Tails: The Backbone Preludes
OpenCritic Rating
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Tails: The Backbone Preludes
Tails: The Backbone Preludes is a beautiful game with an intriguing plot and some absolutely fantastic puzzle mechanics, but it does itself the disservice of playing second fiddle to its predecessor. It’s too brief and leaves too much unsaid to feel like a game in its own right. It’s as though it aimed too low and decided to settle for being a teaser or demo that’s made to tempt players to jump into the full story of Backbone, rather than take on a role of a fully-fledged game in its own right.
Solid and definitely has an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.
Tails: The Backbones Preludes is the prequel that fans likely weren't expecting and didn't know that they wanted, and due to a lack of variety mixed with brevity, they may also walk away still expecting and wanting more.
While Tails: The Backbone Preludes feels like a step back in gameplay, it makes up for it with compelling characters, interesting stories, and lovely presentation.
Tails: The Backbone Preludes improves on the Backbone formula with an engaging, replayable experience.
Like its predecessor, Tails: The Backbone Preludes tells an unconventional and surreal story with confidence, resulting in narratives that are sincere, vulnerable, complicated, and heart-breaking. The only downside to this branching narrative style of storytelling is that it's easy to accidentally take the short route and leave the experience feeling like something is missing. Ultimately, Tails: The Backbone Preludes tells four phenomenal stories that either deepens the characters that players know and love, or introduces them to new players entering this stunning world for the first time.
Tails: The Backbone Preludes is a really beautiful noir story that might go over the heads of some of the average player base. The dark themes and conversation mechanics are reminiscent of Disco Elysium but on a much smaller scale. It’s nice to live in this world for a playthrough, taking in the darkness of this dystopian city, but it might not be one players feel like returning to after the credits roll the first time.
Tails: The Backbone Preludes is a great prequel that stands on its own perfectly well, and it will probably make someone more interested to see what the first game had in store for players. It’s a beautifully crafted game that deals with heavy themes and issues, and it does them well by alternating between various perspectives with wildly different worldviews
