Today we are going to take a look at Black Book. This dark adventure RPG wants to dazzle you with Slavic mythology and card-based combat. Whether it can deliver on its promises is a question we will try to answer today. Black Book is available on Steam for 24 Euros and 99 cents or your regional equivalent.
With this review you have a choice of either reading it here in text form or listening to the video review. They both contain the same content.
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Some games just find you. Black Book is something I almost missed as it came out last year in August and I just didn’t notice it because there were plenty of games to play in autumn. But then I was browsing the Steam store just looking for something to play for fun, not for a review and I was in the mood for a card game. Then I noticed Black Book and for just a few minutes I was finally playing.
Black Book is an adventure game with card-based combat. Well, officially it claims to be an RPG but let’s face the facts… it is an adventure game. You travel the game world, sometimes you do a bit of chatting, and sometimes you kill a few enemies. When surrounded by bosses you need to use a bit of perception – which translates to clicking on three blinking things or moving a little bit. So, yeah, the puzzles aren’t what made me stay playing Black Book.
So, what about the battles? Those are pretty fun. You’re constantly upgrading your deck and even while the battle rules are quite unique as you cannot use only defensive or offensive spells. But the battles aren’t what glued me to the monitor either. That was the atmosphere.
I have no idea how an American will look at Black Book but for me as a Slav it was magical. The authors come from Russia and they actually designed the game partially from real maps of their surroundings. But the cooler thing for me is that it fully uses Slavic mythology. Sure, elves and dwarves are cool but when you’re suddenly meeting creatures you read about as a child it just is different.
And I understand that being a fan of anything Russian is a bit risky nowadays. But history should be fine. And I’m not talking about the Soviet era but about the end of the nineteenth century as this part of history is slowly but sure getting romanticized. Just imagine, wooden huts in the middle of the woods, mysterious cemeteries, and cursed mills. Any European can replace Russian with their own home country and voila! Of course, you get a few devils mixed in as it is the norm in Slavic mythology and you yourself get to stay in the gray area. And by the way… now your name is Vasilisa!
Vasilisa was so close to living a nice peaceful life. But the death of her dear and the open gate into the world changed everything and now alongside old and wise Jegor, you have to solve the problems of the whole world. Which in this case means the few villages around Perm and its dark forests. The nice thing is that you do not have to jump straight into solving the problems as you have a decent amount of freedom though you can’t just forget to do the main storyline. And be sure that the idea of more experience and rewards will not let you just skip every quest you meet.
You start with the map that will take you to throw various places. And while I enjoyed the combat the very nice thing is the fact that not every encounter has to end in a battle. Sometimes you can talk your way out of it sometimes you can just walk around your problem.
Over time you will get used to the tempo but it is quite nice that you do not know what to expect whenever you enter a new location. The only place where you should expect to get stuck is with bosses. But when you get stuck with them it’s going to be one heck of a stuck as you truly need to use your brain here. In the battles you try to pick the best cards, find synergies, or at the very least… kill your enemies. It’s no Hearthstone but it fits the game and even if you do not need to overthink anything I did look forward to every single combat.
At the same time, Black Book is also a dark RPG so it’s not just about the combat but also about learning information through talking and also about upgrading both your character and your equipment. But don’t expect a flood of items, Black Book is quite sparse in giving you something but that only means you will be happier whenever you actually get something, and the bigger the effect on gameplay is. Developing your character is quite simple and while you get four different skill trees each only has a few branches but each of them is quite noticeable.
Conclusion
If you like card games and you think Slavic mythology is cool or you’d at least like to try it out then Black Book is a great choice. For those who are still unsure, let’s give it a cautious recommendation but maybe wait for a sale.