Experience the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga in the debut game from Polish developer THE PARASIGHT. Accused of witchcraft, she leaves her village to find her missing sister. In our BLACKTAIL tips and tricks, we’ll show you how to survive in this dark fantasy world and master the combat and morality system.
Table of Contents
1) Get better at archery
Archery is the central combat mechanic in BLACKTAIL, and your bow and arrows are the very first items you’ll find in the forest. While you’re free to use violence in your quest to find your sister, the pacifist path is the most challenging in terms of gameplay. If you want to make it easier, you should use your bow, slay ghosts, kill animals, and fight boss battles.
You’ll start with a very limited number of arrows, but you can increase this through the skill tree. A complex crafting system also allows you to create your own arrows as you progress through the game.
2) How to improve Yaga’s skills
The way skills are improved and unlocked in BLACKTAIL is different from most RPGs and works without experience points or a leveling system. Early in the game, you’ll get to know your hut and, as a true witch, you’ll be able to brew potion there. The cauldron can be found on the second floor.
These elixirs won’t just boost your stats or restore your health, they’ll also enhance your abilities. The resources of the fairy tale world are a substitute for experience points. You’ll need spider eyeballs, red flowers, shells, and other items to progress through your skill tree.
The skill tree is set up so that you’ll find movement skills in the upper left and magic skills in the upper right. In the middle is everything related to your bow, and the remaining slots are for your stamina and other active and passive skills.
Yaga can display the tree at any time in the BLACKTAIL game world. This will give you an overview of what and how many resources you still need for the upgrade of your choice. To unlock the tree, however, you must go to the hut at the pot. The hut is the hub of the game.
3) Getting back to the hut through the cat
The game world of BLACKTAIL is large, and depending on where you are, getting back to the hut can mean a lot of backtracking. Not to mention the danger of losing your progress by making a mistake along the way. Therefore, use the black cat to activate the quick travel function to the hut.
By interacting with the fluffy animal, you’ll be transported directly to the hut, where you can brew potions. To return to where the cat brought you from, simply interact with it again outside the hut. You can usually find the cat near shrines. It’s best to check the map to see where it is.
4) Don’t be afraid of the forest
The forest in BLACKTAIL may seem scary because of its dark fantasy setting, like a mix of Grimm’s fairy tales, the Baba Yaga myth, and other witch folklore. However, it’s the heart of the game and the place where you find items, advance in the story, and trigger cutscenes. Explore it, uncover its secrets, and recover its treasures.
Not only can you find resources in the forest, but you can also discover chests containing valuable items and other collectibles. Depending on which path you choose (Light or Dark), confrontations can be resolved peacefully with words or with violence. In the latter case, your bow and witchcraft will ensure your survival.
5) Your choices affect your morale
Yaga can handle situations in different ways, and at the beginning of the game, you’ll be asked if you want to follow the light or the dark path – whether you want to be good or evil. The morality system in BLACKTAIL is structured in such a way that an aggressive play style strengthens the dark side and a peaceful one strengthens the light side. Your choices will affect the course and outcome of the story.
Whenever you encounter a forest creature, you can either interact with it and have a conversation (light side) or attack and kill it (dark side).
6) Your morale affects combat
The most important one of our BLACKTAIL tips and tricks is that you should think carefully about which path you choose. This is because each of them has a significant impact on how easy or difficult the game will be. Your choice to become either the guardian of the forest or its worst enemy will affect the gameplay as well as the story.
If you play the way of the light, you’ll find more items and more often, but you won’t get a boost for the battles. It’s different from the path of darkness. The eviler things you do, the more efficient Yaga becomes and the more destructive her arsenal becomes. This division also makes sense, since the Path of Good requires less combat skill than the Path of Evil.
In practice, you’ll have different skills to choose from in your skill tree. If your moral compass is violent, you’ll see more violent buffs. Let’s take the skill Leech Hocus as an example. You can only get it if you’re a bad witch. However, if you’ve done more good deeds than bad, Sunlight Hocus will take its place.
The best way to play BLACKTAIL is to follow one of the two paths and decide at the beginning if you want to be good or bad for the whole game. Alternating between good and evil can be useful depending on the situation, but it washes out Yaga’s gameplay.
7) Hunt animals for food
Whether you choose the dark or the light path in BLACKTAIL, it’s still impossible to play through Baba Yaga’s past without fighting and killing. You’ll have to rely on the flesh of animals for food and to replenish your health. Hunting doesn’t affect the morale system.
All wild animals in the forest can be killed with a few well-aimed shots with a bow and arrow, even from long distances. As soon as one falls dead, you can walk up to it, disembowel it with a keystroke, and then cook the flesh over a fire to make it fit for consumption.
8) Shoot spiders in the eyes
Spiders are sneaky creatures in BLACKTAIL. If you miss them and walk among them, they will shoot poison at you. Also, there is only one way to incapacitate and kill them. You must shoot them directly in the eye at the top of their torso. If the eye is closed, you won’t be able to wound it.
