I rarely write reviews (this might be my first on steam) but I felt that this game is extremely underrated and deserves more visibility. For anyone who likes detective stories and/or adventure games this is a definite must!

Let's start with the GOOD:
- The story is compelling and well-written, resembling a classic 50s film noir or detective novel.
- The characters are interesting and complex. You get hints about their motives but there is always more below the surface.
- You feel like your decisions matter both in solving the case and in shaping the main character. Something that, in my opinion, was largely problematic with late Telltale games.

I have to also mention some BAD details (minor for me), that might be important to certain types of gamers:
- The game is very hard with mouse and keyboard. I strongly recommend using a controller.
- This is an adventure game that resembles old-school ones (e.g. Sam and Max and Monkey Island) and incorporates elements from the Telltale formula. This means that it is slow-paced at times and people who want quick action will find Blacksad's walks kind of slow and dragging. However compared to Guybrush's walks on Plunder Island, it feels like he is running.
- Close to the end it feels that the developers wanted to add more content and some interactions feel a bit forced. For me, this does not spoil the whole experience however.

I just finished playing Blacksad, and I'm really on the fence on how to rate this game. I'm going with "recommend" because all over, I found myself several times throughout my day just thinking "man, I wish I was playing Blacksad right now!". However, there are a few things I'd like to talk about.

negatives
- finnicky controls: I started playing with keyboard and mouse, but the game recommends using a controller. After a few hours I switched to a Dualshock 4 controller, which was much more tolerable. But still not great and annoying at times. I once spent like 4 minutes trying to look at an item, but not finding the right spot to stand in and the right angle to look from.

- animations: often times, the animations in cutscenes are awkward and stiff. Or not there at all.

- voice lines: while the quality of the voice acting is delightful (I played in english), often times the subtitles don't match. It is recommended to turn on subtitles so you don't miss any dialogue.

- no skipping of cutscenes: Sometimes you might fail a QTE and retry. And then you definitely have to watch the previous cutscene again, because there is no option of skipping them, which can be extra frustrating if you're struggling to make the right decision in a QTE.

- bugs: I had to restart a sequence over because a cutscene just didn't trigger.

positives:
+ enticing story: As mentioned in the beginning, I was enthralled by the story. I didn't know Blacksad before, but now I'm curious to read some of the comics.

+ graphics: I really enjoyed the artstyle. In game as well as the little "comic" which summarizes your progress and serves as savepoint if you want to start a sequence over.

+ decisions and morality: there are plenty of decisions to make in this game, which probably adds a nice layer of replayability.

+ length: It took me about 10 hours to finish the game, which felt absolutely appropriate to me.

+ nice music

In conclusion: If you have the patience to work with the finnicky controls and a few bugs you might encounter, I'd absolutely recommend this game.

This game is flawed, but overall still well worth playing if you enjoy the genre.

THE BAD:

- The controls suck. Moving Blacksad is clumsy and awkward.

- There is a fairly long section in particular where you have to move in the dark, making the already bad controls feel like a punishment.

- Unskippable cutscenes. Why, why, WHY are unskippable cutscenes still a thing??? I genuinely don't understand how any game developers could possibly see them as anything other than a huge pain in the ass. Yes, obviously you want to see them the first time, but if it's a section where you can die easily, or if you are replaying it for achievements, you shouldn't have to sit through cutscenes you've already seen.

- Generally speaking, you solve the mystery by solving one clue at a time. This means that if you are having trouble with one particular clue you can't "sit on it" while doing other stuff, you are stuck there. The game should have given you more freedom to manage more than one objective at a time.

THE NEUTRAL:

- The game does expect you to have at least some kind of fleeting familiarity with the Blacksad books. But I don't think that's a bad thing. Making a Blacksad game with no references to the books would annoy the fans, and stopping in its track to re-introduce them properly for the newbies would slow down the story with exposition dumps. You don't need to get the references to understand the main story anyway.

