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playingstory2020-07-13 09:15 pm
got_quiet) wrote in playingstory2020-07-13 09:15 pm
Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail Makes the Fox
Name: Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail Makes the Fox
Status: Complete (kinda)
Site: https://reineworks.itch.io/the-tail-makes-the-fox
Rating: PG-13 on account of language
Pairing: F/M, F/F
Description: It's set in hell so of course everyone sucks.
This is actually the first Otome game I've ever played in my life. I'm pretty strictly an M/M kinda guy and am not just disinterested but actively turned off by the prospect of playing a girl in a romance game, but since I gave myself a challenge of playing every game labeled "Visual Novel" in the itch.io BLM bundle and this was next on the list I girded my loins and installed it. From the very beginning I wasn't sure if I was actually going to finish it, because the themes felt tailor made to make me hate it, but after getting through it my opinion has mellowed out some.
The plot of the game is that you're a demon servant of Lucifer who is going to the mansion of a district governor to sniff around and find evidence of fraud. You are a dutiful and devoted kitsune who thinks your a kumiho, or nine tailed fox. You get four LIs, all members of the suspicious governor's household.
The first LI you meet, Gaki, is a negging, lecherous little hanger on that refuses to take no for an answer and just makes inappropriate comment after inappropriate comment. You spend five minutes telling him to fuck off but the fact that he's cute makes you think eh maybe I do like him or something like that. Since this is my first Otome game I don't know how much of a standard trope this guy is but I can say that I absolutely hate characters like this and wanted to reach into the code and erase him. I almost did just delete the game right then and there, but I have suffered through worse just to say I've finished something, so I didn't.
When you get to the mansion you meet the three other LIs. Two of them treat you like just as much shit as Gaki did. There's a big gender element to why I hate this shit in games with female main characters so much more than when the PC is male, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I also feel like this bullshit just appears more often in games with female PCs. Very rarely do I play a game with a male lead and find myself dealing with a narrative of helplessness, ineptitude, mistreatment, or complete dismissal. Even in a dumb game like this it makes my blood boil.
Anyway, the other three LIs are:
Anzu: The suspicious governor who appears to be cheating Lucifer out of souls or something. She is extremely haughty, does shit like pretend you're just not in the room, insults everyone at every opportunity, and the game tells you she's very intimidating. She's kinda just a bitch though.
Kali: Anzu's "Secretary," aka her sub. The two of these have a pretty clear dom/sub relationship based mostly on humiliation and obedience. Anzu makes Kali do dumb shit because she's bored, Kali all but literally licks Anzu's feet. She doesn't like the LI but like a good little sub she also isn't forthcoming about her feelings.
Saleos: Anzu's archivist. He helps you get files and stuff and is the only one of the LIs that doesn't start out as outright hostile or terrible to you, so he was the only LI that I cared to pursue.
Gameplay is classic VN. You follow a pretty strict narrative, are given a few choices in each scene, and if you choose right your score might be high enough with an LI at the end and you will get a "good end." The bad end is a piano falls on your head in the final scene and the game chastises you for not following the cues properly. Even though I decided that I was going to go for Saleos basically the second I saw him I still failed to get his end my first play through. There aren't that many choices, and apparently if you make good choices for other characters your score with the rest of the cast goes down. On the flip side if you make one "right" choice a character that hates your guts is now kinda into you. On top of that there are a couple choices that are not obviously tailored to one outcome or another. The result is that you need to pretty much spot on in everything you choose right from the beginning to get who you want. Because the game is short and has basic VN functions like skip and rewind this isn't really a problem. You can replay or double back with ease.
The bigger problem is that this "Part 1," aka it's not really finished. I don't know what Part 2 could possibly entail considering where the game leaves you off though. You get through your audit. If you didn't manage to thread the needle and score high enough with an LI you get a bad end, which before you are murdered by a piano entails your going back to Lucifer and either ratting out Anzu or lying about what you saw. If you get Saleos' end it seems you don't even manage to get the evidence you need to prove Anzu's guilt, and then while you're back in your old office you get a letter from him asking you to come visit, and then the game ends. It appears that the only thing that is actually missing from Part 1 is the conclusion where you get to see Saleos again and make a confession or something.
Now, I know this is basically playing the game wrong, but I was more invested in the MC getting her audit done and being able to prove herself a competent employee than I was any of the romance, so it was a parting blow that if you get Saleos' good end you also must necessarily fail your job. In one branch the game tells you that Lucifer is not worth your loyalty anyway but since the story starts with the MC's value being constantly put into question I wanted that vindication for her.
Art wise the game is polished and fine to look at, and the music and voice acting is good. I disliked the character designs though. Lots of arbitrary bows on everything. Lucifer's character model in particular reminded me a bit too much of the sort of thing a 12 year old Otaku might draw in the margins of their math homework (don't ask me how I know this). After playing the game and writing the majority of this review I poked around for other opinions of the game and there's a suggestion that there might be elements of parody in here. It's bad luck if my first Otome game is a parody of the genre, but them's the breaks.
Final judgement is that the execution is professional and there are no surprises in terms of the mechanics or systems, but the writing is definitely not for me. The only character I ended up liking was the MC, who was hardworking, got shit she didn't deserve, and should have had a better ending.
