Review: The Fox’s Way Home – A Charming Game That Tickles Your Observation Skills

The Fox's Way Home Nintendo Switch Review

Developed and published by BeXide Inc., The Fox’s Way Home is a little game all about your observation and attention skills. Revolving around the same animation repeatedly, the game tries to see how good you are at spotting little differences even if not many changes happen in the overall formula. It is a simple game and does not offer much in terms of gameplay, complex mechanics, and visuals but it is still a fun title to kill some time. Specially, on the Nintendo Switch, it feels right at home because you can jump in the game during your break, try to complete a ritual, and then go back to whatever you were doing. This is our review of The Fox’s Way Home in which we try to help a Fox Shrine Maiden and get rid of pesky Apparitions.

The story of The Fox’s Way Home revolves around a Fox Maiden who is trapped by mysterious Apparitions in a Fox Shrine, and you must try to rescue her. To help her escape, you must help the Fox Maiden complete eight dances for a ritual, but the Apparitions will try everything to ruin it including trying to impersonate the real Fox Maiden. Your goal in the game is to figure out the fake Fox Maidens and help the real one to complete eight dances in a row and complete the ritual so that she can escape. It appears to be much easier, but the actual gameplay has some tricks hidden up its sleeves to confuse even the most careful players.

The Fox's Way Home Review

There are two difficulty options in the game. One is called The Fox’s Encounter while the other one is called The Fox’s Trial. The Fox’s Encounter is the basic difficulty and only features 1-star Apparitions which are easier to spot. Once you complete this mode, you will unlock The Fox’s Trial which is a much harder mode because you will come across 2 and 3-star Apparitions in this mode. Apart from the difficulty of Apparitions, the gameplay loop in both modes is the same. The dance, how you play and everything else remains the same in both modes so depending on how hard you want your ritual to be, you can pick your desired difficulty.

As we mentioned above, the gameplay loop is exactly the same. When you begin a ritual, you are presented with a dance by the Fox Maiden. You need to pay attention to little details here and there such as her hair, her clothes, and everything else despite her sultry features which are designed to throw you off your guard. Despite the distractions, you have to keep your eyes on the little details and once the dance is over, the game expects you to remember as much as you can from the dance. Following this dance, the Fox Maiden has to perform the same dance eight times in a row to complete the ritual.

The Fox's Way Home Review

During each of these dances, you have to figure out whether Fox Maiden is real, or it is an imposter. By remembering the little details, you can figure out whether Fox Maiden is real or not. These could be as different as a different outfit or even a leaf on the head. You can press and hold B or wait for the time to end if you think that no imposter is involved. If you think that an imposter is involved, you can press A to enter detection mode and during this short window, you must identify what is wrong. You need to click on the element that you think is wrong and the game will decide whether you are right or wrong.

If your choice is correct, you will progress to the next ritual and similarly, must pass the remaining dances as well until all eight dances are complete and you complete the ritual. If you make the wrong choice, you will be reset back to the first dance, and you must start from the beginning. Upon successful completion, you will be displayed a short cutscene where the Fox Maiden comes and speaks with you and then you can see the stats of the ritual along with the unlocked Apparitions. Throughout the gameplay, you are treated to a soft soundtrack that goes well with the game.

The Fox's Way Home Review

To view all of the Apparitions that you have successfully spotted in a game, you can head over to the Apparition Encyclopedia to check them out. Each Apparition has a difficulty level which is shown by the level of stars. The higher the number of stars, the harder it is to detect in the game, but you will only be able to see the number of stars of each Apparition after you have found it and completed the ritual. Failing a ritual does not unlock the apparitions in the encyclopedia. You can also find other details in the encyclopedia such as the number of times you encountered an Apparition and how many times you found it correctly. Other details include what sort of Apparition it is and how it looks in the game. There are eight different pages where you can check out all the Apparitions and different details about them.

Other than playing the game and checking out the Apparitions, there is not much to do in the game. There are limited options like audio and gameplay, and you can reset your progress as well if you want to start all over again. Having different Apparitions and them appearing in a different order certainly increases the replayability of the game but once you have found all of them, there is not much to do here. The dance is literally the same every time which is why it tends to feel repetitive after some time. The animations are smooth, and the gameplay is fine overall. There are no performance hiccups or visual issues with the game.

Related News:

Final Verdict:

The Fox’s Way Home is not your traditional video game, but it surely gives your brain a little exercise. Behind the sultry For Maiden’s moves, you will need to focus on the little details and then figure out what is different in the next dance. We have certainly played some strange games in the past but The Fox’s Way Home does not feel weird gameplaywise. It surely seems a little weird because you are staring at a Fox Maiden who is dancing again and again but if you consider the overall gameplay, it is fun for a little time as you try to remember everything but still get it wrong. It does tend to get tedious and repetitive after some time but until then, you will have unlocked nearly everything in the game. If you are looking for something calm and a little brain-trickling with cool animations, you can give The Fox’s Way Home a shot.

Final Score: 7.5/10

You May Also Like

About the Author: Umair Khalid

Founder of GamesHedge, Umair enjoys a wide variety of video games ranging from RPGs to racing games. Currently busy with The Crew Motorfest and Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *