Providing players with a calm yet active world can sometimes be a hard line to walk, but Twin Hearts definitely did a good job when creating the world within Kitaria Fables. Soon, PQube is going to be sending this title out for players to take up their swords, become a soldier within Paw Village, and begin living the life of an active soldier and farmer. It has really been a sweet journey and one I even got to take on with my wife to fight alongside me!

Story

As the world of Kitaria faces the rising tide of darkness, you are sent out to aid Paw Village. Once there, you are offered to say in your family’s old home that had connected farmland to grow crops whenever you aren’t busy fighting against various enemies. While in the village you’ll get the chance to take on quests that your cute animal neighbors are unable to handle and slowly become a vital asset to the growth and continuation of this village. Journey out into the world to explore new areas and help the kingdom clear away the dangers the lurk within various parts of this animal-based world!

Gameplay

While you do start out with a sword, which you get to properly learn how to use through a sort of figure-it-out-through-attempting type of experience with an initial quest of recovering an item lost to nearby orcs, you will find yourself with quite the variety of weapons. Before you start looking into the big adventure, definitely take the time to learn the basics though.

For combat, the basics are sword swing combo’s, dodge rolling, understanding the sign when an enemy is about to attack and learning to avoid the hit, placing a food source on a quick-use button for healing, and taking note that enemies with a white name are friendly until hit, those with a red name are hostile on-site, and those with a blue name are mini-bosses or big enemies. You will eventually be able to create a bow if you prefer, which then you would need to know how to lock on to enemies as well so that you don’t miss, but at least you won’t have to carry around arrows for ammo.

For farming, the basic tools are all placed in the chest in front of your farm and they let you get started. You do get initial seeds from one of the neighbors as she gives farming-related quests for you to do. Basically, you use the hoe to prepare the dirt, place the seed, then water it each day until it grows. Once it is grown you can pull it out of the ground and either keep it, eat it, use it for a recipe, or sell it for Paw Pennies. Seeds can be planted in a 3x3 square, allowing for 9 seed plantings with one action. However, you start with bronze tools so you can only dig up and water one square at a time. Once you upgrade to silver it grows to a 2x2 square and at gold you will be given the 3x3 square radius to work with. Don’t forget to keep your watering can full by utilizing that nearby water well!

The other tools you will be given is a pickaxe to break rocks for minerals and stones, along with a hatchet to chop down trees. This will be your main source for collecting wood and stone which will be useful for upgrading weapons, gear, and other crafting goods. I do suggest chopping trees and breaking the rocks in the village every time you see one because they will respawn and it takes a while to get a decent amount of supplies for everything. That said, my suggested quick equip slot setup is your main weapon, a healing item, your hatchet, and your pickaxe, which all should be in your inventory at all times.

Keep in mind that things cost money, so you will want to keep farming as you progress through the various quests. You can simply buy seed, grow the crop, and sell it as the turnover for crops is higher than the cost of the seed. If you are consistent with this, Paw Pennies won’t be in short supply for you. Plus, you get Pennies when you complete quests as well.

The last tutorial note you will go through is the use of magic spells. These will aid you in combat and you will be able to learn more spells as you progress. To learn a spell you have to go to the cauldron at the mage’s house and have the elemental orbs needed on you. You can see what orbs are needed to learn what spells, so you can plan ahead and save up. To gain orbs, you will find items called ‘vengeful spirit’ as you fight enemies and these can be turned into one of the shops in order to be turned into an orb of your choice.

Now, when you are in combat, note that you will simply be sent back to your house if you faint. Running out of health does suck a bit since you will have to make your way back to wherever you were fighting, but at least you don’t lose anything from your inventory and are simply sent back to your house. It also jumps to the next day in-game, so be sure to tend to your crops before heading back out.

As you are venturing around, be sure to look for checkpoints. These spots will allow you to teleport to them from the village and town locations, but you won’t be able to teleport from them. It is still useful, but it would have been nice to have been able to use them for teleporting away as well.

When you are playing the game in co-op, you will basically be sharing supplies. This includes Paw Pennies, weapons, food, and so on. There are no shop discounts provided or any form of boost in material gain aside from the ability to kill enemies faster as a team. Unfortunately, you also can’t resurrect a fallen partner and just have to wait for a timer to finish before they can get back up. While it is a lot more fun to play this game with a friend, be prepared to require twice the amount of materials in order to get better weapons for both players.

Visuals and Audio

Given that the world is a series of cute animal creatures fighting against creatures of various kinds, they went with the perfect art style! Enemies are scary in a cartoony way while friendlies are all adorable and great to interact with. The world around you is also bright and colorful, even in the darker areas, which is great - especially when you plant a mixture of plant types on your farm and they all grow at roughly the same time.

The music choice in this game is pretty well put as well. When you are out in the dangerous areas and adventuring, the music really brings that feeling of an epic adventure to the experience while providing a friendly and homey feeling when you are in safe places like the village and town. I would say that the sound effects were a bit obnoxious though and I did end up turning them down. I get that there are usually a lot of enemies around so they should all be making a sound when they move around, but it just simply gets obnoxious, especially when you end up in a fight against like four or five of them and your fighting sound effects are blending with their movement and fighting sounds.

Replayability

While I am not sure if I would say this game has replayability once you have beaten the game, I will say that it will take some time to beat in the first place. This game is definitely set up for a pair of friends, brothers, sisters, or family members of various kinds to work together and build a bond over a fun, interactive experience. There’s nothing too serious going on, the scenery is friendly, the combat can get intense, and there is always a few choices of things to do. Whether you are enjoying a long adventure alone or bonding with someone through it, you will get plenty of replayed sessions in this game, just maybe not a full second playthrough.

What Could Be Better

Overall, the tutorial could have been better suited for newer players. I played through this game with my wife and she didn’t even know about the dodge roll option before I told her about it. Struggling against the very first orcs for the initial combat-based quest made her almost give up and I don’t think she would have wanted to return to the game if I didn’t show her the dodge roll. She tried just walking out of the attack radius when it came up and she would lose. The game should have explained this ability to her. That said, I can also imagine players who have never experienced the proper farming steps before to struggle with the farming section of the game for the same issue - lack of details in a tutorial.

The cost of upgrading weapons is fine when it comes to the later term items, but just reaching the second and third-tier weapons ended up feeling like a grind. At first, I was just focusing on getting my sword to the next level so I can manage to fight a little better, but then when I needed to upgrade the bow for my wife, we had to go and grind on a bunch of small enemies just for the vines. While I get the grinding aspect being useful when it comes to the higher tier weapons so players can really feel like they earned it, leaving them with the starter weapons and making them earn just the next level can feel a little rough. The first step up should feel like a natural improvement while further steps feel like a grind, but instead, it feels like a grind right from the start.

Conclusion

Kitaria Fables is bound to build memories when played with a partner! I can see people teaming up with their family or friends and spending hours just clearing enemies, completing quests, and growing crops. This game has found a way to offer so much for the players to do while not demanding anything get done with the usually looming ‘or else’ type of threat behind it. It has been nice to just simply enjoy an adventure game at a leisure pace while getting to go through the whole experience with a loved one nonetheless.