Four Stars and a Half for King´s Bounty

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 24 Sep 2008, 13:52

GameSpy is the first major gaming site to publish a review of Katauri Interactive's <b>King's Bounty: The Legend</b>. The game didn't disappoint them, as shown by the impressive score of 4.5 starts out of five. Here are a few quotes:

<i>"Katauri Interactive's recreation and update of this system does their team and the legacy of New World Computing proud. King's Bounty's battle system is incredibly deep and enjoyable, more than a match for the original game or any of the classic Heroes of Might and Magic games they inspired."

"(...) While the game has already been on store shelves in Russia for several months, publishers Atari and 1C made a point of trying to make sure that the game got a good translation for the English-speaking market. The grammatically challenged, typo-ridden and poorly written game text doesn't seem to have benefited from the extra effort."</i>

Check out the full article <a href="/http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/battle-lord/91 ... l">here</a>.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1222264319

Tarnum · Unread postby **Tarnum** » 24 Sep 2008, 14:28

IMHO KBL deserves this credit. Gamespy is right - Katauri is the real successor of NWC, unlike Ubival. When I saw at the end of demo credits "tribute to Jon Van Caneghem", believe it or not - I was crying. Yeah, the true spirit of true Might and Magic games is comming.
Edited on Wed, Sep 24 2008, 10:41 by Tarnum

Darmani · Unread postby **Darmani** » 24 Sep 2008, 20:47

I'm very fond of Dark Messiah personally, but I must agree -- KBL is a labor of love (especially considering it was started as a spiritual successor before becoming an official successor), while HV was just Ubi sensing HoMM's value and putting Nival to work. DMoMM is also a labor of love, but it's very tangential to the franchise.

konfeta · Unread postby **konfeta** » 24 Sep 2008, 22:28

Incredible, a HoMM5 bashing moment by the first comment. Must be a new record.

Zamolxis · Unread postby **Zamolxis** » 25 Sep 2008, 00:09

@konfeta: What do you expect, when the difference is so striking between a big company who saw in the franchise a good milking cow, bought it at a bargain price, and gave it for developing to some Warhammer fans (on one hand), and - on the other hand - a group of KB/HoMM lovers, with respect of JVC and real understanding of the universe he created, who did their best to deliver a product which will probably more original than H5, and in the same time perhaps more true to the spirit of KB, than H5 was to the spirit of any HoMM game?

I think what's more inappropriate in this thread is your cheap attempt of making fun of a fellow forum user, who simply expressed his happiness that finally somebody is reviving also the spirit (not just the zombified body) of HoMM.

danijel1990 · Unread postby **danijel1990** » 25 Sep 2008, 05:00

As much as I like playing HoMM V, I had to downloaded the KB:L demo, to try it until it gets in European stores...and the download definitely payed off!
The game has fun battle system, graphic is very nice, and gameplay is on very high level! Thumbs up from me!

Ravenheart87 · Unread postby **Ravenheart87** » 25 Sep 2008, 05:36

All hail Katauri, they did great job. While there are developers, who love their games and care about the gamers, there is hope that we'll once hear about a spiritual successor of HoMM2 or M&M.

Tarnum · Unread postby **Tarnum** » 25 Sep 2008, 14:13

Exactly Mitzah. But Ubival'll never sell the franchise to M&M title - Pseudoheroes V (original wasn't finished) and Dark Messiah were too big commercial success. The only thing we can pray is JvC's Trion World Network Creating "Might and Magic Online", the biggest dream of Jon, NWC and their fans.

Moragauth · Unread postby **Moragauth** » 25 Sep 2008, 14:45

Yawn, more HoMM V bashing. Get over it already. If you dislike Ubisoft, take your clientele elsewhere. Personally I like both games, and personally, I like HV much more than I did any previous instalment of the series. How heretical of me! Then again, I do not expect Ubisoft to be NWC. Perhaps Ubisoft should've just given the game another name, like HoMM: Kingdoms or something, rather than creating the game as a sequel to its predecessors.

That said, I do find KB very nicely done, so I will definitely be buying it. At worst it'll keep me busy until Disciples III. It seems fun though. Who knows, perhaps its developer is a worthy NWC successor.
Edited on Thu, Sep 25 2008, 10:55 by Moragauth

rdeford · Unread postby **rdeford** » 25 Sep 2008, 18:02

I agree totally with Moragauth. H5 is a great game. As she says, get over it. NWC is gone forever (makes me cry too Tarnum) and no amount of H5 bashing is going to bring it back, and it just might put a hex on H6.

