Thoughts on coming back to King's Bounty

[Zhuangzi]

I was lucky enough to hear about King's Bounty at the ideal time, just before the release of The Legend in 2008. I remember downloading the demo (which only allowed you to play through Greenwort) and playing that at least 5-6 times. Then when the game was released, I completed the campaign five times within a few months, which added up to more than 300 hours of game play. Twice on hard, three times on impossible (I still have the save files).

When I was waiting for Armored Princess to come out, I discovered that the game was already out in Russian, so I ended up downloading that. You wouldn't think you could play a game through to completion in a language you don't read, but I played the AP campaign through to the end on medium in Russian. True story Then I bought AP when it came out in English and I must have completed that at least three times. AP was the best KB game for me. Even though I liked TL, I preferred the shorter campaign in AP and the increased number of levels (50) for the smaller number of fights (about 300). AP is also much more non-linear than TL. I got into the 'no losses' craze in AP and managed to complete all three classes with no losses on Impossible, but that did get tedious eventually. It's really just Paladin + Phantom x infinity when you get down to it.

Crossworlds was okay, but because I'd played AP so much I couldn't be bothered playing Orcs of the Marsh (which is 90% the same as the AP campaign). The other short campaigns were nice but I couldn't help but feel we'd been a little short changed. I think there must have been at least a year or perhaps two between Crossworlds and Warriors of the North, and I stopped playing KB altogether during this time. Warriors of the North turned out to be a big disappointment to me and I only played it once through (93 hours according to Steam just for one play through!). The campaign was long and tedious, the quests dull and the locations the same as in The Legend.

Another year went past and I didn't expect to play KB again, at least not until a new game came out. Recently I tried the free KB: Legions and was utterly horrified at the new low that KB had sunk to. I played the game for about 20 mins then uninstalled. But I had six weeks off of work recently so I got out my TL DVD and re-installed it. To my surprise, I found that I really liked the Darion component of the campaign. Those first four areas were the best in that game, in my opinion. Freedom Islands was okay but somewhat grinding, and I ended up getting bored by the beginning of the Kordar section. The problem with TL now is the huge number of fights (500+) and the small number of levels (30), making the game very grinding. Plus there's no medals and the rune trees aren't as good as they were in later games, making the game ultimately a bit tedious. Despite this, I felt strongly that the quest design and level design was much better in TL than in the later games (especially when compared to WoTN). For example, Marshan Swamp, the location we were so disappointed not to be able to play through in WoTN, is very well designed and fun to play through.

So then I heard that a new WoTN expansion was coming (more than a year after the initial game) and like others here I was very skeptical. I was having fun at that time with TL and I didn't want to grind through WoTN again just to play another 20 hours of content. But the DLC came out and it was only $9 on steam and I thought 'what the hell?' I'm glad I got it. I've only just completed Nordlig now but I liked the new creature xp concept and some of the new units like the Mystic. So far I think they have definitely improved on the original WoTN, but we'll see...

So there you have it, my thoughts on the series. I still think AP is the best overall campaign (not too grinding, quite non-linear, varied units) whereas TL had the best attention to detail and level design. WoTN, I think we can all agree, was inferior to either TL or AP, but I'm hopeful that with the later refinements to the series (improved rune trees, medals, spells, and now creature xp) the Ice and Fire expansion might be worthwhile after all. I bought TL once, AP twice, CW once, WoTN once and Ice and Fire once and overall they were the best gaming purchases I ever made. I expect I've played a combined total of around 1000 hours of King's Bounty...