Full Disclosure - I have not yet completed the game.

My quick description of this game would be "Mario clone, but with more story and foxes".

Kitsune Tails is a fun and delightful platformer. If you've played a Mario game at any point in your life, you'll be familiar with the core gameplay. There are a few interesting twists (eg, the lantern which renders ghosts insubstantial, not a spoiler since it's on the store page). The controls are pretty tight, although they're a bit more floaty than I'm used to (which is a me issue). I'm about 2 hours in, and I'm estimating there's about 10 hours of gameplay here.

The story is interesting so far, and basically boils down to a love triangle between three characters. I won't give too much away here, but this becomes the driving force of the game. Don't expect an epic tail (heh), but it's certainly more nuanced than "bad guy steals princess". Personally I'm a very story-driven gamer, so it's nice to have something to break up the platforming segments.

Graphically the game is eye-catching, very good use of color and texture without being too busy. The CRT mode is a cute touch. In terms of audio, the music and sounds fit the mold perfectly. The voice acting ranges from adequate to excellent, but it might feel a bit weird for a game done in this retro style (in which case you CAN turn down the voice volume independently). I personally like the voices!

Difficulty is highly adjustable, and includes an easy mode which takes out a lot of the penalties for dying. For me this is perfect, as I don't have a lot of time for gaming and it's very annoying to repeat sections of a level over and over until I figure it out, just to find that I've run out of time. For the more skilled/masochistic, there are harder difficulty modes which are more in line with classic platformers.

There are powerups which can be found/purchased and held in reserve for later use. My biggest complaint with the game at this point is that these powerups don't have a description (or, if that's present I'm not seeing it). It's a bit of trial and error to figure out which powerups do what. Not a game breaker, and I'm sure there's a wiki or something which explains what everything does, but not having these descriptions in game seems like an oversight.

The game itself is pretty portable, and runs well on all the hardware I've tried. I was able to launch and play on my older laptop (Linux Mint, Intel 4700MQ), my desktop (Pop_OS!, AMD 3700X), and my ROG Ally (Windows 10 LTSC, Z1 Extreme). I haven't had any crashes or other issues. One item worth mentioning is that only 16:9 resolutions are supported, although the game will play fine on a 4:3 screen with letterboxes. The developer actually explained why this is the case, which was super cool - but keep this in mind if you're a retro nerd like me and want to play on an older screen.

Overall I'd recommend Kitsune Tails, especially with the 10% off sale that's currently in place. Solid effort, with a few high points and no real problems. Plus, foxes!