The story of Kitaria Fables has you step into the paws of Nyanza, a brave cat soldier sent by the Empire to investigate a surge of aggressive monsters around Paw Village. The narrative leans heavily into a “wholesome fantasy” storyline; common among games of this genre. While the story is pretty generic, it does manage to add a layer of intrigue with the concept of Forbidden Magic. While the overarching plot about “The Calamity” is relatively standard, the charm lies in the local interactions. The townsfolk are endearingly written, and though the story won’t win any awards for complexity, it provides a perfectly cozy “Saturday morning cartoon” motivation to keep you pushing through to the next dungeon and beyond; just to see how it unfolds.
The gameplay is a split between real-time action combat and simplified farming. One of the most distinct features is the lack of a traditional leveling system; Nyanza doesn’t get “XP” for killing a hundred orcs. Instead, your power is entirely tied to your gear. This makes the game a dedicated “grind-a-thon,” as you’ll need to farm crops to make money and hunt monsters for specific drops to upgrade your sword or bow. The combat is snappy, featuring telegraphed “red zone” attacks that require precise rolling, but be prepared for some serious inventory management! This is mostly because your bag fills up faster than a cat’s bowl at breakfast time.
On the Xbox Series X, Kitaria Fables looks remarkably clean. The game utilizes a vibrant, pastel art style that benefits from the 4K output, making the world of Canoidera pop with color. Performance is a rock solid at 60 FPS, which is crucial during some of the more hectic boss fights where dodging is required and the smooth frame rate is greatly appreciated. The loading times are almost non-existent thanks to the SSD, making the constant backtracking between your farm and the wilds much less of a chore.
The audio design is exactly what you’d expect from a “Fable” title: whimsical, light, and relaxing. The soundtrack features breezy orchestral tracks that swell during combat and settle into a peaceful hum while you’re tilling the soil. While not the best soundtrack to be found in a game of its genre, Kitaria Fables music is very pleasant to listen to. Sure, Kitaria Fables doesn’t have any voice acting and resigning to read through text bubbles, there is still something nostalgic about the audio presented in the dialogue. It would have bene fun to have had voice acting, but there is something nice about listening to the mumbling audio of the NPCs when they talk.
While Katarina Fables is a tad on the repetitive side, the game manages to successfully bridge the gap between a farm sim and an action RPG. It doesn’t quite have the depth of say, Harvest Moon or Rune Factory. Nor does it have the complexity of a Diablo style game, but it carves out its own niche as a “My First ARPG” with a lot of heart.
Having played the game on both Playstation 4, and Xbox Series X, I can honestly say it’s one of the best ARPG games that really is a must play! I highly recommend picking this game up on your platform of choice. While it has its issues, it really is a purrr-fect ARPG for fans of the genre!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.