- There is one achievement, Smart Aleck, that is glitched and almost impossible to get. I personally don't really care if I miss out on a few achievements so long as my average is high, but I know that some players make a big deal out of 100%-ing their games.

THE GOOD:

- The game looks really nice. Both the visuals and the atmosphere are skillfully crafted, and the visuals are faithful to the books.

- The voice acting is excellent.

- The characters grow on you. There is a good deal of Videogame Caring Potential when you want to help them.

- The story is interesting. Maybe not groundbreaking, but does its job of entertaining you.

- I did like the "cat senses" gameplay mechanic. You are playing as a cat, it's fair to take advantage of that.

- good story
- classy detective
- it's a cat

I'm not a furry, but I like it

Blacksad: Under the Skin is a detective game with Telltale-style gameplay that is based off the original comic series, released back in 2000. This recreation cleverly encompasses and brings the dynamic world and characters of Blacksad to life, whilst incorporating a brand-new story that both newcomers and fans alike can enjoy. Although, the game is not without its shortcomings and struggles to deliver smooth gameplay and animations, especially when using a keyboard and sadly falls victim to lengthy loading screens, retracting from player immersion.

Pros
+ Intriguing and well composed story with many twists and turns throughout.
+ Fitting, well portrayed and emotional voice overs that are extremely unique for each character.
+ Relaxing and felicitous jazz soundtrack, brilliantly giving 1950 film noir vibes.
+ Different endings and story paths, each directly influenced by player choices.
+ Well balanced mixture of action QTE's, cutscenes, narration and exploration/clue-finding.
+ Majority of the detective deductions were logical and required players attention to put the clues together.
+ Collectable sports cards.

Cons
- Restrictive movement when playing with a keyboard. Blacksad's turning circle is extremely large and the camera angles are utterly awkward.
- Unpolished animations with amateurish long pauses and facial expressions as well as some objects glitching inside one another.
- Lengthy loading screens.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2166634844

Following a cast of anthropomorphic animals, a private detective feline named Blacksad begins to investigate a disappearance, following the untimely death and apparent suicide of his client’s father, Joe Dunn. The protagonist already begins to suspect that it is more than a mere coincidence and the two events are related, but soon discovers he had severely underestimated just how convoluted and sinister the case really was. To get to the bottom of it all, Blacksad must delve deep into the criminal underground of 1950's New York and investigate everyone and everything, leaving no clue untouched.

Being a classic detective, who-dun-it mystery, majority of players time is spent exploring areas of interest, gathering clues and exhausting all conversations with characters. There are not many areas to explore and the narrative does push players in the right direction, helping us know where to explore next. But at times, I did find that I missed a small clue that blocked my progression. Usually, this was due to the terrible camera angles that hindered my ability to fully explore a room and I could not see a hotspot until the camera was perfectly angled on it. If using a keyboard, players control the protagonist with WASD, interacting with items with space and moving the camera with the arrow keys. The controls are less than ideal; however, it is stated at the beginning that a controller is highly recommended and thus I will not fault it too much for this.

Once matching or contradictory clues are gathered, a small notification will appear telling us that there is a new deduction available. Deductions are the main method of piecing together the story and I enjoyed the player participation, as opposed to just getting handed the facts. Various clues will appear in the air and players must choose specific statements that align with each other, allowing the story to progress and leading Blacksad onto a new trail. However, there were times when valid deductions were present, but I could not match them as it was slightly too soon in the story or the wording was just slightly off. I believe this is due to the somewhat linear nature of the narrative, trying to coax players down a specific route, even if we had come to a conclusion, earlier than the game expected. Although I did find this bothersome, it was only prevalent once or twice and I did not find it to be a major issue.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2162592899

The inclusion of QTE's are always tricky to master and having too many or too little can severely retract from players experiences. Fortunately, Blacksad is not plagued with an excessive amount of them but was just enough to keep me focused during all cutscenes. Most, if not all QTE's were not integral to the story and did not alter the story-path if players were to miss them, which I am extremely thankful about and would not want the story to alter just because I missed a button one time. Usually, if a sequence were missed, it would just cause the scene to be replayed from the beginning which was not too troublesome.

