Analysis of King's Bounty

[Zechnophobe]

I shall divide this into through nugget sized chunks, for easier digestion.

1. What separates KB series from other similar games?
2. What advances have been made from KBTL?
3. A Systems Analysis of KBAP

What separates KB series from other similar games?

King's Bounty is a very similar game to those in the Hero's of Might and Magic Series, and also shares a lot of elements with fantasy tactics games, Xcom, etc. But KB does a lot of things noticeably better than these other franchises:

When compared to the HOMM line of games, KB has very elegantly removed all of the Bullshit. The parts of HOMM that really wasn't fun, like macro managing a group of castles... which boiled down to basically just building things each day. The turn based system where you moved over the overland map in little chunks, instead of free flowingly. Probably the most important change is the addition of Leadership. HOMM is very stingy about giving you more units, since there is no cap on how many you can have. They are also simultaneously unwilling to help you resurrect your dead units... compare resurrection skill in AP to that in, say, HOMM4.

Leadership as a mechanic means that you can fight all your battles at full strength, and are not constantly trying to pick up another few units. This was made additionally annoying because to pick up those troops you would have to slowly travel back to a city, or dwelling or whatnot. Uggh.

Comparing KB to other tactical games... well, that's a bigger bucket. Most tactical games involve the advancement of troops on the battlefield, as opposed to the army as a whole. In KB, your RPG-esque advancement is centered on the Hero... which basically means the entire army gets better as time goes on. Giving you a single vector for advancement cuts down on a lot of the micro management of this advancement. No going over large rosters of combatants trying to figure out how to tweak or equip each one. Just a hero.

Similarly, the combat arena's are very dense with action. I'll talk more about this in part 3 of this, but let me point out that the terrain, movement speeds, and summonable effects are all well balanced, and make for a lot of interesting strategic decisions, that are often missed in other tactical games.


Short Version

KB is faster and more streamlined than HOMM, and removes unnecessary elements. It is easier to manage, and has more punch than a lot of other Tactical games.