King's Bounty review on CRPG.ru

[MetalCraze]

one of Space Rangers 1 & 2 tunes is "borrowed" from NFS3 btw

the original tune plays at the second canyon map there.

 

[Hamster]

Skyway, get lost :D

 

[Balor]

Well, Hamster is right. The game is indeed beautiful, but has pretty low system reqs. People had been rather comfortably playing it on 9600xt, for instance.

I didn't encounter any bugs, and gameplay is rock-solid. Been playing on hard, and it's indeed not easy to play w/o casualties. (Playing as mage).

By the way, there are HEAPS of quests, some of them are nonlinear, with lots of pretty well-written text. Finally developers are starting to understand that you should hire professionals, whether it's programming or writing dialogues, hah.
Didn't get too far myself (level 4), but so far it's very good, at least on SR level of 'fun', if from a different angle.

 

[Texas Red]

Is absolutely everything on par with general standards? While I immensely enjoyed HoMM 5, it had ridiculous cutscenes and dialogs.

Don't listen to Skyway, he's a rogue(rouge?) Russian. We should all rejoice when Russians finally get a game right, not nitpick.

Can you guys with the game go in to more detail about character development? Do you have classes or skills? Is it addictive? Loot gathering is enjoyable? etc.

Or anyway, you should just write up a briefly how the game actually works.

 

[RadioGnome Invisible]

Well, Hamster is right. The game is indeed beautiful, but has pretty low system reqs. People had been rather comfortably playing it on 9600xt, for instance.

I didn't encounter any bugs, and gameplay is rock-solid. Been playing on hard, and it's indeed not easy to play w/o casualties. (Playing as mage).

Lucky you. The game keeps crashing on me, and i'm using "crashing" for the loss of a better word. One moment i'm playing it, the other stare at Windows desktop in total surprise. No crash messages, no error records in system or application logs, no nothing. The game just exits, disappeares from PC's memory, like it was never there. All the battles featuring ghosts are 75% guaranteed crash. Also, i can't seem to throw away any scrolls - any attempt results in immediate crash. It also randomly crashed couple of times on the adventure map, east of the king's castle.
Maybe it's downloadable version's bugs only, thanks to extra activation process, i don't know.
All in all, the game is fun, tho a bit repetitive. Balance is good for now, at least not like Ascension to the Throne's "get-as-much-archers-as-you-can-and-ignore-the-rest" trainwreck.

 

[Balor]

Perhaps. I have DVD version with patch 1.2 installed. Only bugs I've encoutered are some typos in ability descs. No crashes whatsoever.
Back to playing .

 

[MetalCraze]

Skyway, get lost :D

just give me moar reviews. especially combat reviews and how good is storyline. because great TB combat and a good storyline are the things I miss in games.

Don't listen to Skyway, he's a rogue(rouge?) Russian

proud rogue Russian! can't you do it right?

 

[Balor]

Aren't you a rogue Ukraininan? :p

Anyway, storyline is pretty usual fantasy fare so far, but well-written. Written by Pehov - he's pretty good writer.
And TB combat is TB combat everywhere. Tons of units with heaps of abilities, active and passive - what's not to like?

 

[MetalCraze]

Aren't you a rogue Ukraininan? :p

TWD likes to call Ukrainians - rogue Russians. I don't want to take the pleasure away from him.

Anyway, storyline is pretty usual fantasy fare so far, but well-written. Written by Pehov - he's pretty good writer.
And TB combat is TB combat everywhere. Tons of units with heaps of abilities, active and passive - what's not to like?

I wonder how well are they balanced and fun. because you know this curse of TB combat - you just find some uber-unit with one single uber-ability and the fun goes downhill. especially in chess-type TB combat games.

 

[RadioGnome Invisible]

I wonder how well are they balanced and fun. because you know this curse of TB combat - you just find some uber-unit with one single uber-ability and the fun goes downhill. especially in chess-type TB combat games.

The supply of powerful units is kind of limited (for example, 30 inquisitors total), and does not seem to repelnish over time. You run out of them, you're stuck with peasants and basic level swordsmen. Moreover, high level creatures require high leadership, so you won't be able to stockpile them early in the game.
At least for now.

 

[Deacdo]

I wonder about the game's tactical depth. Such small maps, no raised terrain or other obstructions etc. After playing Age of Wonders going back to HoMM was pretty much impossible, for me.

