Kitsune Tails [Review]
Kitsune Tails is a Super Mario Bros. 3 homage steeped in Japanese mythology.
Kitsune Tails. Credit: Kitsune Games / Midboss
Kitsune Games and Midboss’ new game, Kitsune Tails, is a retro styled 8-bit 2D sidescrolling platformer. The game looks, plays, and feels like a direct sequel to Super Mario Bros. 3 (SMB3), a high point in the Mario series and one of my all-time favorite platformers. Kitsune iterates on ideas from Nintendo’s classic to make a game that doesn’t feel wholly original, at least not until the second half of the game, but is charming and significantly more difficult than its inspiration.
Yuzu, a young Kitsune, is a messenger for the goddess Inari. While on the job, she meets young healer Akko; they grow close, and Akko asks Yuzu to be her date to the village dance. Things are a bit complicated as Yuzu is oblivious to her best friend Kiri’s crush on her. Kiri kidnaps Akko at the dance, and Yuzu must rescue her. Kitsune Tails’ queer love triangle storyline is cute, full of colorful, fully voiced characters that Yuzu will meet on her journey.
Kitsune Tails. Credit: Kitsune Games / Midboss
Yuzu runs, jumps, and swims through five worlds themed after the elements. Yuzu’s movement and her physics feel very close to Mario’s in SMB3 and her other abilities are similar too; she can kick rolled up enemies, break blocks by hitting them from underneath, and pickup and carry objects. Yuzu can also wear a series out outfits that grant her special abilities, much like Mario’s special suits. When Yuzu is hit, she becomes “small,” turning into a fox until you can find a powerup to grow again.
The similarities with Mario don’t end there. Both games have similar world maps with bonus minigames and encounters with wandering “Hammer Bros.” Both games allow you to store powerups for later and use them before starting a level. Kitsune Tails even has its own version of the best—and most underused—item in SMB3, Kuribo’s Shoe. Kitsune also has ghost house levels similar to those in Super Mario World.
Kitsune Tails. Credit: Kitsune Games / Midboss
After the second world, it becomes apparent that Kitsune Tails is a more difficult game than its inspiration. In terms of level design, Kitsune Tails’ version of SMB3 often compares to how infamously difficult sequel Super Mario Bros. 2: Lost Levels approached iterating on Super Mario Bros. It doesn’t reach Kaizo difficulty, but sometimes it feels like it comes close. Sometimes the game just stopped being fun for me due to frustrating difficulty. Even when levels are hard, this is something I’ve never experienced in a Mario game. To offset the challenge, Kitsune Tails lets you buy powerups at a shop and also has playstyle accessibility options that include instant revives similar to the bubble system in modern co-op Mario games.
All of this is true, until the midway point in the game, where you replay the game’s levels as Kiri and get to see things from her perspective. Kiri’s skillset is totally different from Yuzu’s. Kiri can strike enemies with a sword and can walljump. In the middle of each world, she gains a new ability that you can use for both combat and traversal; by the end of the game, Kiri is far more versatile than Yuzu. Playing as Kiri forces you to approach the levels in a new way that makes Kitsune Tails feel like a different game—a more original one.
Kitsune Tails. Credit: Kitsune Games / Midboss
Playing as Kiri is more novel than playing as Yuzu, and much more fun. While it makes sense to hold Kiri off until so late because of the way the story is structured, it’s a big mistake. Considering the overall difficulty of the game, I could imagine players giving up before ever discovering that you could play as a second character; it would have made much more sense to make Kiri playable much earlier. If it wasn’t so impressive that the level designs work well for both characters, I would have suggested making Kiri the sole protagonist.
Kitsune Tails looks like an 8-bit NES game. It has similarly scaled pixel art tiles and sprites that stick to the 4 color limitation of the NES. The game pulls off the art style so well that at times Kitsune Tails feels like a Mario romhack rather than an original game. I wish that Kitsune Tails did a little more with its visuals to set itself apart from SMB3 before the second half of the game hits.
If you love 8-bit platformers, Kitsune Tails is worth checking out. Just be warned, it’s a hard game and you’ll have to be patient to get to the better half.
Kitsune Tails will be available on August 1, 2024, on PC (Steam).
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
