzzles, and exploration elements. Players must solve puzzles to progress through the story, and they can choose to visit certain locations in the mini-map, deviate from the main quest, and explore the world to find additional items and secrets.
In some locations, a player will be presented with different choices, some having a good, neutral, or bad effect. Such as losing health, or gaining an item. The game overall strikes a good balance between combat, role-playing, puzzles, and exploration, ensuring that players always have something interesting to do.
The game's art style is also worth mentioning. The hand-drawn looking characters are beautiful and detailed, with a dark and moody atmosphere that perfectly captures the game's supernatural themes. The art style is switching back and forth between Another World-esque paint-like visuals for the 3D world, with more traditional 2D cartoonish visuals for the character dialogues. The game also features a fitting soundtrack that adds to the atmosphere and helps to create a sense of foreboding and uneasiness.
However, Black Book can be slow at times, with long periods of explanation and dialogue inserted between combat and exploration sequences. The narrative can only do so much to keep players interested, and even with the various choices that you can make, it may not be enough for some. Also, the combat isn’t as flashy as anime-inspired games with turn-based combat, so players might find the presentation underwhelming.
Full Review will be posted soon here on Taptap! Stay tuned!
Mentioned games
A witchcraft-themed role-playing adventure game | Full Review - Black Book RPG
Black Book RPG is an interesting mix of classic adventure gameplay, role-playing decision making, and turn-based deck building combat,
🟩Pros
+Intriguing russian folklore story
+Captivating varied art-style
+Endless game mode aside from the main story
+Choices matter
🟥Cons
-Slow pacing
-Flat combat presentation
Black Book is a witchcraft-themed role-playing adventure game that puts players in a dark and mystical world inspired by Russian folklore. Developed by Morteshka and published by HypeTrain Digital, the game features an Intriguing story, a beautiful art style, and adventure RPG mechanics.
lyndonguitar1K2023-04-28
Things you should know about BLACKTAIL
BLACKTAIL (Reviewed)
Developer: The Parasight
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Released: Dec 15th, 2022
Price: $29 USD
Blacktail is a story that retells the myths and legends of Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore. You play as Yaga, a 16-year-old girl accused of witchcraft and expelled from her home. Your choices will shape who you become, so be mindful.
Issues surrounding the game
The game feels too dark at times
Pawkt2K2022-12-16
The story behind the Baba Yaga explored | Blacktail - Review
Slavic fairy tales, good and evil, and a first person archery survival adventure. The story behind the infamous Baba Yaga is explored in this new game titled Blacktail. You play as the teenage girl Yaga, trying to find his twin sister Zora and other children who have all gone missing.
The story is narrated by our main character Yaga as it happens, in other words, at the time of occurrence, which is an interesting design choice. It definitely helped the developers to relay to us useful gameplay information without only using meta elements like text or UI prompts. This is clearly evident with the early parts of the game, especially the tutorial section, where Yaga frequently speaks to herself in order to assist the player and provide minor plot exposition.
lyndonguitar3K2022-12-16
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