On the surface, Kitaria Fables looks like a standard fantasy adventure title with child-friendly visuals. As you progress the game gets increasingly more complex as you gather resources, manage your farm, and try to capitalize on your situation. The narrative provides an enticing look at the world of Kitaria that has a lot more to it to offer than the cute visuals may convey.

Kitaria Fables has players in control of Nyanza, a soldier of The Empire who is charged with helping Paw Village due to increasing hostile monster attacks. You're accompanied by Macaron and you learn the lay of the land. It's not long before you must defend the village from bandits and things start gaining traction. You quickly learn you can use magic, something that is forbidden in The Empire. You must hide this skill while learning more about it, all while serving the very authority that would jail you for this power.

The protagonist is basic and you have limited customization elements to change your cat avatar is several different looking cats. It's a bit strange that you pick your dialogue during certain situations since it doesn't seem to have an effect but maybe it will in the full game. Also, there's no auto-scrolling for dialogue.

The various characters you'll encounter each have distinct personalities such as the duty first but humble Commander Hazel, the cold but caring Sage Ably, or the kind-hearted Timmy. 

Kitaria Fables' combat is simple and easy to learn. You can equip a sword, bow, and magical attacks to specific keys. Each school of magic has distinct properties with offensive, healing, and mobility options. Melee and ranged combat is simple, equip the weapon and spam the attack with special attacks linked to each weapon that has a cooldown. Magical attacks are more powerful but require mana that can only be recharged through physical combat. Healing is done through an active inventory by consuming food, with some foods granting additional bonuses. Leveling is where Kitaria Fables takes advantage of its primary focus of gathering resources and maintaining your farmland. 

Leveling is Kitaria Fables is handled solely on your equipment, which is crafted by Blacksmiths. You have traditional coins called Paw Pennies gathered from various actions such as completing objectives, killing enemies, and destroying crates to name a few. However, money can't buy everything and you'll need to gather resources either by defeating enemies or planting crops. The farmland provided is finite so you'll need to maximize your yield through watering and proper management.

Farming is simple as you'll just need to water and hoe the land. You can even sleep through the growing process to hasten this but to maximize money and resources item management is key. You only have a certain amount of storage and items do not carry over in various item boxes like Resident Evil. Even shops won't acknowledge your resources within item boxes, only in your inventory. Similar to your combat equipment you can get more efficient farming tools by gathering raw material which the game shows you how to do with its extensive tutorial. You'll still need to maintain your land as logs and stone deposits will appear in the area.

This does lead to what some may consider the weakest part of Kitaria Fables, the grind. Many of the objectives I did involve a lot of gathering resources and killing enemies. Since enemies usually drop only 1 of these key items you have to kill a lot of them. Granted the game does do a good job of pointing you in the right direction with a map pointer and a description of what enemies to kill. Since leveling is linked to your equipment it can become boring since you're not earning anything to improve your character but you can sell any excess material for money easily through the selling box at your home.

When you're not farming you'll be killing enemies and Kitaria Fables has a healthy variety. The preview provided a range of easy-to-kill globs and infectious plants later on. Dungeons offer the best challenge with players having to clear rooms of enemies before ending with a boss fight. Enemies are well-designed with unique animations and fluid movement. The visuals as a whole are amazing and the complementary soundtrack is wonderful.

The various regions are easy to navigate with a map linking everything together. Each major area has a teleport stone for easy transport and Checkpoints can be used for being transported to but not away. Not sure why since it would be helpful. If you do happen to die you keep your items but simply lose your progress into the area you're in. I did wish there are a mini-game for better navigation.

Environmental variety is healthy with ease of the areas I was given access to having distinct elements. Towns are vibrant and the rich colors help make the world shine. Weather effects are more than cosmetic, for example, if it's raining you don't need to water your crops.

Since so many games release in broken states, especially in the AAA market, I have to give Kitaria Fables credit for being stable. Despite being a preview the game ran very well with only 2 times where the frame rate dropped. It's just nice to have a game release stable, even in a preview state, and that's just sad.

Kitaria Fables has a lot of potentials and the preview shows this game was created by passionate people who cared about what they were making. Most of the game is simple and easy to grasp but as you play all of these mechanics come together for a complete adventure that requires you to take into consideration multiple things to ensure wealth, efficiency, and proper equipment. Kitaria Fables is looking to becoming an incredible fantasy adventure and you should keep this one on your radar.
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed
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