The Tail Makes the Fox, Episode 1 Review (otome visual novel)

This review was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums, on March 16th 2018.

 

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free review copy of this game by the developer. All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

What better way to link my otome-themed weeks and the upcoming yuri event, than with a game that has an equal share of male and female romance options, especially if its one made by a studio most known for their Yuri Game Jam contributions? The Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail Makes the Fox – episode 1, developed by Reine Works and published in October 2017, came to my attention in an unusual way – a review copy of it was, to my genuine surprise, sent to my freshly-created Steam Curator page. Adding to my confusion, while the game’s release date suggested it was out for a few months already, it had no VNDB ratings or Steam reviews whatsoever.

            While contacting the game’s developer clarified a few things (like the large gap between the initial Itch.io release and the game actually hitting Steam in early February 2018), a few weeks later its generally overlooked status seemed to change only a little. So, is this comedy otome not worth people’s attention? Or rather a testimony to the growing problems of the Western VN market? Even though the first episode of The Tail Makes the Fox is far from being perfect, I will strongly argue for that second interpretation.

The humour is the game’s main selling point and works for the most part, but it also prevents the characters from growing beyond fairly simple caricatures

 

The game follows the story of Lilim, a female fox spirit working as an auditor for the central government of Hell. While merely being a low-level bureaucrat, she has major delusions of grandeur, considering herself a powerful demon (a gumiho) and desperately looking for approval from the whimsical, abusive Lucifer (who, of course, only considers her a disposable pawn). At the beginning of the game, she’s sent to one of the Hell’s seven districts to uncover any secrets or conspiracies the local governess might withhold from the Devil – there she meets the somewhat-hostile administrator and her small staff (all of them and the governess herself being romance options – two male and two female ones in total) and can follow four different character routes.

            You might have noticed the caricatural characterization of the protagonist – this applies to each and every member of the cast, some being hyperbolized versions of common archetypes (Gaki and Saleos especially) and others slightly more atypical, but equally over-the-top. While their traits are pretty effective when it goes to fuelling the comedy, with how short the first episode of the story is, all of them end up feeling rather shallow and underdeveloped. And this problem is even more noticeable thanks to the strange pacing of the game – it has a proper introduction, in which we learn the basic information about the characters and the setting, but very quickly moves to wrap up the intrigue and give us a temporary conclusion, without proper build-up and deepening the plot. In most routes even the story’s main premise, with Lilim being a spy trying to uncover governess’s dirt, doesn’t go anywhere, effectively eliminating the only source of suspense and mystery. With the cliff-hangers at the end of every path (after all, it’s just the first episode) and only minor progress in the romance arcs, at this point, it’s hard to call the story satisfying, even if it creates some promise for the future.

The game’s visual quality, for an OELVN made by a small team, actually leaves little to be desired, especially in the character design department

 

Possibly the main thing saving the characters, and maybe the whole story from being slightly boring and stale is the surprisingly high-quality voice acting. Everyone, other than the protagonist, is fully voiced and while there are some inconsistencies and poorly-acted lines, for the most time it works excellently, adding a lot of personality to the cast – especially in the case of Saleos, who could feel rather bland if not the stellar work by his voice actor. I’m usually sceptical about the added value of voiceover in OELVNs, considering their small budget and weaker availability of talented video game VAs than in Japan, but here it definitely does make a difference, compensating for some of the flaws in game's writing and structure of its story. It also makes the comedy, on which this VN relies much of the time, more effective than it would be with just plain text.

            The rest of production values is also on a pretty high level, with character designs and chibi-CGs standing out positively, and the rest of the assets being on a consistent level, without really giving much to criticize. The music consists of a set of very standard ambient tunes, but serves its purpose well without even getting tiresome. If I had to complain about anything, the most likely candidate would be the protagonist’s sprite, which for me felt poorly-designed when compared with the rest of the cast and lack of alternative poses or clothing for the characters. Their facial expressions were for the most time very good and scripting, apart from the rare situations in which it seemed to simply glitch-out, was quite good.

While the voice acting might be slightly inconsistent at times, it’s good enough to give a lot of personality to characters that otherwise could turn out rather bland

 

In the end, The Tail Makes the Fox remains pretty hard to rate. Its humour can be quite amusing, but also quite often misses the mark. Its story starts intriguing and has moments of genuinely good writing, especially in the more serious moments, but for the most part, doesn’t develop its most interesting ideas enough and offers underwhelming routes. On the other hand, it’s definitely a well-produced and ambitious project that might still expand and improve significantly with future episodes. For now, I give it a cautious recommendation – as it is now, offering 4-5 hours of decently-enjoyable content, it’s just barely worth the 10$ asking price. I just hope that the devs will be able to capitalize on this start and turn this title into something truly memorable. And I definitely hope it won't be buried under the tons of VN shovelware that swarms the Steam market and makes the serious OELVN projects harder and harder to promote – with all its faults, this game definitely deserves better.

Final score: 2,5/5

Pros:
+ Good character design and art quality
+ Decent humour
+ Good-quality voice acting 
 
Cons:
- The story feels rushed
- Shallow, caricatural characters
- Could’ve done a lot more with its premise


VNDB page
Buy The Tail Makes the Fox on Steam