Blacksad features many different animal species, acting as humans and this is also reflected with race, skin colour, trait stereotypes and more. For instance, dogs depict police, a weasel as a sleezy journalist and gangsters as rhinos, all species which share stereotypical similarities with their role. The title even takes it a step further and includes a race war, with white, arctic animals having problems with darker skin animals. These background story arcs are brilliantly sprinkled throughout the game and assist in establishing the 1950's era.

When speaking with characters, different dialogue options are present and these choices impact others opinion of us which can be vital in latter circumstances. Choose to be empathetic, romantic or tough and unfeeling. Decide who to trust, which characters to involve in the investigation and more. I did feel satisfied that my choices did actually impact the story and allows plenty of motivation to replay and find alternate endings.

Upon first loading the game, I was unaware of the comic series and adored seeing the different animal species, brought to life in 50's New York. Although sometimes it does come off as slightly amateurish, as a whole, the graphics and representation of the anthropomorphic cast is well done.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2162593424

The smooth, jazz soundtrack does wonders for player immersion and almost immediately established the setting and era, emanating a detective noir aura right from the beginning.

Unfortunately, this title is quite unpolished and rather difficult to navigate and pinpoint hotspots or pick up items. I often missed clues and the card collectibles due the awkward camera angles. The protagonist has a very large turning circle, making it awfully difficult to turn around and the camera also made this even worse.

Characters mouths are delayed when speaking and after the conversation ended, the scene was left with an overly long pause and awkward stares.

Loading screens were far longer than necessary and after exiting from the feline sense mode, I often got stuck on a black screen and even crashed at one point.
Note: I played Blacksad with keyboard, it is recommended by developers to play with a controller.

This game was played with the following PC specs:
Intel i5-9400 2.9 GHz
16GB RAM
GeForce RTX 2060 6GB
1920x1080 resolution
HDD
Windows 10

Blacksad is a decent detective game, based off the original comic universe and spans approximately 11-14 hours for a playthrough. Featuring multiple endings, a focus on player choices, a cast of charismatic anthropomorphic animals and a well-written story, I would recommend to all avid story-lovers. The price point of $AU56.95 is higher than I would have expected, considering the lack of polish and severe technical blunders. I urge potential buyers to take this into consideration before purchasing and would advise to wait for a sale.

Follow my curator page, Cookie Reviews

Awful beginning evolves into a compelling story that hooks you into wanting to complete it.

I have completed the game.

My experience -
* BSOD after 45 minutes of game play (on Core i9 & 3090 RTX)
* Controller is the only way to play it, keyboard and mouse control is unplayable.
* Action sequences require fairly quick responses either multiple or a few times.
* Cut scenes can't be skipped. If you die after one, you're forced to watch it again until you succeed.
* Camera angle can be restrictive and not always be ideal. e.g. looking around a corner.

John Blacksad made his way from comics into the video-games world. In a noir detective story not based on any of the comic books, they introduced a whole new world and some new characters. The story starts off New York City where Joe Dunn, an owner of a boxing club is found dead. You, as John Blacksad, a private investigator will be hired to investigate this incident by his daughter Soniya. Keep in mind the story is pretty dark and has lots of twist and change of events, it also has six different endings, all rely on your actions and choices.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2022054628

The gameplay is nice, you can walk around and explore, however you can't interact with everyone you see around, When Blacksad gets an objective you can only interact with the items around, the investigation relies mostly on what they've left behind, and then he gets ideas which you should match together to get another clue. You can also shape the personality of your character depends on your reactions. What matters the most is your reactions and choices which take me to the next part. The QTE 'quick time event' oh my god they are the worst, you need to quickly mash some buttons in order to complete a certain event, and if you don't, you'll fail. I honestly disliked those parts.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2022055041

What I loved the most is the character's design, they did an amazing job with the details and personalities. The areas are ok, didn't blow me off as much as the characters look. The Jazzy soundtracks are nice, fits the atmosphere and story perfectly. The voice-overs are nice, however, the main character's voice sounds pretty weak in my opinion.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2037029043

The game crashed on me a couple of times, it is pretty buggy, especially the clunky controlling, I tried both keyboard and controller, I still had the same issue. Sometimes I see the object but I can't highlight it or pick it up. It was annoying, I also didn't enjoy collecting the cards at all as if you miss one of them you will not be able to return to the previous location, there is no fast traveling map, but you can return to the previous chapters from the chapter select option.