As for KB-L, well the demo played well, but the quests were a little shallow in my opinion and might get boring fast. My wife loved it but wished there were female heroes. She has a good point. We will buy it anyway, but hopefully there will be an expansion with female heroes, or some way for fans to mod the game. Oh, and I liked the "nostalgic" look to the graphics, but they might limit sales in today's world of somewhat jaded FPS, young gamers. But on second thought, the TBS combat makes it unlikely that those folks will ever buy it anyway.

As for Trion, well, I never met a MMORPG that I liked. Too may humans out there who are reptiles in disguise to spoil things for real people. And, I detest monthly payments. Make an option for King's Bounty mutiplayer over a LAN and that would be pretty darn good. I have friends with whom I'd love to play.

Edited on Thu, Sep 25 2008, 14:06 by rdeford

konfeta · Unread postby **konfeta** » 25 Sep 2008, 21:17

And thus Zamolxis throws up the Banner of Righteousness and celebrates the Spirit of HoMM while shamelessly bashing HoMM 5.

Incredible. The urge to bash Nival and/or Ubisoft must be too strong to resist. Even though they have produced a game that plenty of hard-core HoMM fans are finding to be an enjoyable and worthy successor of NWC work.

You are essentially insinuating that HoMM 5 is "an inferior product" because it lacks the "spirit of HoMM." By extension, anyone who views that as patently wrong and believes that HoMM 5 is a worthy successor to the HoMM series is somehow betraying the holiness that this "spirit" is. Even though to call King's Bounty a "HoMM game" is about as accurate as giving that label to the Disciples series.

HoMM and King's Bounty are now vastly different series. KB:L is a true continuation and inheritor of, *gasp* King's Bounty and King's Bounty's "spirit" and should be viewed as such. The thing that is truly incredibly inappopriate to do here is to hijack this game as a tool to bash HoMM5 and its creators. King's Bounty: Legend is not a HoMM game. It's a King's Bounty game. No more, no less.
Edited on Thu, Sep 25 2008, 17:17 by konfeta

Darmani · Unread postby **Darmani** » 26 Sep 2008, 01:37

Calm yourself, konfeta. There's no need to be hostile and pull a slippery slope or strawman.

As much as I have to scratch my head everytime I hear someone call HoMM V the best of the series, I respect their right to have an opinion and agree with the HoMM V philosophy, and I expect you to respect the rights of others to strongly disagree.

waffen · Unread postby **waffen** » 26 Sep 2008, 05:26

Rdeford, there will be expansion with female heroes, this is confirmed in official russian site.

Darian Raketh · Unread postby **Darian Raketh** » 26 Sep 2008, 06:20

Finally downloaded the demo and played for a couple of hours.

Really like the look and feel, although it has modern day graphics it has an olde feel to it when playing.

Combat seems slow but actually I'll be buying this game.

Moragauth · Unread postby **Moragauth** » 26 Sep 2008, 14:06

I wonder what races the expansion will bring with it.

bltbri · Unread postby **bltbri** » 26 Sep 2008, 14:07

I picked up Kings Bounty yesterday and, although it installed fine, it only supports the most recent video cards or at least not my Radeon 9200. Bummer, because I was really looking forward to playing this.

Metathron · Unread postby **Metathron** » 27 Sep 2008, 13:12

Digital Chumps Review - 8.8

kerhonker · Unread postby **kerhonker** » 29 Sep 2008, 12:19

Very Good game, will hold your interest

michiganjf · Unread postby **michiganjf** » 30 Sep 2008, 23:38

The game is really good and lots of fun. Battles benefit from smart tactics much more than in HOMM, mostly due to the excellent mix of creature abilities and a more efficient use of battlefield space. Moving around on the large map is better in HOMM5, but that hasn't detracted much from my enjoyment of the game. The spirit of the original King's Bounty is well respected, but of course the game is greatly enhanced from the original. I consider this game a must for any true Heroes fan who enjoys single player as much as multiplayer.

discostu · Unread postby **discostu** » 01 Oct 2008, 22:08

bltbri -=> No offense dude, but you can't reasonably expect the game to run on that video card. The Radeon 9200 is a budget card from -5- generations ago (no exaggeration), so I would not say it is reasonable to expect it to work. You could buy a new budget video card for $40 a play this game (9400 GT for ex.)

The Heroes Round Table