Should I get this yet or wait for more patches?

[Merco]

So I'm a massive noir game/film fan, and having seen the trailers for Blacksad I'm 70% up for getting it.

 

That said, all of the bad points in the reviews are focused on countless bugs/glitches in the game, so has the situation been improved by the promised 'day one' patch?

 

I'm down for the setting and gameplay (from what I've seen), but it'd be good to get an honest assessment on the technical side of things from someone who has played the game.

[HighSpeedUncIe]

Hi there,

 

basically the game is a broken mess. It’s “day one patch” broke more then it fixed. There’s audio files missing, animations not firing, entire character models with holes and warps in them. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to play for about an hour before it crashes violently. 
 

I’m down 10-15 hours now and due to crashes, glitches and bugs I’m nowhere near the end. I do have the newest line PS4 Pro, non-modded/external HDD. 

[Merco]

Thanks for the answer! 

 

I'd seen some mixed responses to the day one patch (on other systems), but I'll take that as a good picture of the state of the PS4 version.

 

Think I might check back in on Blacksad in a few months time (I'm being optimistic here...)

[communistwookiee]

What a tragedy. I was looking forward to this game.

[swedechick]

I played it today, on the 1.03 patch (which installed this morning), and it's still somewhat broken. I played roughly 3 hours and had to quit to main menu or completely close the game at least 3 times. BUT! Microids' website says that 1.04 is on its way. I will get back to you when the 1.04 has dropped. =)

[swedechick]

Just an update, patch 1.04 dropped this morning, but I haven't had time to play yet. I'll get back to you probably Tuesday.

[swedechick]

I've played back to where I ended last week. (Since I stream the game, I'm not going past the point where I was) I remember at least three places where I had issues while on 1.03, and those places all worked fine now. There are still some things that could be polished. I've had two instances where I *thought* the game froze, but it didn't, it just loaded slow. Again, I'm only a few hours in, but it's looking better than 1.03 patch. I'm only slightly concerned by the fact that no one still has grabbed the platinum, but from the trophy site, it also looks like I'm not the only one that's been playing it on 1.04, so even if there are bugs still, at least people might report them. 

 

I will most likely be streaming the game again on Friday, so if you want me to report back then, just let me know.

[swedechick]

I might have spoken too soon. I went to close it, using the in-game "Main menu" and it crashed. I don't know if that corrupted my save or not, but I'm restoring my old save anyway.

[Merco]

On 12/10/2019 at 9:22 PM, swedechick said:

I might have spoken too soon. I went to close it, using the in-game "Main menu" and it crashed. I don't know if that corrupted my save or not, but I'm restoring my old save anyway.

Thanks for your persistence with this game - it's good to have these updates about how effective the patches are! ? 

[Vtull]

Are these bugs preventing platinum achievement?

[PureDeadGaming]

19 hours ago, Vtull said:

Are these bugs preventing platinum achievement?

As far as I am aware it's just a bit of a pain to platinum. I am about three quarters through my first run at the moment and I'd say the collectibles can be a bit of a pain to find. Plus while I love the game so far, I can imagine during subsequent playthroughs it could get tedious because you can't skip any cutscenes or dialogue.

 

Also the only guide I have found for avoiding any deaths is in Russian so I am using that with Google translate, but it is a little hard to follow at times.

[Vtull]

21 hours ago, VDZEMedia said:

As far as I am aware it's just a bit of a pain to platinum. I am about three quarters through my first run at the moment and I'd say the collectibles can be a bit of a pain to find. Plus while I love the game so far, I can imagine during subsequent playthroughs it could get tedious because you can't skip any cutscenes or dialogue.

 

Also the only guide I have found for avoiding any deaths is in Russian so I am using that with Google translate, but it is a little hard to follow at times.

Wow. How long does one playthrough take? Also do the collectibles change location?

[swedechick]

Sorry I haven't been replying back on this. I started streaming Phoenix Wright instead, but I'll get back to it once I've finished that. I'm afraid I don't know the answers to any of the questions posted. I wasn't paying attention to the collectibles when I replayed those first few hours.

[PureDeadGaming]

On 12/16/2019 at 2:24 PM, Vtull said:

Wow. How long does one playthrough take? Also do the collectibles change location?

Sorry no idea why I am just getting the notification about this comment now. I finished the game late last year and I would say in total it is about 8 hours long. I'm pretty sure the collectibles do change from game to game because I watched a few let's plays and they were in different locations to what I had. 

Also just a heads up to anyone playing:

 

The game is in a much better state than when it first launched, but it is still buggy. My advice would be to back up your save from time to time. I encountered one potential game breaking bug right near the end where the game wouldn't let me walk through an open door, leaving me stuck in an office. Reloading the checkpoint didn't work either. Luckily I had a save from half an hour earlier backed up on a USB stick and resuming from there worked.

