That's not how tags work on Itch.
The developer choses the tags. Freestyle. So there will be tags like /games/tag-phone and /games/tag-banana . And if developers think their game fits the visual novel type, they can and will chose it, even if other people would disagree.
They might chose additional tags, but I am not aware of a popular tag that says: this game simulates a phone. Some games in the phone tag might. But tags like phone and mobile will rather be chosen to indicate that the game can run on a mobile device.
Well, if you search a game about bananas, it might have the banana tag. But you will only miss it, if only ever search the banana tag.
It might still be under fruit, casual, silly, monkey, or under tags like horror, arcade, visual novel, or other tags.
The freestyle tagging on Itch is an advantage and a disadvantage. If there were a fixed pool and some guidelines which tags to use for what, there would be more tag accuracy. But people can't even properly distinguish between rogue-like and rogue-lite. There will always be disagreement over tags.
In your case, if those phone games are usually under visual novel, well, scroll past them if you spot them. I even made a tool for such things. But it only works on a desktop browser that can install tampermonkey extension.
In my opinion, those phone games should have the simulation tag. But a lot of visual novels that are not phone games also have that tag.
