| On Your Tail | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | DLC & Pre-Order | Review |
On Your Tail is a cozy detective adventure with life-sim elements that brings you to the sunny seaside town of Borgo Marina. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
On Your Tail Review Overview
What is On Your Tail?
On Your Tail is a cozy detective adventure set in the island of Borgo Marina, one of the hottest summer spots in the world. Step into the shoes of Diana, an amateur writer in search of inspiration after experiencing a harsh rejection of her most recent work. However, what was meant to be a soul-searching adventure turns into a nightmare when an enigmatic thief is on the prowl and causing trouble to the residents. Get to know the quirky townspeople, search for clues, build relationships, and unravel secrets in this detective title!
On Your Tail features:
⚫︎ One Intriguing Mystery To Solve
⚫︎ A Set Of Fun And Quirky Characters
⚫︎ Charming Art Style And Character Design
⚫︎ Engaging Detective Gameplay
⚫︎ Life Sim Minigames
⚫︎ A Summer Romance
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
 Steam |
 Switch |
| $29.99 (Standard Edition) $39.99 (Deluxe Bundle) |
|
On Your Tail Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Fun Detective Gameplay And Puzzles Charming Graphics Catchy Summer-y Tunes Minigames To Unwind With |
Sluggish Loading And Transitions Frame Rate Drops No Fast Travel |
On Your Tail Overall Score - 76/100
On Your Tail is a charming little indie detective adventure game with life-sim elements that blend in quite nicely with the vacation-like setting. With a lively cast of characters, engaging gameplay, and colorful graphics, Diana’s life in the idyllic but mystery-filled Borgo Marina is enjoyable to play and experience. However, its weakness lies in its grueling technical issues such as sluggish performance and frame rate drops which unfortunately take away from the immersion and the overall feel of the game.
On Your Tail Story - 8/10
On Your Tail presents an intriguing story in a town full of life and of mystery, and can be quite relatable in some aspects especially on account of the main character, Diana and her inner struggles with how to deal with her slump as a writer and the overall direction of her life. Aside from Diana, the town’s colorful cast also bring a lot of liveliness and personality to the table, as well as being essential in the game’s overall plot.
On Your Tail Gameplay - 8/10
The gameplay is a great blend of exploration, puzzle-solving, and mini-games. Its sleuthing scenarios are fun, from zeroing in on clues with your handy Chronolens to solving the mystery through a full-scale diorama. It’s also nice that while the central plot of the story revolves around solving the mystery of the masked thief, players can instead choose to kick back and play a rather wide variety of mini-games instead, from fishing to watching movies with friends to working at your part-time jobs for that sweet cash. Its life simulator experiences are enjoyable to play and provide a good downtime from all the detective work.
On Your Tail Visuals - 7/10
Character designs definitely shine in On Your Tail, both in 3D and in 2D sprites. Each character is unique and well-made, and their detailed 2D sprites when conversing express a whole range of emotions well. While the extremely (and I mean extremely) bright color palette may not be to everyone’s liking, the overall village design is simply beautiful, capturing the picturesque-ness of a beach-side town. However, either the hardware limitations of the Switch or the poor optimization of the port with its frame rate lag, camera control issues, and sluggish rendering take away some of the smooth experience it may otherwise have had.
On Your Tail Audio - 9/10
On Your Tail’s audio is exceptional, and really makes the seaside village of Borgo Marina even more lively. Its soundtrack sets the mood of an idyllic summer getaway in Italy, fitting well as Diana treks around the town’s streets in search of clues. Each track is a blessing to the ears. While the game could have benefited from having fully-voiced lines, the little sighs, grunts, and emotional sound expressions do make up for it and make the characters feel more fleshed out.
On Your Tail Value for Money - 6/10
At $29.99 and tons of content to go through, collect, and experience, it’s well worth your money for a fun puzzle-adventure title. However, the sluggish Switch port leaves a lot to be desired with several creases still needed to be ironed out—you may be better off with getting the game’s original Steam version, which is also janky in its own ways but considerably less than the port.
On Your Tail Review: Sleuthing, Gelatos, and Too Much Loading Screens
I’m a big fan of puzzle and detective-like games, previously having dabbled on several point-and-click escape room games and the classic Nancy Drew games. The fact that there’s a mystery to be solved hooks me instantly, and my ever-growing curiosity always seems to fuel my need to get to the bottom of it all. On Your Tail admittedly looked nothing like I expected it to be, but this wonderful fusion of detective mystery game and life simulator piqued my interest and definitely delivered.