Pros:
+Cool characters design
+Very well-done detective story.
+Good Jazz soundtracks.
+Useful journal, full of information.
+Clues matching board.
+Chapter select.
+OK voice-over (Except for the main character)
+Multiple endings.
+Steam achievements.

Cons:
-Collectibles (Very annoying to spot and collect)
-Crashed too many times (Has bugs)
-Cluncky controlling. (Tried both keyboard and controller, it is the same)
-Way too many QTE.

All in all the game is good, it has a good story, good characters, there is a replay value if you care to watch all the six endings and outcomes. What bothers me is the bugs, nothing game breaking though.

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒

Full of 1950s empathy, Blacksad has a great story, engaging characters, realistic voice acting and a moderate challenge.

👀
Blacksad: Under the Skin is a detective game featuring John Blacksad, a cynical war veteran turned private eye. The idea for the game originated from the comic book series Blacksad which like the game is set in 1950’s America.

Jonn Blacksad is a hard drinking, chain smoking feline. Underprivileged and nearly a criminal himself, his service in the army taught him how to defend himself and become a marksman. Wearing a suit and trenchcoat throughout the game he has that typical detective look and vibe.

The characters are very strong in this game. The entire cast are animals portraying human traits and generally their species mimics their stereotypical personalities. For example, nearly all the policemen are canines, whilst villains are often reptiles or amphibians or strong animals like rhinos and horses. This visual reinforcement of our own stereotypes works wonderfully at making villains seem powerful and dangerous. Women are usually cats or dogs and have a gentle, human like quality to them.

Blacksad is aided in his investigation by Smirnov, a seasoned Alsatian police veteran and Weekly, a keen weasel reporter with an aversion to cleaning.

There are not too many cast members for us to get to know them all well. They all have their distinct personalities and we soon make judgments on them and connect with them emotionally.

The story is full of twists and turns and was satisfying to unfold. I liked the manner in which the game asks you to approach the investigation. In your repertoire you have the power of cat senses where you can see, hear or smell clues, reminding us that in fact Blacksad is actually an animal. He can make deductions from clues uncovered from crime scenes and try to match these up to provide new lines of enquiry or uncover new suspects.

Within every good detective’s arsenal is the power to remember details and ask the pertinent questions. Blacksad has a notebook which contains all important discoveries. He also has to remember promises he made to characters throughout the game. Decisions can have consequences later.

When questioning a suspect, you have a choice of questions to ask or a choice of answers to give. Quite often these options are timed and you don’t have too much time to decide. The time allowed is often brutal and will result in mistakes being made. This can prove quite frustrating. There is a load option if you want to go back and try again however.

On a few occasions, there will be action sequences which are quick time events and you will have to react quickly to prompts by pressing certain buttons or directions on your gamepad. If you get these wrong it usually results in your death. If you die during a QTE you just repeat the sequence until you get it right.

Blacksad moves around the screen quite awkwardly and often you’ll bump into objects and get caught on items. His turning arc seems to be quite wide and he is difficult to control accurately. This doesn’t have too much of an impact on the game. It does affect picking up collectibles however. There are roughly 100 sporting cards to collect and sometimes it is difficult to position Blacksad to pick these up. If you are an achievement hunter these are very difficult to find and there is no chapter select afterwards, so you’ll have to play the game several times. In fact, there are a number of very difficult achievements including six alternative endings.

