Demo reviews:

[Stever717]

Taggart says " DITTO! "

[Imperial Dane]

Well i would be cautious about calling this a review overall

But my Impressions from the Demo were fantastic, i mean where should i start?

The graphics while perhaps not the newest are used to their fullest extent with beatiful textures, great scenery and lovely little villages, the portraits themselves are excellent as well.
I mean one can stare at the scenery for quite some time and never get bored with it.
You have the aboveground forests and waters, open and happy and the more darker and sinister woods out in the sides, you have darkened caves with the occasional ray of light and cellars and dungeons as well. Even the arenas have been given quite a lot of work
Spells are quite colourful as well without being directly gaudy.

If we go for the RPG aspects, Kings bounty shines as well, while not having any stat heavy system, it does have a lot of text, quests and choices, allowing for some nice roleplaying if that is what you want (i know i want it ) and overall a lot of effort has been put into it with item descriptions and plenty of possibilites of delving into background lore if that is what you wish.. the only thing i miss here would be descriptions for the units themselves, like in Heroes V just to use an example, where beyond just stats there would also be some background info on the units.
And the english is impeccable so no need to worry there.

Combat is nicely done as well with several clever ideas added into it, beyond just having chests there are other things that might appear to change the battlefield, different sorts of altars and statues that might aid you or your enemy with equal chance.
I also liked how horsemen were capable of charging themselves if they had the movement to do it..

and the skill trees were fun as well, i quite liked the fact that certain skills could greatly change some of the units under your command giving them new abilities, although as far as i could see those were a rarity. But i quite liked being able to give my bowmen fire arrows.

The only actual problem i encountered was a tiny music problem in the game where it once in awhile would stutter heavily for a few seconds, but then everything just returns to normal.

So to sum it up, plenty of fantastic stuff.. my only complaint is that there isn't more if it like descriptions for the units

But definately a must have game if you ask me

Edit: But i must not forget to mention that exploration and having a good eye is rewarded as well, as if you look around you'll find plenty of eggs of different sorts and other goodies

[Ryder]

Great game, of that there is no doubt. Almost everything about it oozes class. My favorite quest was the one with the cursed ring. They way you have to make it uncursed, who would of thunk it? It's good because it's different. Dont have to praise it anymore, the previous posters have done that for me.

My only complaints are

1. The camera movement. Is it at all possible to have the camera in a fixed position behind the hero or something?

2. If I click somewhere on the map that is behind some trees for example, I want the hero to follow the path to get to that point, not run up to the trees and then stop.

Maybe I've been spoiled in H5 with that last point.

Counting down the days for the release. Gotta go and play another class.

[markgil]

sounds like this game is living up to expectations and then some!

how many expansions are planned for KB btw? i thought i read that there were going to be at least 2.

thanks.

[Imperial Dane]

Originally Posted by markgil

sounds like this game is living up to expectations and then some!

how many expansions are planned for KB btw? i thought i read that there were going to be at least 2.

thanks.

Perhaps you should start up a new thread for expansion talk ? Would be better instead of cluttering this thread up.

[KingImp]

Okay, here is my quick review. Sorry boys and girls, but it's not going to be all positive.

Yes, the graphics are beautiful and this is one of, if not the best looking world I have seen in a long time. The small amount of spells are okay (yes, I know it's limited in the demo), but where it really gets cool is using the Spirits of Rage. That Swamp Monster (can't recall the name right now) with it's Shoal attack is awesome. You can wipe out whole armies using that thing.

I do have to say though that I'm not impressed with running around on the map. It's hard to see where you are going as it doesn't allow you to scroll ahead to see if the coast is clear and numerous times when being chased, I got caught because I kept running into things. That brings me to another point. The path detection in this game is awful. If I tell my hero to run to a certain post, I expect them to find the best route possible and run there. In this game I have numerous times seen them run straight into an object that they could have easily gone around and then they just stop.

Also have to say I am not impressed at the experience and leveling up. I can't count how many fights I had, yet I still just hit level 4. I'm getting like 10 exp. points per fight and it's taking forever. That and it hasn't once prompted me to level up my hero's special abilities. We have this big "tree system" for leveling up, yet it hasn't even offered me anything new. I'm hoping this is all because it's just a demo and it works properly in the full version.

Lastly, this is neither a good, nor bad thing. Just an observation and a question. I have all these quests, but I don't think it's possible to finish them all. Every time I try to go through a portal to where the quest tells me I have to go, it says "This area not available in the demo."
Is it actually possible to even finish all the quests here?


Overall, the game is very addicting, but I was kinda expecting a bit more. Hopefully it really shines in the final version because I'm not blown away here.

[pkt-zer0]

Based on the demo, the game seems to be excellent in every aspect except for the translation. Great overall presentation. The music, while good, seemed to get a bit repetitive after some time, though I'll chalk this up to being limited to a single area. (I'm guessing other areas have differing music tracks) The combat system strikes a nice balance between simplicity and depth - the core mechanics are pretty basic, but having lots of varied abilities allows for quite interesting scenarios. It's as complex as it needs to be, not any more complex. Outside of battles, the items laying all around the place make exploration worthwhile. Quests add some flavour to the basic "kill enemies, upgrade, repeat" gameplay, but a lot of the humour is unfortunately lost due to the translation. It's hard to get a good idea of long-term balance and gameplay from the demo, so can't comment on that. The Starforce copy protection is another negative for me.

Overall, the demo definitely sold me on the game, even though I never really liked any of the HoMM games. It's like Age of Wonders in that way for me: like HoMM, except good. I'll be sure to buy it after it's un-Starforced.