![]() ![]() But the absolute best part of the glowing barriers is that the bandits or skeletons, bears or elemental creatures will scamper out and waggle their weapons as you approach the border, like playground bullies in a Beano comic strip. There's no time pressure to engage with baddies, nor any risk of a surprise attack as you serenely wander through this fantasy world. Remember those enemies I mentioned, the ones waiting politely behind their glowing barriers? It's a feature common to games with strategic maps, and I admire developer 1C Entertainment for using it in a more grounded setting, even at the risk of undermining the sacred immersion. However, if you approach it from another angle-as an ambitious reworking of the core King's Bounty concept-there's more to be hopeful about. ![]() There's an absolutely vast bestiary of species to both battle and buy, and the urge to see what you might be facing next is one of many cunning little fishhooks it sinks into your brain.From what I've seen of the game, I think it will suffer when compared to modern open world RPGs, for which a 'living, breathing world' is of paramount importance. It's not uncommon to go to war with a fighting force of archers, knights, bears, dragonflies and killer plants, and that's a pretty vanilla combination. Where King's Bounty stamps its identity on the tactical framework is in the sheer variety of humans, creatures, animals and monsters you can add to your army. It's probably simpler to think of the number of healthy fighters in each unit as the health bar for a solitary warrior too, since that's how it's represented on-screen.ĭespite that slightly confusing wrinkle, it's a system familiar from plenty of other games. The number of fighters in each unit depends on your leadership level, so it's in your best interests to increase this statistic above all others. Instead you rely on up to five combat units hired on your travels, each of which benefits from different aspects of your core stats. You're not actually going to be on the battlefield though. Enemies are as abundant as items, many lurking right outside the King's castle, and combat is the fastest way to progress. Just your average King's Bounty battle then. Let's see.there's a couple of Draculas, a phoenix, a skeleton, a sexy elf lady and what looks like a giant Necromicon. Nobody said you had to share all your loot with the King. Your official title is Royal Treasure Hunter after all. It is, of course, entirely up to you who benefits from your services - or you can just ignore them all and trot around, finding stuff. Items litter the pathways and roads of Darion, while almost every building and character has some sort of task, quest or mission they'd like you to tackle. Right from the start, there's a lot to see and do. Everything is viewed from a rotatable and zoomable aerial view, and you clip-clop around the scenery with the mouse. Following a brief training session, which has more to do with determining your character type than explaining anything else, you're set loose in a lush fantasy realm and pretty much left to fend for yourself. You're a knight in service to King Mark the Wise of Darion. Provided you're not dogmatically devoted to the lure of blockbustery third-person adventuring though, you'll find King's Bounty offers a richer and more diverse experience than the land of Albion ever could. It's a sort of sequel-remake to the 1990 wandering role-player that helped spawn the Heroes of Might & Magic series, and it's pure happenstance that it's landed at the same time as Lionhead's headline-grabber. Have you heard about this new RPG where you roam around a daft fantasy world? You take on jobs, get married, undertake quests and decide whether you want to carry them out properly, betray people, amass enormous fortunes - there's a remarkable amount of freedom, and it all becomes devilishly addictive as you promise yourself that, yes, you really will switch if off as soon as you see what's over the next hill.īut aha, if you just reached for Fable II, then stop it at once! Because through cunning misdirection, I've disguised the fact I'm discussing King's Bounty: The Legend instead. ![]()
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