The game looks great and sounds great, including some excellent voice overs which are full of character and emotion.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1991336647

It offers a moderate amount of difficulty. As usual these games just require you to search every nook and cranny and talk to everyone you can. Often talking to someone will open up new lines of enquiry. Blacksad can even phone people off scene if there is a telephone available. There are a few minor puzzles you will need to solve but nothing too taxing.

If you like point and click adventures with a detective styled theme then this is certainly a strong contender. You don’t need to be fans of the comics or even know anything about them. I would say it is a little overpriced at 15 hours for one playthrough but there is certainly scope for more if you want to find the six alternative endings and collect the sport cards.

📑
An official, and all new story for Blacksad, the game tells the story of Joe Dunn, a boxing club owner who is found dead in his gym. His daughter, Sonia Dunn, hires Blacksad to investigate. Was it a suicide like the police have presumed or something more sinister?

🕹️
You move Blacksad around the screen and are able to interact with objects that highlight. Investigating objects will reveal Hotspots which you navigate through and choose, instigating a narrative response, and if important will result in taking a note of the object. It may also get added to your deductions board where you can link other findings together to reveal more clues.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1991333193

Throughout the game you will need to talk to characters and make decisions. Some of them will have minor consequences and some will have a knock-on effect later in the story. Some of these decisions are timed and some are not. When a decision you make has a major influence on events, a notification pops up. Interrogations often result in cut scenes or flashbacks of past events. You can also question people via the telephone if there is one present or call Weekly or Smirnov for backup.

Keeping good relationships with Weekly and Smirnov is quite important. You have to decide whether you want to be a maverick and not inform the police about your progress or let Smirnov know about clues you have uncovered. Both characters can help you in a tricky situation so it’s often beneficial to give them what they want from time to time.

Occasionally, Blacksad will have the opportunity to use his cat senses (sight, hearing and smell) to uncover clues.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1991334467

This involves searching a scene by zooming in and moving the cursor until something highlights.

During action sequences Blacksad must react quickly by pressing the correct button or direction on the game pad. If you are too slow you will die and have to repeat the sequence. Other action parts involve finding clues within a certain amount of time or escaping from tight situations.

🎵
A wonderful jazz themed soundtrack plays throughout the game adding suspense and drama when required. Cut scenes are full of jazz giving that 1950’s detective film vibe. Voice acting is superb and very well acted with feeling and emotion.

📺
The graphics are quite impressive. Some characters look better than others but testament to the game is that you soon forget they are actually animals because they behave so much like humans.

💻
My game crashed 16 times during my 15 hours of gameplay. The PC would just reset and restart during the game. I reported this but was told it was my PC and not the game!

🤔
I enjoyed Blacksad: Under the Skin. It was full of 1950’s nostalgia with a good story and wonderful characters to enjoy. Voice acting was superb and it provided a moderate but entertaining challenge.

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This game was received for free

There is a lot to like about this game. The story is interesting, full of twists and turns, and the characters are vibrant and fun. The noir New York setting is refreshing, and I enjoyed much of the gameplay, particularly the ability to make deductions from story details I had already noticed.

However, despite all this I can't recommend the game simply because it is SO buggy, poorly optimised for PC, and borderline impossible to play at times. The integration of QTE is annoying to begin with (when will adventure game studios realise we don't like this feature?), but Blacksad leans on QTEs like a crutch. This would be irritating enough, but the slow controls and buggy gameplay mean that QTEs become extremely frustrating, leading to dozens of replays (with unskippable cutscenes, as if you weren't annoyed enough already) in which you desperately hammer at your keyboard only for the game to ignore you. I'm a patient gamer and I still ragequit this game multiple times.

I would love to return and give this game a positive review once the bugs have been fixed. Until this time I have to say: save your money and give this one a miss.

Edit 2: finished the game. I would like to update with some pros and cons, but TL;DR I still do not recommend overall and would say summarise it as thus: this game could have been 10/10 but because of some absurdly stupid mechanical executions I would rate it as 5/10 and I wish I hadn't bought it at all.

