A Quick Hit: Tails Noir
It could have been incredible. Tails Noir (2019)
Tails Noir is a beautiful narrative adventure that subverts its genre in a disappointing way.
Developer: Eggnut Games (R.I.P.
Publisher: Raw Fury
Released: April 19, 2019 (PC), 2021 XBox One, Playstation 4/5 (2021), Nintendo Swtich (2022)
The author played this game on a PlayStation 5.*Spoilers Ahead*
It had been a minute since I played a classic-style computer role-playing game. The kind where you choose from a variety of dialogue prompts to initiate action and move the game along. I wasn’t in the market to play one, but while I was scrolling through the PlayStation store, my eyes caught some sick cover art that featured a handful of anthropomorphic characters. As a bonus, the game was free ninety-nine, which made the decision to give Tails Noir a try easy-peasy.
The crew responsible for producing Tails Noir created a beautiful alternate version of Vancouver, British Columbia (apparently), out of high-res pixel graphics and a blend of 3D effects, with a soundtrack that plays to the mood of this seedier, more dangerous version of Vancouver. In this version, the many different anthropomorphic citizens live in a stratified society, something that is implied early in the game and often throughout the six-hour experience. That’s how long it took me to play through it, but I usually played it late at night once or twice a week, and a lot of the time I fell asleep playing it. I’m old, so don’t let this be a judgement on the Tails Noir experience. It’s brisk, but it left me wanting more because it failed to deliver a meaningful conclusion after an exceptional setup.
The game spends a lot of time dragging Howard deeper and deeper into the shit in what feels like a hard-boiled detective story, but then something crazy happens in the game’s final act. It genre-flips on a dime and becomes a bizarre sci-fi nightmare with a Lynchian twist. This was a honey-dicking of epic proportion. When I started the game, I figured we were heading towards some disasterous end for Howard the higher he climbed up the echelons of this twisted society, but the alien symbiote felt unearned rather than original or outstanding. Adding to this, the game ends without any resolution to its major plots. We know what happens to Howard, but he didn’t finish his investigation. It’s as if the first two thirds of the game didn’t matter.
That was one of my biggest issues with this game, but it wasn’t the only one. For a game that leans heavily on its story-telling and the idea that the choices you make when you choose a specific dialogue interaction have an impact on the outcome of Howard’s fate, it isn’t actually an interactive game. You don’t get to “choose your own adventure”. It doesn’t matter which line of witty and often snarky dialogue you think will get you closer to the truth behind the cannibal murders because any of those lines will get you closer to the truth behind the macabre conspiracy that Howard uncovers. The truth is predetermined, so it doesn’t matter how you approached a conversation with any one of the game’s excellent characters. They all lead Howard to the same unfortunate conclusion, which is an unsatisfying overall experience for this part-time gamer. Ultimately, Tails Noir is a beautiful, tragic classic-style computer role-playing game that strays too far from its premise and leads to a disappointing result.
