REVIEW: KITSUNE: A Fox's Revenge (by hans)

[Olivier Leroux]

KITSUNE: A Fox's Revenge
by hans

Reviewed by Darius Whiteheart




    I just completed "KITSUNE: A Fox's Revenge", the latest offering from our esteemed artist-in-residence, hans. This was a brief adventure designed for the OA Worldhack, and in my opinion, it is an absolute masterpiece.

    This is not a traditional design, playing more as a pre-scripted work of cinema in which your PCs are the featured protagonists. If it has a weakness it is that the player has little choice but to follow the script, even when it may not seem the best course of action. But with that understood, never have I seen such an artistic design...

    Right from the exciting new opening title sequence with its dynamic effects and new musical theme it is clear that something special is soon to follow. Hans expands on his already astounding body of Asian art by treating us to lots of new indulgences including backdrops, walls, wildernesses, sprites, icons and music, as well as tweaking the combat sprites and always icons.

    My favorite additions here included:

    - a moonlit backdrop with large shadowy trees which mesh with the tree walls to create a sense of height and depth
    - a first person perspective sprite of a paper lantern, complete with a color cycling flame
    - a colorful wilderness of a crowded street during a festival

    Where hans diverges from his previous works is in his nearly exclusive use of Asian cinema screen captures for pics and bigpics. They are, of course, expertly done and really serve to bring the environment and characters to life. There is an entire set of close ups focusing solely on expressive eyes, and a full range of expressions of the main NPC. Some of the bigpics are especially striking as they convey the immediate mood blended with the underlying emotion by using dual images -- you really must see it for yourself. In addition to those, there are several non-cinema images with color cycling effects at which I found myself gazing indefinitely; some of these are found only in the Art Gallery.

    But what completes the picture, and what truly impressed me, is the amazing poetry of the design as a whole. There are wonderful accent pieces such as the opening Haiku, the two Geisha songs, and the ending, but somehow hans maintains a subtle rhythm and feel throughout the tale that encompasses the Asian theme beyond anything that has been done before. This is what I feel elevates it to the level of masterpiece and makes it a definite must-see design.

    Thank you, hans, for your time and creative vision in bringing us this true work of art. I can only hope that we'll see more Oriental Adventures from you in the future!

[Ben J]

This was the last game by hans that I hadn't played, and it was no surprise that "KITSUNE" was great as well!

What sets this mod apart from hans' other works is the use of stills from Asian movies. There is one character in particular who had quite an impressive array of funny facial expressions.

The story provided little freedom of decision, as expected, and even though I could see the big twist coming, I couldn't prevent it from happening. But the whole thing was written so well and so entertaining that I didn't mind.

I especially liked the two-part combat at the end. That was probably the most original combat event I've seen in UA so far.

I sometimes have problems orienting myself  in hans' combats. Often the player gets thrown into these splendid combat dungeons, with up to six colorful party icons, whose looks and names aren't quite familiar to the player yet, and attacked by several types of cool-looking enemies, sometimes aided by more cool-looking friendly characters... In this game, it resulted in my magic-user casting "Fire Rain" on some of my own guys - but that happened only because everything looked so great that I was temporarily distracted.


The only thing that makes me sad is that "KITSUNE" was "The Last of the Hans Mods": Now I have to wait for the next one to come out.