Status: Complete (kinda)
Site: https://reineworks.itch.io/the-tail-makes-the-fox
Rating: PG-13 on account of language
Pairing: F/M, F/F
Description: It's set in hell so of course everyone sucks.
This is actually the first Otome game I've ever played in my life. I'm pretty strictly an M/M kinda guy and am not just disinterested but actively turned off by the prospect of playing a girl in a romance game, but since I gave myself a challenge of playing every game labeled "Visual Novel" in the itch.io BLM bundle and this was next on the list I girded my loins and installed it. From the very beginning I wasn't sure if I was actually going to finish it, because the themes felt tailor made to make me hate it, but after getting through it my opinion has mellowed out some.
The plot of the game is that you're a demon servant of Lucifer who is going to the mansion of a district governor to sniff around and find evidence of fraud. You are a dutiful and devoted kitsune who thinks your a kumiho, or nine tailed fox. You get four LIs, all members of the suspicious governor's household.
The first LI you meet, Gaki, is a negging, lecherous little hanger on that refuses to take no for an answer and just makes inappropriate comment after inappropriate comment. You spend five minutes telling him to fuck off but the fact that he's cute makes you think eh maybe I do like him or something like that. Since this is my first Otome game I don't know how much of a standard trope this guy is but I can say that I absolutely hate characters like this and wanted to reach into the code and erase him. I almost did just delete the game right then and there, but I have suffered through worse just to say I've finished something, so I didn't.
When you get to the mansion you meet the three other LIs. Two of them treat you like just as much shit as Gaki did. There's a big gender element to why I hate this shit in games with female main characters so much more than when the PC is male, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I also feel like this bullshit just appears more often in games with female PCs. Very rarely do I play a game with a male lead and find myself dealing with a narrative of helplessness, ineptitude, mistreatment, or complete dismissal. Even in a dumb game like this it makes my blood boil.
Anyway, the other three LIs are:
Anzu: The suspicious governor who appears to be cheating Lucifer out of souls or something. She is extremely haughty, does shit like pretend you're just not in the room, insults everyone at every opportunity, and the game tells you she's very intimidating. She's kinda just a bitch though.
Kali: Anzu's "Secretary," aka her sub. The two of these have a pretty clear dom/sub relationship based mostly on humiliation and obedience. Anzu makes Kali do dumb shit because she's bored, Kali all but literally licks Anzu's feet. She doesn't like the LI but like a good little sub she also isn't forthcoming about her feelings.
Saleos: Anzu's archivist. He helps you get files and stuff and is the only one of the LIs that doesn't start out as outright hostile or terrible to you, so he was the only LI that I cared to pursue.
Gameplay is classic VN. You follow a pretty strict narrative, are given a few choices in each scene, and if you choose right your score might be high enough with an LI at the end and you will get a "good end." The bad end is a piano falls on your head in the final scene and the game chastises you for not following the cues properly. Even though I decided that I was going to go for Saleos basically the second I saw him I still failed to get his end my first play through. There aren't that many choices, and apparently if you make good choices for other characters your score with the rest of the cast goes down. On the flip side if you make one "right" choice a character that hates your guts is now kinda into you. On top of that there are a couple choices that are not obviously tailored to one outcome or another. The result is that you need to pretty much spot on in everything you choose right from the beginning to get who you want. Because the game is short and has basic VN functions like skip and rewind this isn't really a problem. You can replay or double back with ease.
The bigger problem is that this "Part 1," aka it's not really finished. I don't know what Part 2 could possibly entail considering where the game leaves you off though. You get through your audit. If you didn't manage to thread the needle and score high enough with an LI you get a bad end, which before you are murdered by a piano entails your going back to Lucifer and either ratting out Anzu or lying about what you saw. If you get Saleos' end it seems you don't even manage to get the evidence you need to prove Anzu's guilt, and then while you're back in your old office you get a letter from him asking you to come visit, and then the game ends. It appears that the only thing that is actually missing from Part 1 is the conclusion where you get to see Saleos again and make a confession or something.
Now, I know this is basically playing the game wrong, but I was more invested in the MC getting her audit done and being able to prove herself a competent employee than I was any of the romance, so it was a parting blow that if you get Saleos' good end you also must necessarily fail your job. In one branch the game tells you that Lucifer is not worth your loyalty anyway but since the story starts with the MC's value being constantly put into question I wanted that vindication for her.
Art wise the game is polished and fine to look at, and the music and voice acting is good. I disliked the character designs though. Lots of arbitrary bows on everything. Lucifer's character model in particular reminded me a bit too much of the sort of thing a 12 year old Otaku might draw in the margins of their math homework (don't ask me how I know this). After playing the game and writing the majority of this review I poked around for other opinions of the game and there's a suggestion that there might be elements of parody in here. It's bad luck if my first Otome game is a parody of the genre, but them's the breaks.
Final judgement is that the execution is professional and there are no surprises in terms of the mechanics or systems, but the writing is definitely not for me. The only character I ended up liking was the MC, who was hardworking, got shit she didn't deserve, and should have had a better ending.