 

[Hamster]

I made some screenshots:

main menu

character creation
You can choose one of three classes (fighter, paladin, mage), name, dificulty level and your heraldics.

starting dungeon

main view

king's castle
king's castle
king's castle
You can talk with the king and his daughter and take a first quest of main storyline.
Girl will also ask you to bring her a present from distant lands, i am unsure if this is a quest or not.
You can also buy items and hire troops at the castle

Dwarf and his airship
You can ask him some questions and offer to find spare parts for his airship.

area map

world map

quest journal

 

[TheLostOne]

Fuck me, but I'd have that game's babies based on looks alone. That's fucking beautiful art direction IMO, but I can see how some wouldn't care for it. It oozes charm without seeming overly cartoony like the Warcrafts became.

Look forward to hearing more gameplay impressions.

Edit: Thanks for posting those screens.

 

[Atrokkus]

Yeah I love the artwork, and gameplay sounds like a pretty sweet deal, so I'll prbably give it a whirl. It doesn't really look like Warcraft, and hell I love warcraft1-2-3 art direction so I woulnd't mind if it did, either.

 

[Texas Red]

Updated impressions?

So what's the deal with this Disciples 3 game? Another HoMM clone?

 

[Micmu]

So what's the deal with this Disciples 3 game? Another HoMM clone?

Similar (simpler), but not the same. Units are not by army (numbers) but single, each with it's own XP and multiple upgrade branches. Also, combat in D1 and D2 was different (very simple, you couldn't move units). In D3 it'll be more like in HoMM.
Also, spells are researched and cast mostly on the map. Kinda like AoW, but simpler.

 

[Atrokkus]

There has always been a world of difference between HOmm and Disciples, and D3 draws heavily upon the older Disciples games, so this principle applies.

 

[Hamster]

Updated impressions?

It's awesome, can't stop playing. Lot's of quests(fed-ex mostly, but some with multiple outcomes and moral decisions too), lot's of charachters with interesting and well written dialogues, all set in beatiful inviroments. Combat is also fun , all units have different special abilities(much more noticable than in homm, for example wolfs have "fear" ability which takes away control of your low level units and forbids them to attack higher level units, presense of wolfs can change the course of battle completely).
The balancing factor in combat is leadership, you can only buy as much units of one type as allowed by your current leadership, so you cannot just buy 500 archers and pwn everybody. You gain leadership on level-ups and by gathering banners scatered around the countryside.
Locations are not levelscaled, there are both weak and strong opponents, some you can defeat, but you will have to flee from others.

 

[Balor]

Updated impressions?

It's awesome, can't stop playing.

Everything what he said. Great tactical RPG. Some balance issues are evident (like Sacrifice spell), but I guess that would be fixed before it will ship overseas.

 

[Xi]

This is possibly the only game I have an ounce of interest in on the PC side. Looks good so far. Space Rangers set a high standard for me.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Hamster pinpointed the strongest aspect of the game: all units have special abilities, both active and passive, which can completely turn the tide of battle if used smartly. Another great bit is introduction of damage types and resistances. For example, human swordsmen ignore 30% of physical damage. Combined with their pretty high HP amount this makes them a great tank unit with one big but: poisonous spiders and snakes, flame-breathing creatures, and mages laugh at swordsmen's resistance and can pwn them in seconds.

 

[Texas Red]

You guys convinced me to buy this game. Unfortunetly my Russian reading isn't so good . Russian game industry: 1, Germany: 0.

Wait a minute, what are the system requirements? I have 1.5 ram, Nvidia 6600, 2.80 GHz.

I loved HoMM 5(aside from the cutscenes) but the later missions were so impossibly fucked up: you had to follow a certain route to win, if not, you lose. Plus I hated having 2 heroes and having to juggle them around.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Wait a minute, what are the system requirements?

Minimum:
2.6 GHz CPU
1 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 6800 128 MB

Recommended:
3 GHz CPU
2 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB

I guess you'll need a new video card. Don't bother with additional RAM: I have only one gig and loading never takes more than 7 seconds.

 

[Balor]

Well, I have a AMD 2400 at work, and it runs just fine with shadows off. 2400 is pretty weak card, and people agree that it's pretty undemanding game (when it comes to sysreqs)... in fact, it's one of rarer games where stated sysreqs are, in fact, more then adequate.

 

[pkt-zer0]

So, how about some updated updated impressions? Finished/got bored of the game yet?