Pros

Kabula just looks and breathes adventure RPG, filled with countless items to equip, character abilities, boss (Herald) abilities, and random dungeons to explore. Progression with characters feels meaningful, with their own twisted backstories, trying to progress down different personality paths, for new abilities!

The Hero, Jessika, could choose to be done with people and lend herself to nature, and get a boost in taming wild monsters. Or… she could just be angry and become a cannibal?

Remember how we said that Kabula is unabashedly weird? More uniqueness comes with a single young mother, Isolde, raising a bunch of kids (toddlers?), who can potentially employ all of her kids as little fighting units at some point. No kidding.

Every turn is fueled by ‘Parts’ in players’ player boards, where you move components called Butts, Legs, Brains, etc. to the right to pay for abilities. Then when resting, those Parts refresh. While silly sounding, this actually lends to great progression, as you can acquire more parts throughout your journey, letting you attack more in a row, or explore more in a row.

To add to the zanyness, the Herald will be running around the island doing its own thing, like causing wildfires, or spawning additional monsters.

Overall though, it has to be stressed that Kabula is silly and lighthearted. To that end, it is forgiving with players dying, with immortality being a thing on the island most of the time, and runs tight at 30 minutes per player. Things like caffeine overdoses to give a ‘Nausea’ debuff, or wearing a headband that doesn’t give any clear benefit, can have you chuckling. While there are nuances to combat and card play, the game just doesn’t drag as turns tend to be snappy.

Cons & Nitpicks

Alas, the learning experience is just not smooth though. The rulebook is OK, but is missing a lot of examples for how many pages it is, which can make this lighthearted game a little too tricky to learn. Fighting especially can get bogged down, and this game really needs player aids.

The personality progression of characters has some real issues though, where there’s only TWO ways to start progressing them, and if those ways don’t occur, you can be stuck for quite some time. Now you’re behind on abilities AND are much slower in getting to trigger the end game Kabula grab.

Some randomness irks come in with the Epic, or Rare Items, which are really cool as an idea. They can allow for an amazing attack, give lots of range, or allow multiple attacks in succession. But since they’re fueled by Parts, like everything else action related in Kabula, there’s a huge difference between someone getting a Rare Item that syncs up with their current Parts, and someone who just can’t use a Rare Item for quite some time. Sure, you can resell the Rare Items, but that takes valuable actions to go to a City, then sell the Item. Having 2-3 Epic Items you cannot use at all feels terrible.

The version we were sent was also filled with incomplete art, that was ridiculously jarring, and that should get fixed in future printings. Iconography isn’t helped by tiny text everywhere too.

Also, keep in mind that if you’re min-maxing the game, endings can feel like they happen TOO fast, where its possible to cheese the Herald early on if you get attacks that don’t end your turn. This can lead to board states where one guy just closes out the game without anyone stopping them. This likely won’t be an issue for many players that just casually enjoy the silliness of Kabula.

Update July 26th, 2022:

Designer Antonio Liga has reported to us of several changes:

1) Character progression has been patched, with every encounter having 2 personality traits to always progress!

2) The abilities that allowed you to get more hashtags were rebalanced, avoiding game states where the Kabula is stolen before Round 4.

3) The cost to activate attacks which don’t end your turn was increased (Ashton’s note: this will definitely prevent cheese-ing we mentioned in the cons, where someone can end the game too early!).

4) All Hero Abilities, items, and Guardians, and Rulebook were reworked to be easier to follow, more balanced and thematic when applicable. Familios were given more abilities which give benefits outside of fighting.

5) Art and design were finished, and the rulebook is being rewritten.

So while we haven’t played the new version of Kabula, these changes give us huge reason to be confident that Kabula’s recommendation will rise! For more details, check out their website here.