Some of you may have seen my Games Similar to Heroes of Might & Magic List here at this forum and on my HoMM website. While Palm Kingdoms & Royal Bounty had honourable mentions in that list I had never actually got around to playing them. However Iosoftware recently decided to release their Palm Kingdoms games for free on their website to attract more fans to their latest game Royal Bounty HD & their up and coming Palm Kingdoms 3 HD game so naturally I couldn’t resist free HoMM related stuff lol!
I've gotta say my original expectations were pretty blown away as I became a complete addict playing PK1&2! They look and feel very much like HoMM2 but contain various little improvements either from later HoMM games or totally new and original ideas. The first game required me to get it working on a windows phone emulator but the second one is a PC game and ran just fine (PK2 also contains all the content of PK1). I really enjoyed playing the super XL map 'The Divine Status' as there was so much to explore & conquer that it took me days to finish it!
I was so impressed I couldn't resist buying their newer game Royal Bounty HD on steam as it's dirt cheap (as I say in the vids it's pretty much a glass of coke in a bar lol!) and I became even more addicted lol. It drops castle management for a classic King's Bounty style game however all the graphics are upgraded to HD quality and the game looks great (if you're a retro fan like me not looking for the big 3D stuff). It's funny seeing all the people whinging on steam about it being too hard as I pretty much broke the game in the first few hours by upgrading my peasants to money making citizens & becoming insanely rich able to buy & upgrade nearly unlimited troops lol! Guess you've gotta be a HoMM4&5 veteran to spot that trick haha.
Looks like all the nice upgraded graphics and gameplay elements from RBHD will be making it into Palm Kingdoms 3 HD. Can't wait! You can watch PK3's progress on the Palm Kingdoms facebook page. They've had a lot of funding troubles and don't seem to be getting much support so hopefully they can get it across the finish line! Is it sad that I'm way more excited about this then whatever the next piece of garbage Ubisoft release under the M&M name lol?
Here's some videos I made of PK1&2 going through the races and talking about all the similarities and differences to HoMM if anyone's interested in checking out the games. With the RBHD videos I rush play through the entire first chapter to give you an idea of the game (I do the peasant trick in part 3).
Palm Kingdoms 1 - Part 1 Video: Introduction & Tutorial Mission.
Palm Kingdoms 1 - Part 2 Video: Tutorial Mission Continued, Tour of all 6 races castles & units (Using the cool ‘Divine Status’ super XL map), & How to get the game working via emulation.
Palm Kingdoms 2 - Part 1 Video: Introduction & Tutorial Mission (note: I've since discovered the game looks better at 720p).
Palm Kingdoms 2 - Part 2 Video: Tutorial Mission Continued, Tour of the 6 classic races castles & units (Using the cool ‘Divine Status’ super XL map), & Extended tour of the new & totally original 7th race!
Royal Bounty HD - Part 1 Video: Introduction, Prison Break, & Chapter 1 Forestria Beginning.
Royal Bounty HD - Part 2 Video: Chapter 1 Forestria Continued.
Royal Bounty HD - Part 3 Video: Chapter 1 Forestria Final Stages, Cool Unit Upgrades, Chapter 2 The Lost Scroll Teaser, & Peasant Upgrade MEGA Money Making Trick.