Apart from its remarkable writing and its sublime illustrations, the literary work of Guarnido and Díaz Canales is based on an unusual distinctive element: all its characters are replaced by bipedal animals, evolving in human society as we know it and based on history as it happened. Set in a New York of the 50s, the context proves to be relevant and is based on the same conflicts of discrimination and segregation, where animal races then take on a whole new meaning that is particularly well thought out. For this small-screen adaptation, the Spanish studio Pendulo was chosen by Microïds, supported by the French team YS Interactive. And to do this, it is the direction of film noir that has been taken: a brilliant cinematographic current of which Blacksad Under The Skin then takes up all the key elements, from the smoky atmosphere to the omnipresent jazz through the private detective in prey to his own demons, in the midst of a dark mafia story. We couldn't find more appropriate to adapt Blacksad... but we still have to build everything correctly.
OPEN YOUR CHATS-KRAS
Widely democratized with games from Quantic Dream and Telltale Games, the narrative game genre seems tailor-made for Blacksad Under The Skin. However, Pendulo is not as ambitious – you have to do with the means at hand – and although several branches and endings are available, here we are far from the multifaceted scenario where each choice has its drastic consequences: welcome to New -York in the 50s, as private detective John Blacksad. As tradition dictates, our black cat is not overwhelmed with gold, he is heartbroken and the Second World War has bruised him somewhat. As well as he cannot refuse the slightest affair, however sordid and dangerous it may be, like the one that will punctuate this exclusive adventure located between the volumes Artic-Nation and Âme Rouge: Joe Dunn, respected lynx at the head from a boxing club, is found hanged in his own boxing ring. It's unfortunate, especially since her foal, who was to face an English boxing star a few days later, has simply disappeared. Sonia Dunn, the daughter of the deceased, then hires Blacksad who will have to carry out a perilous investigation into corruption and organized crime in the Big Apple. We are not going to hide it, all the elements are there to take us to the guts.
IN TWINK PLOT
And it is clear that the story, written by Ramón Hernáez and Josué Monchán, supervised by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, works rather well. Still happy, you will tell me, coming from a game on which the scenario is mainly based: Blacksad is a character still as endearing, well transcribed in the Tenth Art with an effective psychology and an undeniable charisma. Often, our detective speaks to himself (his dubbing in VO is rather charming), delivering his reflections sometimes profound, sometimes humorous on various and varied situations. The spirit of this burly feline hits the mark and adapts to well-thought-out turnarounds, occurring over a hazy plot that gradually thins out. In addition to a bunch of new characters, Pendulo has thought of comic book icons such as the gorilla Jake Ostiombe, the weasel journalist Weekly or the German shepherd police commissioner Smirov. They all come back quite regularly to add their stone to the building for what promises to be a violent journey, where murders and executions are legion: a real dark thriller which, on paper, is rather successful.
Blacksad doesn't reinvent anything in the genre and, moreover, that's not really what we ask of it.
Moreover, the atmosphere itself serves the purposes of the game rather well: the OST, produced by Juan Miguel Martin, is the spearhead with Jazz pieces of subtle finesse and quality which should delight all lovers of piano and other wind instruments. Moreover, we cannot advise you too much to listen to it from the dedicated music streaming platforms. It's good, as they say. These compositions therefore seemed essential to assist the rest of the artistic direction, in the vein of comics with quite a few environments, certainly, but effective in their style and the excellent cliché of Film Noir. Unfortunately, the technique of the game does not allow Blacksad to take full advantage of it, quite the contrary even, but this is a point that we will discuss later: in the meantime, it is essential to focus on the game mechanics that we will have to apply during the ten hours of play proposed.
LYNX'S EYE
Globally based on the investigation, Blacksad will therefore have to search the environments in search of all the details that can answer his countless questions. From that side, it's quite classic with a character that we make walk (slowly) before making him interact with the elements of the decor, a large dose of point & click also being appropriate. The dialogues are also part of it with several options of dialogues allowing to obtain precise information: Blacksad will even be able, at certain times, to use his feline senses to unearth precise information. Blacksad doesn't reinvent anything in the genre and, moreover, that's not really what we ask of it. The question is rather whether, yes or no, the title of Pendulo applies as a video game to present a minimally careful experience: unfortunately, that's where the problem lies... and not only a little. The first concern to highlight lies on the side of the gameplay, suffering from a painful rigidity which greatly weighs down the action. Blacksad's rigid animations cause multiple collision problems, with interactions that struggle to feel instinctive or, more simply, obstacles that we have trouble getting around, without knowing if we can really do it given the presence of invisible walls. Then, other cogs turn out to be sincerely poorly thought out: for example, we think of QTEs during the action or skill phases, sometimes much too simple, often very poorly thought out and illogical. Likewise, the phases of analysis thanks to the sight, smell and hearing of our feline turn out to be nameless chores, the fault of a damn messy representation, sometimes almost absurd of deformity, of the senses in question.
FELINE-POSTER
In addition, some dialogues lack a certain dynamism with awkward and insane moments of blank space between two sentences, punctuated by animations often from another age, 3D models which are just as old, not to mention the lighting effects, rain and other elements. Of course, we know that Pendulo does not have the necessary resources to align itself with the great competing tenors and we obviously understand this: the fact remains that the facts are there and do not work in favor of the Franco-Spanish soft. In a fairly general way, Blacksad has an undeniable visual notch that may annoy picky players. In reality, all these sins could have been forgiven if the developers had lingered to release a properly polished title on the market. Get ready, because there is the real disaster committed by the studio: bugs to not know what to do with them.
AND THIS IS THE CAT-ASTROPHE
Bugs are an integral part of the Tenth Art and although damaging, they are sometimes quite understandable. One here, another there: often they don't completely spoil the final product and we players can even be cooperative. In the case of Blacksad, the story is quite different and seriously detracts from the original experience. First of all, it's worth pointing out that we tested the game on PS4 Pro and that all our problems encountered were not seen in the PC version, which is undeniably more stable and solid than its cousins on consoles. Nevertheless, the Sony and Microsoft platforms, Blacksad is an impressive mine of bugs which, several times, made us tear our own hair out, controller in hand. We can thus enumerate, and this in a recurring way, scenes without any image (but with the HUD displayed); characters who speak in a vacuum, the voice only arriving a few seconds later in the middle of another dialogue; subtitles that disappear without any possibility of reactivating them, forcing you to close the game and restart it; the interaction key stuck on a single element, preventing the investigation from continuing; save points placed in the middle of a discussion and sometimes separated by a good twenty minutes of play, forcing to restart entire scenes again and again; a badly calibrated sound mix with music or background noises disappearing from one second to another (or voices with a badly gauged volume) or, icing on the cake, such clipping of textures that it simply prevents us to see what we are supposed to analyze. Of course, we won't talk about the extended loads in sometimes ridiculous places either... It's hard to say but Blacksad Under The Skin is a small technical disaster on consoles, so much so that our journey, however really promising, has was truly asphyxiated. The very example of the importance of finishes in video games? Absoutely.