Players will step into the shoes of protagonist Diana Caproni, a young writer in university whose piece just got rejected by her professor, calling her writing too robotic and without a hint of emotion. While Diana struggles to come to terms with the critique, Professor Vecchi encourages her to find some inspiration. Inspiration, you say?
And she does just that; after looking through her pilot grandma’s mementos from her flying days, she comes across a postcard of a seemingly unassuming local town amongst all the other out-of-the-country destinations—Borgo Marina. Fueled by a desire to prove to her professor (and her parents, who are more than worried about her future in writing) that she can definitely do what her heart sets her to do (very, very relatable), she hops onto her trusty Vispa (I see what you did there, devs) and sets off on an impromptu trip…where things don’t turn out as exactly as she thought it would be. There’s a mysterious phantom thief on the loose, and Diana jumps on the chance for both inspiration and to help out the welcoming townspeople with their dilemma.
Engaging Detective Gameplay
On Your Tail is marketed as a "cozy detective adventure," and it delivers exactly that. The game’s protagonist, Diana, is roped into solving a mysterious series of thefts happening in the small idyllic town, and each step you take into solving the mystery is engaging and enjoyable. Firstly, you interact with the character affected by the theft, talking to them and finding out the initial clues. Afterwards, using Diana’s special Chronolens that is able to rewind time at a certain spot seen through the lens, you can pick up clues from the environment or crime scene, and they get added into the Mind Map as cards for you to use and view later.
The game doesn’t hand out the clues to you on a silver platter with an exclamation point to denote it—you need to use your observation skills in spot-the-difference type of puzzles to see what was changed or tampered with. With you actually needing to be checking every nook and cranny, it really makes you feel like a detective. But of course, if you’re particularly stuck, you can always use the limited Joker cards (that seem to get replenished in every new clue-gathering sequence).
And lastly, the grand diorama aspect during deduction or investigation phases makes it much more fun to play and easier to visualize. As a visual learner, I appreciate that I can see how the scene plays out right in front of my eyes. It plays it out in real-time as you pick out the sequence of the clue cards, so you know exactly when it goes right or goes wrong. And there’s no huge consequence if you screw it up—you can always replay it as much as you like until you get the proper order.
A Lovely and Colorful Cast To Interact With
The main cast is full of characters with charming personalities, and interacting with them is fun. One example is the bright and loud Cunigli family, the loving clan that welcomes you into their home when you’re in need of a place to stay. There’s also the strong-willed Mama Lucia, the owner of the local pizzeria, who enlists your help when trying to figure out how the crime in her restaurant happened. There’s dozens of characters to meet, both central to the story and just inhabitants of the town, who have their own little quirks. And of course, there’s also the much welcome addition of romance and companionship among six characters should you fancy yourself a little vacation fling.
I also have to mention that I love how the devs made sure to make 2D sprites of literally every single person in town, complete with names and a unique appearance, despite only being able to interact with most of them through knocking on their doors. Other games would usually just turn these less-important NPCs into boring old Citizen 1 or Citizen 2 with the same black silhouette to save on development time and resources, but On Your Tail makes the town feel even more welcoming and alive by giving a face, name, and a personality to each of the town’s characters. While they aren’t out and about walking through the streets in 3D, it’s nice to know that it feels like a real town with real townspeople.
Lovely Audio-Visual Presentation That Bring In Italian Vibes
The graphics in this game are top-notch for a cartoon art style, and it shows in both the characters appearances and the setting itself. Borgo Marina is a lovely seaside town, and its details are nothing short of charming and perfect. The colors of the buildings in the environment as well as the characters’ clothes are bright and punchy, really bringing in the feeling of a summer getaway by the beach.
Its glowing art style is perfectly coupled with a lovely soundtrack, which also captures the summer-y vibes of a lively resort town. There are several tracks that loop as you move about Borgo Marina, which is a great addition to be introduced to several types of Italian-themed instrumentals.
Additionally, the developers themselves are Italian, and its Italian influences really shine through, from the sprinklings of Italian in conversations to the catchy Italian music blasting through the speakers of the Cunigli family’s coffee kiosk. It’s a bona-fide Italian vacation experience all in the comfort of your own home.
