Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival Delivers Addictive Co-Op Gameplay with a JRPG Flair

LionWing Publishing and Liner Note are currently in the midst of their Kickstarter for Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival, a game that combines a fast-paced battle system with character designs and an overall art style that pays loving homage to classic JRPGs. Upon first glance, you'll quickly see the parallels between beloved franchises like the Atelier series, Final Fantasy, and Grandia, and while the goal of the game is rather straightforward, you'll find quite a bit of depth in managing your characters, leveling them up, evolving their abilities, and learning how best to utilize your characters as part of a team to defeat the boss.

First, let's talk about the basics. In Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival you'll choose one of several unique characters to take on the game's story mode or challenge mode, and both modes will task you with defeating a series of monstrous bosses, though you'll also need to keep track of the damage you're doing to them. That might seem obvious, but it's not for the reason you might think.

The creature's card will have a number of dice symbols in each HP square. So, you might want to opt for a basic attack as opposed to one of your special abilities that would do more damage simply because they will only have two dice to roll for their attack as opposed to four, and you'll need to weight these sorts of things throughout the entire fight.

In addition to keeping tabs on the enemy's attack options and health, you have several elements to keep track of regarding your own character. You're only allowed one action per turn, but in this game, each of those turns is immensely important, as your hero's heath can diminish quite quickly depending on your enemy's dice rolls. That lends a certain welcome tension to combat, and it lends more importance to learning and mastering your character's specific abilities.

Those abilities utilize red and blue mana, which can be gained either by using items, receiving it from a teammate's ability, using a Basic Attack, or by making a successful Charge Attack that has the Enhance reward. The bit of randomness that comes into play with Charge Attacks initially seemed like it would be a negative, but it actually ended up opening things up quite a bit, allowing you a number of options with one roll.

Each character has six Charge Attacks, and they range from losing a health for a low number or doing significant damage and gaining a buff, whether that be Evasion, extra Health, and more. Options open up more depending on whether you make an Even or Odd roll. If you roll a 6, you can choose any of the other Even options up to that number, and this comes in handy more than you think when you factor in where the boss is health-wise and how damaging him will affect his dice rolls.

Additional elements spice up the combat even more, as the Attack Buff Track, the Battlefield, the enemy's Rage Track, and Retainer Cards all affect the battle in a variety of ways. These will matter even more as you move through the story campaign and level up your character, giving you extra abilities and more ways to help your teammates.

Speaking of those teammates, the game's character designs are very much in keeping with that classic JRPG vibe, with a few standouts being Ursae, Matoreda, Kunne, Elizabeth, and Oakla. The monster designs are even better, and there's a part of me that would love to see some miniature versions of these creatures in a future title.

Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival feels like it leaped right out of a JRPG world, and while the rules don't take very long to comprehend, the game will take quite a bit longer to master. Kradia rewards teamwork and table talk, and those who give it a chance will be pleasantly surprised.

So, that's the rundown on Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival, and if it sounds like your jam you can check out the Kickstarter right here!

You can let me know what you think of the game in the comments or by finding me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB for all things tabletop!