[swedechick]

I just noticed that there's a new patch for Blacksad. Haven't downloaded it yet, but I will report back once I do.

[communistwookiee]

Haven't even opened my copy yet. Wondering if I ever will at this point...

[swedechick]

I'm happy to see that there are 15 people who have the platinum now. I did promise to report back on my experience. I streamed the game for about 3.5 hours today. The stream/game crashed 5 times. (I stream straight off the PS4). I had 3 error CE-33217-6's, one CE-34878-0, and one simultaneous CE-34878-0 and CE-33217-6. I don't think I've ever had a CE-33217-6 error before, in the 4+ years I have owned my PS4. I did get to the trophy Civil Disobedience before I got too frustrated to continue. Since I had only *updated* the game before, I'm going to try to reinstall it fully instead, and see if that works better. I will get back to you later.

 

But I *am* enjoying the game, despite this.

Edited July 24, 2020 by swedechick
correction

[swedechick]

I beat the game today. Just like last week when I streamed it, the game/stream crashed a bunch. I have turned off my PS4, but I will update with error codes tomorrow. It's so frustrating, because there are long sections where it runs fine, and then it crashes multiple times in a short period.
First part is 22 minutes long. Second part is 2 hours and 15 minutes. Third part is 32 minutes. Fourth is 9 minutes. Fifth is 7 minutes. Sixth is 37 minutes, and finally 3 hours (and I ended the stream myself here, this was the end of the game).
Comparing to last week, where it crashed 5 times: Part 1 was 23 minutes. Part 2 was 1 hour 12 minutes. Part 3 was 53 minutes. Part 4 was 12 minutes. Part 5 was 24 minutes, and part 6 was 9 minutes, at which point I - as I didn't quite mention in the above post - chose to end the stream and reinstall the game.

 

There are some trophies you need a second play-through to get (or cheating by downloading the cloud save), and I know I missed/ignored things to not bore the few people that were watching with the trophy hunting, so I only got 21 trophies. But I'm sure that getting the platinum won't be as troublesome when I'm not streaming it, because I suspect that several of the errors will be that wonky 33217-6, which doesn't crash the game. It only ends the stream. If I remember correctly (which I might not, because it's almost 3am), the game only actually crashed once. But I will update tomorrow with which crashes were which error codes.

[swedechick]

I forgot about this yesterday, I was very tired. Here's my updated crash history:

First crash on Friday was CE-33217-6 again. Second through fourth crashes were the same. Fifth crash - 7 minutes after the fourth - was CE-34878-0. Sixth crash was also CE-33217-6. Which makes me think that the game itself isn't the problem. The fact that I am streaming it is. I don't know what to make of it, but there you have it.

I should probably add that all the 33217-6 errors list Application NPXS20001 as the problem, not CUSA13013, which is Blacksad. So I don't know.

Edited August 2, 2020 by swedechick
adding more info

[Merco]

2 hours ago, swedechick said:

I forgot about this yesterday, I was very tired. Here's my updated crash history:

First crash on Friday was CE-33217-6 again. Second through fourth crashes were the same. Fifth crash - 7 minutes after the fourth - was CE-34878-0. Sixth crash was also CE-33217-6. Which makes me think that the game itself isn't the problem. The fact that I am streaming it is. I don't know what to make of it, but there you have it.

I should probably add that all the 33217-6 errors list Application NPXS20001 as the problem, not CUSA13013, which is Blacksad. So I don't know.

Thanks for documenting all of this  I've seen that 17 people have the platinum now, so I'll take that as meaning that everything is (mostly) working with the game!

[swedechick]

I know there was a recent update to this (called 1.06 in Sweden), has anyone played it on that patch? I've been pondering going for platinum on it, especially since I have a PS5, but I don't know. I really wish this game worked well, because I think it's a really good environment.

[Merco]

6 hours ago, swedechick said:

I know there was a recent update to this (called 1.06 in Sweden), has anyone played it on that patch? I've been pondering going for platinum on it, especially since I have a PS5, but I don't know. I really wish this game worked well, because I think it's a really good environment.

I managed to platinum Blacksad earlier this year (February) playing on PS4, so it should definitely be doable on PS5/with a more recent patch. I think my version was 1.05 at the time (?).

 

It takes about 6 playthroughs to get all the ending scene variants and the card collection system is a bit buggy (mainly in the final location), but this post should help with the cards. I didn't have that many performance issues at the time, mainly crashes as the game was initially starting up.

[swedechick]

@Merco Thank you!