Once you’ve killed one, it will drop its eye and you can collect it to make a skill potion later at the cauldron in your hut. Shooting the spiders also doesn’t affect the morale system. Whenever you see one, you should shoot it, as not only can it poison you, but its web will also reduce your movement speed.
However, they can sometimes be difficult to spot as they hide behind their webs. The best way to destroy the webs is to use the Deflect Hocus skill.
9) BLACKTAIL tips and tricks: Prepare an antidote
Speaking of spiders: You can protect yourself from their venom by making an antidote. You should definitely do this. Big spiders can bring a game over to your screen in a matter of seconds. So use the crafting system in BLACKTAIL to have enough antidotes in your inventory for every situation.
You can find the skill to make them in your skill tree if you have Raven Hex enabled. The antidote doesn’t just cure the poison, it also makes you immune to the poison for a short period. You can increase this duration with the Grandmother’s Syrup skill.
10) Check your map regularly
To find your way around the world and not get lost in the woods, you can always open your map in BLACKTAIL. Similar to Skyrim, it shows all the places you have already discovered. These include
- Campfires
- Shrines
- The destination of the active quest
- The black cat
- Your location
- Twin Idol Obelisks
- Warden Chests
- Mushroom locations
You can also place your own markers to mark special locations or individual objectives. Due to the size of the BLACKTAIL game world, it’s easy to lose track of where you are. Check your map regularly to avoid getting lost.
11) Use the broom
Early in the game, you’ll be given a broom. You can use it to distract enemies in BLACKTAIL. When you drop it on the ground, your enemies will attack it first, so you can take your time and finish them off without taking any damage. In your skill tree, you can even increase the effectiveness of your broom.
With The Eye, it will look around and slow down any enemies it sees. If you also have the last skill slot activated – Spring Cleaning – the slowdown will not only affect the enemies the broom sees but all enemies within a certain radius of the broom.
12) Be aware of your surroundings
There is a lot to explore in the world of BLACKTAIL. On the one hand, there are plenty of collectibles waiting to be found, and on the other, the forest is full of useful resources. On top of that, shrines are the only place where you can save your game. So keep an eye out for them and search your surroundings thoroughly.
Keep your eyes and ears open to discover fascinating places and events. Many things will be communicated to you in the form of sounds. The clever level design and the diversity of the forest invite you to explore. Instead of rushing through, we recommend that you take a good look at everything and not just work your way through the hotspots, but experience the world with all of Yaga’s senses.
13) Watch out for status effects
At the bottom left of the screen in BLACKTAIL, above the heart for your health, you’ll see status effects. These can be either positive or negative. Clearly negative is the aforementioned poisoning, which you can negate with an antidote. More positive effects are the increase in movement speed, the regeneration of your health, and the focus effect to inflict critical hits on enemies.
Keep an eye on the meter and adjust your play accordingly. Ignoring the effects can cost you your life or make the game more difficult. Used correctly, they can also make the game much easier and more enjoyable.
14) Heal yourself when you can
As long as the status effect for the regeneration of your health is not active, your health will not replenish on its own. You’ll need to heal yourself manually, either through food or potions. The most effective method is, of course, to eat meat. However, the process takes time: you must first kill an animal and then cook it.
If you need to heal quickly (in battle, for example), you can use blueberry bushes. One of them will regenerate half a heart. You can find them on the forest floor in BLACKTAIL. If you’ve chosen the path of darkness, you can also use leeches. Use them to drain energy from your enemies and add it to your HP bar. Defeated enemies will also drop blood orbs when you’ve chosen the evil way. Collecting them will also heal you a bit.
On the other hand, if you’re playing on the good side, you can heal yourself with your broom in addition to meat and blueberry bushes. However, this requires you to be at the Gracious and Noble levels. So here’s another tip: Decide early on to stick with one of the two moral orientations so that you can use your skills as efficiently as possible later in the game.
15) Listen to the Baboks
The Baboks are the eyes and ears of the forest. If you listen to them, they will give you interesting information that will help you in your search for your sister and the other missing children. They might assist you with your current quest, or give you tips on how to improve your gaming experience. To outsiders, they only make strange, funny-sounding noises, but Yaga can understand their language.
As with almost everything in the BLACKTAIL game world, you can shoot the Baboks to destroy them. Their remains – called shelloks – can be collected and used to make potions in your hut.
Enhance your BLACKTAIL experience with PLITCH!
Experiencing the Baba Yaga myth for yourself and building and expanding your magical abilities is a magical thing. With our BLACKTAIL tips and tricks, you should have no trouble getting started in this action adventure. However, discovering all of the forest’s resources and defeating all of the ghosts and bosses – no matter which path you take – can sometimes be really hard and unforgiving.
Thanks to PLITCH’s BLACKTAIL cheats, you’ll be able to increase your running speed to get through the forest faster. Get unlimited resources and use them to light your cauldron in the hut. Health and mana boosts for battles are also available at the touch of a button. Customize the game with the codes to make it even more fun.
Happy Gaming!
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