Four Stars and a Half for King´s Bounty

[bltbri]

Thanks for the info, Discostu! I don't keep up on these things so I was hoping someone would respond with a simple solution!

[Metathron]

IGN gives the game "only" 8.1.

[Ryder]

Did you read the review though Metathron? They guy who wrote it has no idea. I mean look at this comment -



"After you win a battle, you may be dismayed to know that your dead troops don't come back to life."



What a tool. And the fact that he found the game rather difficult on normal says to me he should stick to solitaire.

[Metathron]

I did. And while the part you quote is a non sequitur, I thought this was a good review and found myself agreeing with a lot of it:

- You have to save a lot, there's not even always the option of running away;

- The maps are confusing because they don't point you in the direction of your quests: at one point in the game, I felt overwhelmed by all the quests I had accumulated and had no clue where I was supposed to go to solve them, so I just wondered around the map hoping to stumble upon the right NPC or building (which in the end I did, mostly)

- Difficulty level: I'm also playing on Normal, and I don't really find the game too difficult...but one thing though, I am now a level 9 mage and pretty much all of the monsters I meet are either freakishly strong, or unbelievably weak so as to make me ask "Why the heck do I have to go through this?" At this point in the game, that's rather offputting, and I don't return to the game with quite the same zeal

- Sound...there's actually sound in this game?

- Story...I don't care about the typos/sloppy spelling/awkward wording, I really don't. But the story is lackluster and I have stopped reading the dialogues a lot of the time. But this is actually not that big of a deal for some reason.

- What also bugs me somewhat is the slow leveling up, but maybe that's for the better. Hopefully, it was not designed as a way of artificially prolonging the game so that they could brag with xx hours of gameplay.

I disagree with his assessment of the game's graphics, I think they are just gorgeous and the world is really immersive. The monsters I suppose really are not at the peak of creativity, but I don't really mind. The music is nice and unobtrusive, so that's good too.

Overall, this is a really good game well worth its price and a good investment despite its flaws.

[Vision]

I bought this. The demo hooked me almost immediately (just like Heroes 2 back in the day). I am already playing it on impossible cause I love challenges =)



The game is intriguing and fun while keeping the elements that drew me to the Heroes franchise in the first place.



@Metathron - the demo has awkward voice-overs, but the full game spoken text is direct from the written. The voice over is nothing like H5, but it has a remarkably familiar voice.



On that note, a turn based MMORPG game is on the horizon, and the free beta has me hooked on that too... Atlantica. If you are into TBS and MMORPG, you just might like this game too: http://atlantica.ndoorsgames.com/




Edited on Thu, Oct 02 2008, 23:21 by Vision

[michiganjf]

Metathron, you definitely need to use the notes feature on the map to mark quest locations and map to map portals... a bit tedious, but it will save you a lot more time than it costs to jot the notes.



frequent saves are definitely a must... by level 19 the game started crashing on me every couple of hours.

[WretchedGnu]

I liked Heroes 5 a lot; but King's Bounty is fantastic and has far less "flab", and fewer gameplay redundancies.



The good qualities of KB have reminded me of the biggest mistake H4 & H5 made: concentrating more on "replayability" than on having a beautifully constructed single-player campaign structure. (and I'm not talking about the storytelling, which I agree is poor in KB)



There are many players, like myself, who don't have any desire to play a computer game over and over and over. (Who has time for such a thing anyway?) So I love a game that concentrates on making one long, good single-player campaign. That kind of environment can create a truly "tight" strategy game -- whereas if you're trying to build a game that can withstand dozens of replays, you necessarily have to build into it all sorts of things that are completely superfluous to any single playing of the game. The result is a game that is muddy and full of chaff, strategically speaking.


Edited on Tue, Oct 07 2008, 21:45 by WretchedGnu

[WarrenD]

Well said WretchedGnu, couldn't agree more with your take on the two games.

I also really like Heroes V, but have been more addicted to Kings Bounty than any game since Heroes 3 which had much better campaign play and kept me playing nonstop back then.Heroes 5 has been on and off for me lacking that must play feel of these other two games.