Life Sim-themed Minigames
While the whole phantom thief issue in town is one of the central points of the game, you don’t need to be committed to it every single day. After all, Diana has another agenda—to gain inspiration by going on vacation! Players can take a break from all the sleuthing to explore the town and relax, or earn some cash on the side by taking on part-time jobs. This is where the cozy aspect of the game comes into play. With the money Diana earns, she can help upgrade the stores, buy herself some new gear, or even new outfits.
A day is concluded when Diana heads to bed for the night, and all life sim-themed opportunities can be done once again when the new day comes. I’m pretty sure I haven’t even unlocked all the activities available, such as the skipping rock minigame that one of the companions, Paun, mentioned on his first tour. While the town is small in its entirety, it’s packed full of activities that will sure to never let you have a boring time.
Sluggish Loading And Transitions
With all those positive notes, there are some issues that take away from the gameplay experience as a whole—and one of the worst offenders here is the game’s overall sluggish…well, everything. I was able to play On Your Tail on the Nintendo Switch, and while reviews said the PC version on Steam was also rather janky, I was not prepared for the frustrations I was going to face.
Firstly is the slow loading time that usually takes a good 30 seconds, 20 if you’re lucky or you’re entering a smaller area. While 20 to 30 seconds doesn’t seem that long, it feels like an eternity… especially when it happens ever so often. In a game that makes you move from place to place quite frequently, the ever-present loading screens and transitions dampen the experience.
Additionally, even after the loading screen ends, assets still take a while to load sometimes, from the buildings in the area, to the image of the card you just acquired for your Mind Map, and even the 2D sprites themselves are missing for a good few seconds. Strangely enough, you can’t advance the dialogue if the 2D sprite isn’t loaded, which made me believe that my game was crashing at some point.
The game also has its share of crashes. Strangely enough, it would crash when I made Diana run for too long, even when in the same general location. Because of this, I’ve been saving every time I finished a detective scenario or picked up a single item or clue from somewhere far away—for precautionary reasons.
I would also like to point out that the game suffered from drastic frame rate issues as well in certain scenes or after loading, which occurred more often than I would have expected. It doesn’t seem to be a terribly resource-heavy game, but this may be due to the Switch port not being optimized enough after coming from PC.
No Fast Travel
Adding onto the aforementioned point above, it would have been a nice touch to add some sort of option to freely fast travel. A large portion of the game is actually going to and fro from location to location to fulfill quest objectives, sometimes from one end of the island at Orlando and Beatrice’s villa to the other side at the docks. While the scenery of Borgo Marina is beautiful, it can get pretty frustrating later on the more you do it, with all the slow loading and weird transitions in between open areas.
It would have saved a lot of time (and number of loading screen pop-ups) if there was an option to go directly to a certain area if it was farther than one or two screen transitions.
Is On Your Tail Worth It?
Worth It, But Maybe Not On The Switch
On Your Tail is a delightful indie detective-life sim title that delivers most of what it aims to bring to the player. It has a charming setting with soulful Italian tunes, engaging detective and life sim gameplay, a lively cast of characters to interact with, and an intriguing mystery to solve. All these would make for hours and hours upon gameplay, and is well-worth its price tag. However, its glaring technical issues and overall sluggish performance make it a hard recommendation for the Switch until the developers over at Memorable Games find a way to make the Switch port less frustrating to deal with. The game obviously has had a lot of love put into it, and it's unfortunate that Switch players can't fully experience it with all its limitations. For now, you may be more inclined to try the game on Steam, its original platform.
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
| Steam |
Switch |
| $29.99 (Standard Edition) $39.99 (Deluxe Bundle) |
|
On Your Tail FAQ
What platforms is On Your Tail on?
On Your Tail can be played on PC via Steam, and Nintendo Switch.
Is there romance in On Your Tail?
There are four romanceable characters in On Your Tail.
Game8 Reviews
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On Your Tail Product Information
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| Title | On Your Tail |
|---|---|
| Release Date | December 17, 2024 (PC) March 13, 2025 (Nintendo Switch) |
| Developer | Memorable Games |
| Publisher | Humble Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC, Nintendo Switch |
| Genre | Adventure, Indie, RPG, Simulation |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | On Your Tail Official Website |
