Kitsune Tails Review – What if Mario Was a Fox?

Growing up, some of my favorite games to play were the Super Mario Bros. games. They were challenging but rewarding platformers, and their simple story and relatively short levels made them easy to just pick up and play. When I saw the trailer for Kitsune Tails, it immediately brought me back to these games, with its gameplay and artstyle resembling that of Super Mario Bros. 3. It made me feel nostalgic for these old-school platformers, and I was really excited to try this one out.

Story

The game’s story is very simple, but it felt appropriate for the genre. You play as Yuzu, a kitsune who is venturing into the human world for the first time, as a messenger. After a series of events, she ends up having to save someone she met along the way from an elemental prison. In order to rescue this someone, Yuzu must gain elemental powers. It doesn’t go much deeper than that. But, as I mentioned, I thought it was fine, since these old-school platformers were never known for having grand plotlines.

It’s worth nothing, however, that there is an extra layer to the story in the form of a romance between the characters. On top of this, there is a nice message communicated by it (minor spoiler warning) — it is completely okay to not want to be in a relationship, and to be happy just being single. It’s not a perspective we get a lot in games, so it was a nice change seeing a character that felt this way.

Gameplay

In any case, instead of expecting a deep storyline, most people who come into this kind of a game will be looking at its gameplay. And, for better or worse, Kitsune Tails literally feels like playing an old Super Mario Bros. game, but with a different skin — even the sound effects are almost the same!

Consequently, the main things you can do in the game is run across the screen, dash, and jump. Your goal in most cases is to get to the end of the level, with the occasional boss fight.

At the beginning of these levels, you can take two hits before being damaged, with the first point of damage turning you into a small fox. However, you can grab purple orbs throughout the level to restore you if you were hit (akin to the Super Mushroom, but fortunately these don’t slide away from you). There are power-ups that give you an extra ability, or make certain situations easier to navigate (think the Fire Flower or Cat Mario) — they will also let you take an extra hit. These power-ups can also be stored by either finding them in special chests within levels, or buying them from a vendor. These stored powers can then be used either before entering a level, or at any time during, depending on the difficulty you choose.

There are a variety of enemies that will try be in your way while you are going through the levels, and every boss fight is unique. There’s also a wide range of obstacles and challenges that you’ll have to figure out in order to get to the end, from spikes on the ground, to moving platforms that you need to keep up with — most will be familiar to anyone who has played one of the old Mario titles.

Overall, I think the gameplay is really fun, and does a great job recreating the feel of the platformers from the SNES era. While some parts did get frustrating, nothing ever felt impossible to deal with. There were only a few times where the game got truly annoying, mainly in sections that required precise timing while an unkillable enemy is chasing you. Luckily, these moments weren’t frequent, so it didn’t detract too much from the experience.

Progression and Navigation

Progression in this game is very straightforward. In between levels you navigate an overworld map. Each map has levels numbered 1-7, leading to a boss in the middle and end of an area. The levels themselves are linear, with a clear path on where you need to go, and no branching paths. There are occasionally hidden paths you can take, but these will only contain extra coins (which you can use to buy power-ups), or occasionally a power-up, so you don’t really need to go out of your way to look for them.

Most of the areas in the game represent an element, and the developer did a nice job designing them to feel distinct from one another. Additionally, each area will have a unique mechanic and introduce a new power up, which helps the levels stand out from the areas you’ve already been to. But while the levels and their individual settings are well designed, the same cannot be said of the story progression.

Kitsune Tails is split into two acts, and my biggest gripe with the game begins once you reach the second one — after playing through all of the levels in act one, you have to essentially play the entire game again. You do have a different skill set during this act to allow you to go through most levels much quicker, but it felt like a real slog having to play through every single level again with no change to their design.

Longevity and Replayability

Perhaps there was some strategy to this decision, however. Kitsune Tails is a very short game — It took me around 8 hours to complete the story. Since there aren’t any kind of hidden collectables or branching paths, though, there isn’t really any reason to do a second playthrough afterwards. Trying out the arcade games and attempting to go through levels faster could give you some more play time, but there’s no additional story or extras of any kind to be found.

Verdict

Overall, I feel like Kitsune Tails is a fun game that does a great job evoking the vibe of an old school platformer. If you enjoy this genre, and are especially a fan of the old Super Mario Bros. games, I would definitely recommend this game. However, even if you get addicted to the gameplay, having both acts of the story be the exact same set of levels really detracts from the overall experience.

This review is based on a retail copy of the PC version of Kitsune Tails provided by Kitsune Games.