Demo reviews:

[Capitaine NicOol]

Originally Posted by Nike-it

It's a question of balance, Hawker is right, that most people will choose leadership. So I don't think it will very interesting to have very strong army at the begining and defeat all enemies just in one turn. During the game you wiil be able to gain enough leadership to play comfortable

IMO that can be balanced with numbers. Don't know if I'm nostalgic or not but I feel something is missing, picking up treasures is a bit blank now gameplay wise. Not a major concern though.

[Coin-coin le Canapin]

Hi ! o/
I've been waiting this game since a long time.
I loves Heroes of Might and Magic serie, as well as Age of Wonders.
There is no new AoW game, and I didn't play HOMM 5 a lot, because it was released too early (too much bugs and stuff), and I didn't play it again even with the released patches that fixed that.
So, I'm very happy to see a new game based on the same concept.
I've played the demo with a mage, and next with a warrior. With this second character, I think I've finished all the available map (locations, monsters, quests) in normal difficulty mode. I've also finished the two first trainings in the castle (level 3 and 6).

So, let me share my opinion. But before, please excuse me if my explanations aren't good, english is not my native language. :]

First, the real time makes the map gameplay more "smooth". The bad point is that the real time doesn't have any real implication in the game.
When you play a mage, you can just wait all as you want until your mana increases to the maximum (even if the rage decreases...)
It also seems that there's no monster respawn or stuff like that. The game seems to be kind of... timeless, and it is sad.

The dig ability is funny, but it really should have a ~1 minute cooldown or something like that, because you can move and press D all the time without paying attention at the clues (the light rays).
The skill trees are a good idea too, but the skills are maybe too much conventional. Difficult to judge their true effect without playing the full game.

The graphics ROCK, and there are tons of nice details. the illustrations are beautiful. The musics are nice too, but the sound effects (fights and so on) are too much... Soft. They have a lack of "power", if you see what I mean.

The talks and descriptions are well written and often funny (the hero's appearance with the cart wheel and pot, the baby taking "his place in your heart and in your wife's equipment slot"...).
The camera : I don't like to have to moving it all the time... and the keyboard controls for the hero are a good idea, but it turns too slow (the hero AND the camera ).

Actually, the game seems to be very good, and I think I'll buy it for the release.

Oh, and just a question to finish : is it normal that Evil Shoal spell is that powerful in the demo ?




edit : oops, I didn't see the thread about reviews, if a mod can move my message...

[hawker]

Rage abilities in the demo are very powerful, because in full game you're not getting them until a couple of quests (and levels) later.


I wish the demo had a goal of some sort, and that the quests that lead to unaccessible areas were changed.

[Imperial Dane]

How is picking up treasures blank ? Sure you get no choice, but there is always the chance that you get something else than gold.

But again, quite happy with the demo and the only thing i felt was lacking was some background descriptions for the units, i mean they have them for the items, so why not units ? Could be used to explain bits and pieces.. like why emerald green dragons apparently hate giants

[LordFess]

Remember we are reviewing a DEMO not the FINISHED GAME...IMHO this was a VERY,VERY,VERY nice oportunity for me to try the game out. In fact as DEMOS go it is probably the nicest DEMO I have played in many years...I offer my thanks to all that had a hand in making it available to me so I could see that I am getting much more than my money's worth. I just feel like I have hit the jackpot with this one in every way!! Thanks again!!

[phoenixreborn]

To clarify why there are some 'uncompleteable quests' the demo is the complete game which you can unlock the rest of with a serial number...like it tells you every time you start the demo.

[Jan4]

Ok here goes, first of all I really enjoyed the demo, I love the atmosphere, graphics, gameplay and all the little details. The love that the game creators have put into this game really shows. but there are some minor issues that I would like to point out since mainly all reviews have just underlined the things that work and are really good, I'm pretty amazed that no one else has yet mentioned these.

First of all, the combat, I love the strategic turn-based combat, and the animations are very nice, but already after a 20 battles, I get bored to the slow movement animations, all the charaters take time to rotate, wave their sword etc. all nice details at first, but especially when fighting "cannon fodder" aka. enemies that don't really pose any threat or require much strategy, I would really like an option to speed up the combat animations. All the HOMM games have had this, and I would say it really has proved it's worth, especially later on. This issue is not a show stopper, but slow animations get really annoying later on.

The second issue, very small though, but I can't quite understand, is that the floating numbers when you hit a character show the damage, but not the number of creatures you kill with your blow. (I know, the bottom bar shows it, but the floating numbers are easier to follow IMHO)

The third issue is with the camera-rotation, there really should be way to adjust how fast the camera rotates, and way to invert rotation would also be nice. Rotating the camera is really too fast, it spins like crazy when I try to rotate just a little, maybe an issue with
too good FPS on my PC

[spamm]

Originally Posted by LordFess

Remember we are reviewing a DEMO not the FINISHED GAME

Game in Russia have already let out in April

Originally Posted by Coin-coin le Canapin

The camera : I don't like to have to moving it all the time...

Try this mod:
mod_eng_demo_camera.zip

The maximum distance of the camera is increased with 18 to 36

install:
Put a file "mod_eng_demo_camera.kfs" in a folder "gamedir"\data\mods
for demo: Launch New Game

[Imperial Dane]

Originally Posted by phoenixreborn

To clarify why there are some 'uncompleteable quests' the demo is the complete game which you can unlock the rest of with a serial number...like it tells you every time you start the demo.

Not quite, i don't know why it is there, but it is just a demo, it is the same size as the polish one and that didn't do that..

[Coin-coin le Canapin]

Originally Posted by Jan4

I would really like an option to speed up the combat animations. All the HOMM games have had this, and I would say it really has proved it's worth, especially later on. This issue is not a show stopper, but slow animations get really annoying later on.

The second issue, very small though, but I can't quite understand, is that the floating numbers when you hit a character show the damage, but not the number of creatures you kill with your blow. (I know, the bottom bar shows it, but the floating numbers are easier to follow IMHO)

The third issue is with the camera-rotation, there really should be way to adjust how fast the camera rotates, and way to invert rotation would also be nice. Rotating the camera is really too fast, it spins like crazy when I try to rotate just a little, maybe an issue with
too good FPS on my PC

There is such an option, but with only two values (normal and fast). Fast is nice, but slower than the super fast option in homm.
I guess it's quite easy to create a mod speeding up the animations.
I agree for the second issue you mentioned.
About the camera, you can edit the speed by editing My Documents\My Games\Kings Bounty Demo\Game.ini with notepad.
Look at the lines :
setf ~map_camera_sens 0.200000
setf ~map_camera_wheel_sens -0.500000
setf ~map_camera_dist_sens 15.550000
setf ~arena_camera_sens_x 0.100000
setf ~arena_camera_sens_y 0.100000
setf ~arena_camera_wheel_sens 0.500000

spamm : I put the file in
King’s Bounty - The Legend demo\data\mods, but it doesn't work. Any specifical trick to do with the demo version, or just not working?