It's not a very accurate description, but to me this game basically feels as a distilled Witcher 3 experience without the open world, and with card combat.
Remember the quests in Witcher 3 which were related to all those supernatural creatures, like the Hym quest or the Towerful of Mice quest? Well, imagine if you take stories like those, replace the combat with a card-based implementation (and an interesting one, at that) and get rid of the open world (so that you move via an overworld map between the story encounters). Well, this is basically Black Book. And I love it.
This game is amazing, and definitely worth a buy for every Russian speaking player. Don't know about the others.
First, the game takes uncompromising approach to the setting which is completely alien to the West. No expats or remote workers from the West were working on the game; it is created by a small group of people who live in Perm, Northern Ural. For me, as a Russian, it is a breath of fresh air.
Second, this is a Russian game. Not Slavic. Not Polish. Not Ukrainian. The only people exposed to unique Komi-Permyak folklore of Russian North were, well, the Russians. That made unique mix of pagan Komi beliefs and Russian Orthodox Church, which makes the setting uniquely Russian.
Third, the game has brilliant self-learning moments. All knowledge checks in dialogues are solvable just by learning the provided lore. All the puzzle-fights introduce new mechanics with stronger cards that will be available further in the game. The game requires meticulous attention to detail - and rewards it tenfold.
Fourth, there is some kind of choice and consequence that becomes obvious closer to the end. I strongly recommend playing the game twice with different... attitude to sin, so to speak.
Overall, I am very glad that this game exists. I hope Morteshka will continue to create games in unique and unpopular settings.
This game is a godsend for anyone who enjoys hand drawn media: illustrations are minimalistic, yet gorgeous to look at, coupled with one of the best voice acting I have heard in a while (in the original Russian) and excellent writing, which conveys the many Russian and Slavic creatures, terms and historical backgrounds in an appropriate manner, and unlike most other similar games, it expects that the player reads and identifies him or herself with the world and lore surrounding him to progress: answers are never black or white, for they are mostly culturally grounded, so what seems correct might not be, because at the time in Russia, it wasn't, etc.
This is a great game, a great visual novel, and a great piece of media to familiarize yourself with Slavic folkore. Highly recommended.
Enjoyed this game, even though it was not what I'd typically play genre-wise.
The only drawbacks I could find were related to 2 odd technical decisions:
1. The game saves your progress where it pleases, regardless of where you manually saved it. As an example, I saved after a battle, but the save file loaded me to just before the battle would start.
2. The 3D sections of the game seemed severely underdeveloped: you can run into obstacles Morrowind NPC-style, the pathfinding is terrible, and the camera seriously interferes with your navigation.
Other than that, the story is interesting and non-trivial, there is enough content, and the soundtrack is something I'd listen to outside the game as well for its atmosphere.
The game is fantastic in its work with its subject matter: the mythology of Perm region - the protagonist encounters all the major characters and plot archetypes in it. There are a few choices to make along the way, but they mostly affect small things, while the overall plot remains largely the same until the very ending regardless.
Mechanically, the game is a solid deck-builder. New cards become available throughout the game, there are wearable items and consumables that strongly affect the card battles. Deck-building remains interesting throughout the game, particularly once you start encountering opponents with novel abilities or immunities.
Graphics-wise, it's nothing to write home about: the 3D is pretty schematic. It would've been fine, though, thanks to great lighting effects and reflections, had the makers of the game not decided to show the models up close in several scenes.
The game isn't flawless. In what comes to deck-building, by the second half of the game, some cards break the metagame. Some cards add sins (which affect your ending) for like +2 extra damage, and then you get the cards that draw you a full new hand of cards, or let you play two cards more per turn, or stack mad abilities, all without sin and without worry. With these, even the end-game encounters become pretty banal.
There's more to be said about the endgame, too (SPOILERS): the protag set out to resurrect her dead true love, and in the "good" ending she does, going to the ends of the earth and then some for that; but that true love doesn't have a single line of dialog, and it's hardly convincing why she chooses the life of a peasant with someone we as players are given no reason to care about. It's like damsel in distress of the classic tales, except that damsel is at least usually a princess or something.
All in all though, I greatly enjoyed the game, enough to go buy it after playing the extended demo version, so the flaws above weren't major enough to spoil that fun.