[Gezz]

@WretchedGnu: I'm still in my first campaign, but I wonder if there can be any replayability, as the story seems to be static. I wouldn't want to go through exact the same locations, battles and dialogs a second time.

Other than that; it is a fine game so far.

[Metathron]

I agree with you, Gezz.

GameZone review: 8.2

[Metathron]

I agree with you, Gezz.

GameZone review: 8.2

[Darmani]

Story static? Yes. Locations and battles static? Heck no.



A very important part of King's Bounty is that enemies and shops are randomized. Maybe the tough troop defending the Knight's Tent in Greenwort will be replaced with a wimp, but the hero "The Puppeteer"

will be roaming around Arlania making you watch your steps for a bunch of levels. More significantly, the artifacts and spells will differ greatly. I got the Ring of the Snake King very early, which caused me to marry Feanora and fight with both Royal and Swamp snakes from deep into clearing out Darion to where I am now (busy in Kordar). Had that tree cache contained gold or another artifact, I would have played a significant portion of the game with a different army setup.



Further exposition: For virtually my entire stay in Freedom Islands, my strategy was based on, after killing enemy shooters, disabling enemy troops by bringing their speed down to 1 and desperately trying to avoid taking any hits. While few losses are good, this meant a small slip-up could result in massive losses, and I often found myself half-wasting large amounts of Rage erecting futile defensive barriers to absorb a single hit. When I got the spell Ressurection, it made small losses more acceptable and opened up strategies like using Griffins as tank units. The spell "Magic Spring" no longer looks useless as a result.



On an opposing note, Polar Bears are extremely scarce in my game so far, so I could not use them. However, the spell "Sacrifice" changed that. Since Sacrifice works best with easy battles where you can cast it a couple times to turn a stack of peasants into a stack of other units without worrying about the wasted slots or inability to use offensive magic, it created a larger emphasis on avoiding remaining battles in Darion for later use.



Of course, next play-through, I'd expect Polar bears to be as common as Archmagi and Royal Snakes to be extremely rare. Or something.





With all this variance, I think I would be able to get a lot out of at least one more playthrough with another class on a harder difficulty. Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself -- a few hours a day for two weeks, and I don't think I'm halfway done with this one yet!



:wub: King's Bounty

[Edwardas 3]

I am dedicated HoMM 3-4 - the source

off series success

All the worthy ideas come from them!









3
Edited on Sat, Oct 11 2008, 08:01 by Edwardas 3

[Metathron]

Would you like to buy a vowel?

[Edwardas 3]

In case you try to ridicule my opinion by trying to ridicule me shows only the lack of aguments and culture on your side-simple flaming spammer.



I ignore you from now on ,and repeat again : HoMM 3-4 - the source

of the series success



/Lord Godwinson NPC in Rev4mod for MM7
Edited on Sat, Oct 11 2008, 11:06 by Edwardas 3

[michiganjf]

Royal Serpents are one of the best troops in the game, and they really can't be beat in combination with the Snake Ring (+1 speed and initiative). They are relatively cheap and have a fairly low leadership cost, so you can hire a slew of them and do huge amounts of damage. The "no retaliation" ability and strike skill are deadly, yet you will hardly lose any snakes due to those abilities and the snakes high hit points/defense. I used these little beasties right through to the end of the game, and they were always one of my most valuable troops.

[Moragauth]

"In case you try to ridicule my opinion by trying to ridicule me shows only the lack of aguments and culture on your side-simple flaming spammer. "



Touchy?

[Moragauth]

Agree on the Royal Snakes btw, they're great.

[Metathron]

"In case you try to ridicule my opinion by trying to ridicule me shows only the lack of aguments and culture on your side-simple flaming spammer. "



Touchy?

Just a tad.

[rdeford]

I've been playing the KBL game for a couple of days. It is a great game! Yes, the HOMM spirit that we all love is in there. It has that almost magical charm that endeared New World Computing and later on 3DO to us all way back when it was all fresh and new to us. On a scale of 1 to 5, I too give it 4.5.