Introduction

Finding love can be a wonderful thing; whether young or old there is just something that is truly magical about finding a bond with another. Whether it be a bond of familial love, a love brought about through friendship, or even love derived from passion, getting the chance to experience the sweet pleasure of love can be a rather joyous endeavour that one may wish to last forever. It is through developing bonds of love the people are able to work toward becoming better versions of themselves. Regardless of the pain that one may experience by forming bonds with another, each tearful encounter can bring a person one step closer to finding the person that they want to be. In Developer AsicxArt and Publisher SakuraGame 2018 release of “Fox Hime Zero” players are sent on an emotional journey with two individuals that have to work toward further deepening their bond with one another to gain a better understanding of who they truly wanted to be.

Story

In this tale players follow the story of Yan, a young Undergraduate researcher who was enrolled in his school’s natural history program. As a part of his studies, Yan was sent to live in a log cabin in the mountains for the term to research the various plants, wildlife, geographic terrains, atmospheric conditions and weather patterns that were prevalent in this region to cartograph his findings for his professor to review during their weekly telecommunication sessions. While out on one of his daily observational exploits, Yan came across a small injured fox that was at the base of a running river stream. Feeling sorry for the fox, Yan decided to treat the fox with some medical supplies that he was carrying on him. Once he finishes giving the fox medical attention, he tided a handkerchief around the fox’s injured leg and let it run off into the forest.
A few days later while Yan is finishing his dinner for the evening in his log cabin, he hears some rustling outside his log cabins window. Being in the forest mountain preserve alone, Yan fears that there is a beast moving around outside that may be trying to brake in. This led to Yan deciding that he needed to take care of the problem now before it escalates into something worse by going to confront the creature outside his cabin. He finally builds up the courage to open the door to enter the brisk night air and upon opening the door he is greeted by a young girl that was dressed in unusual garments. The young girl introduces herself as Mori and hands him a handkerchief, thanking him for letting her use it. Perplexed by never meeting this girl before Yan ask Mori where had they met? Mori then explains to him that she was in fact the fox that he had so graciously helped by the river. In shock Yan refutes her claim as being absurd and demanded that Mori prove her claim. At this request, Mori turns into a fox before Yan and shortly after runs off into the moon lit forest. With these events, the stage has been set for both Mori and Yan as they embark on their ever-emotional journey down the road of self-discovery.

Thoughts of the Story

I found that I rather enjoyed the story that was offered in this visual novel. The main primus of this tale is the sudden development of slowly budding young love. In essence, it is a depiction of the first time that a person would experience romantic love, while also incorporating some elements of familial love at certain points in the story. This narrative is not something that I would say is very nuanced in it’s story rendering; in fact I would go as far to say that this story was quite juvenile in the narrative presentation that was offered. However, I would not say that this is a bad thing. Due to the direction that the story was driven in, I would say that this style of rendering helped to add to the tale’s overall charm as well as providing a moderately impactful reading experience that helped to further drive my interest in seeing the events that occurred throughout this tale unfold. I also find that it is worth noting that another factor that also helped to heighten my degree of interest in completing this narrative was the musical score as it help to provide a clear emotional tone which felt fitting for the events that occurred in a given panel.

Gameplay

Fox Hime Zero is a Romantic, Coming of Age style visual novel that fits into the genre of being a kinetic visual novel. Due to this visual novel being in the kinetic visual novel category, there are no choice-based decisions that players select; nor any underlying minigames/puzzles/games scattered throughout different points of the story. This essentially means that there are no gameplay mechanics that are present in this game. The control base mechanisms provided in this game are more reminiscent of a visual story book. The main objective of this style of visual novel is for players to simply read along through the story’s various panels and enjoy the story that is set to unfold.
With that being the case, the game still does provide a navigation menu that allows players to progress through the provided narrative. The navigation panel provided in this game provide buttons for players to Auto play through the in game dialog, Review text that has already been gone over, save your progress in the story, return to the game’s title screen, exit the game, and to adjust in game settings. This navigation panel also has the function to hide the game’s navigation panel in order for players to get a clear view of the game’s illustration. I find this to be a nicely implemented function in the game as it allows for a clear view of the illustrations in the panels without compromising the panel’s illustration.
The game’s navigation panel has three available methods of control. The methods of control are a mouse, keyboard, and gamepad with the most reliable of these three being the mouse as it allows for the player to reliably access all of the functions associated with the navigation panel with ease. As for the keyboard and gamepad, players are given a limited range of control over the navigation panel. On the keyboard I was able to reliably move forward through the game’s story panel, but I was not able to access any other navigation function. While using a gamepad to progress through the story, I was able to advance the story and view brief segments of dialog that I had read over but I could not access the game’s options menu, auto play settings, save/load panel, or a means to return to the game’s title screen/exit the game. Keeping that in mind, the overall controls for the game were relatively smooth in response to giving inputs to the navigation panel.
The story that is told in this tale is relatively short with their only being around 253 pages of text dialog in the game that is divided up in 8 chapters. Depending on the players reading speed, the game could be completed within 2 – 5 hours. This makes this a perfect game to take a few hours in the afternoon with a nice drink/snacks and just relax.

Conclusion

While I can not say that Fox Hime Zero offers the most in-depth of narratives, I can say that it was an enjoyable tale nevertheless. Many of the themes displayed in this narrative are told from a light-hearted perspective and not meant to be taken to seriously which I find a nice notion to consider when thinking about innocent young love. I can by no means recommend this story to you if you are looking for a highly engrossing narrative where you can intensively pick apart even the most minute of details. However, if you are looking for a quick to read story with a relaxing story narrative, then I think that Fox Hime Zero is a game that is worth considering.
Hope you found this review helpful.
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