Cons:
1) Actual gameplay content roughly 5 hours, extended to over 10 hours by forced filler time by forcing your character to move slowly, making scenes unskippable (even when re-playing), and excessively removing character control from the player
2) Stupid quick time events (QTE) that are unfun and unfair. It's obnoxious to watch 20 minutes of cutscenes then have a 0.2 second QTE which makes you lose and then you have to re-watch the whole damn cutscene. The cutscene is interesting... the first time, but then it's just obnoxious garbage that you hate. My hand wasn't even on the keyboard when the dumb QTE suddenly happened after ages of inactivity.
3) Related to 2), inconsistent controls. Many of the QTE are random and without precedent so you are certaint to fail them and subsequently drag yourself through unskippable cutscenes.
4) Terrible mouse controls. Not optimised for keyboard/mouse controls at all. Just lazy development here. Clearly only optimised for console controllers and plays absolutely obnoxiously on the computer. Even the bloody menu doesn't let you use the mouse and instead you have to use arrow keys combined with WASD.
5) Also, only 1 save file and if you want to start a new game you have to delete your old one. Live with a brother or sister who also wants to play the game? Well, ♥♥♥♥ you! Buy another copy!
6) A fairly annoying bug where the game tells you can make a deduction but you can't. (I tested every possible combination only to discover that no deductions could be made and I just needed to proceed by physically moving forward.)

Overall, the mechanics are extremely clunky and frustrating. Re-watching slow cutscenes and being forced to slow walk everywhere to make the game seem longer is infuriating. If this game didn't rob control from the player so much and didn't bloat itself by artificially increasing its length, I would just say that it was a great game worth the money for a quality 6 hour story mode. However, instead I will say that unless you are willing to poke yourself in the eye in exchange for a good noir detective game then just don't bother.

Pros:
Story
Art
Music
Characters
Decisions
Puzzles
Detective Work

Edit: my criticisms remain, but I decided not to go for a refund and instead to keep playing. I will update my review once I have played some more, but essentially, while it has some annoying flaws, if you like this type of game it's worth giving a chance. The story, the art, the decision making, and the detective work are good. That makes the core game good. However, I would add the caveat that you should definitely watch 30 minutes of gameplay (not a scripted/paid review) before you make your decision though. There are some elements, mainly mechanical, that can make it very annoying, and it really just depends on your personal tolerance for these things.

Original review below:

I want to like this game, but I am currently considering whether or not to just request a refund and not bother trying it again. It has all the qualities that should make for a fun adventure video game, but it seemingly suffers from all the worst flaws and qualities of such games.

For one thing, when the hell will developers learn how unbelievably annoying unskippable cutscenes are? Forcing me to watch ♥♥♥♥ I have already seen won't make me more interested or more excited. I just encountered a game breaking bug about 1 hr into the game (camera got stuck inside Blacksad's chest, no controls responding) and so I tried to restart the game... except it was unbearable because the game has no skip mechanics for all this garbage.

I find instead of having fun, I am just frustrated and annoyed. This is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ video game. Stop trying to take control away from me to force me to play it "as intended".

Not to mention these inane timed responses which seem to have become a staple of this genre. If I wanted to rush through the dialogue, I wouldn't play a dialogue based game!!! Why do developers keep adding this anti-fun mechanic?

Also, why the hell can't I use my mouse? It's described as point and click, but it's just got the keyboard substituting for a console controller. I AM ON A PC. I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ON A CONSOLE CONTROLLER! Why the hell isn't it binded for normal keyboard and mouse play? Why the hell am I tabbing through options one at a time when I have a freaking mouse to click on things? It just comes off as lazy and careless.

I wanted to write a more useful review to help others decide whether or not this is the right game for them, but right now I am just frustrated and annoyed. The game seems intriguing with what looks like an interesting story and decision-based/detective RPG adventuring... but at every turn the game is taking control away from me as if the developers hate the idea that I might not play it the way they want me to play it. It's obnoxiously annoying and turns what I was anticipating to be fun and enthralling into frustrating and annoying.