If you're jonesing for a tasty action-farming-adventure, Kitaria Fables has you covered. If Fantasy Life is a Wagyu beef steak, Kitaria Fables is a really, REALLY good burger. ConclusionĪ fantastic tribute to Fantasy Life that nails the kind of grindy combat that many people love, Kitaria Fables is genuinely sweet and impressively well-made for a three-person team in under three years. We've played for 30 hours in total, and although the ending is a little abrupt, almost all of those 30 hours have been filled with hopeful joy that Fantasy Life lives on in the DNA of indies like this. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Įven with these bugs and issues, though, Kitaria Fables has been an absolute delight. It's surprising, because other accessibility considerations, like fully remappable buttons, are there from the start, but the itty-bitty text is hopefully something that will be tweaked in future, because right now you'll give yourself a headache from all the squinting you'll have to do. There are three UI sizes, and we had it set to "Large" the whole time, but both handheld and on the TV, it was like reading a book from across the room.
One thing we really can't let Kitaria Fables get away with is the minuscule text.
We do wish that there were more fast-travel points - some of them are spaced weirdly far apart, and a couple of the towns only have one-way portals - although it's hard to say if this is a bug or an oversight. The slightly wonky pacing and lack of knowledge of where to acquire certain materials makes it hard to progress in the first few hours, but we can't say we really minded, since it was during those first few hours that we fell in love with the game, after all. That grind isn't for everyone, but it certainly is for us, and although there were times when the game dragged (specifically when one quest required a bunch of vegetables that took multiple days to grow), it picked up again once we'd done the necessary work. In between story missions and the light farming, it's the grinding that makes up most of the game: gathering materials that sell for a lot of money, investing that money into weapons, using upgraded weapons to slay monsters for more materials, rinse and repeat. They respawn every new day, too, so you'll be able to get plenty of practice in, but since increased damage and HP are tied to your ability to collect materials and cash, and not your XP, it'll require a lot of grinding. There are bosses, too, which range from tricky-for-beginners to this-guy-can-kill-you-with-a-glance, and it's only by levelling up your equipment that you'll be in with a chance of slaying them. And, of course, you can mix-and-match on the fly, depending on the enemy or the terrain.Ĭaptured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Īgain, like Fantasy Life, there are a number of distinct, themed areas - a desert, a frozen mountain, several cave dungeons, and a forest - and each one has different free-roaming Things To Kill that match the climate. If you prefer the visceral, hard-hitting sword (and don't mind the risk-reward factor), then you can dump all your materials into upgrading it if you prefer the slow-burn range of magics and archery, then there's plenty for you, too. Much like Fantasy Life would let you switch between classes to take on monsters as a Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter, or Magician, Kitaria Fables lets you choose how you want to beat up slimes ("Gooeys") and golems. The part of it that's most Fantasy Life, though, is the combat.
If you like games that engage your brain with mindless-yet-enjoyable grinding interspersed with some extremely light farming and the occasional quest or new area to explore, then Kitaria Fables is perfect.
Playing Kitaria Fables feels like treading the boards of a café that you go to every day: it's comforting, warm, and reassuring. So, yes, Kitaria Fables certainly isn't trying to break the mould, but that linearity isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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