King's Bounty review on CRPG.ru

[Gragt]

I just hope it does not require a card supporting pixel shaders 3.0 else I won't be able to play it.

 

[The Exar]

I downloaded this game a couple of days ago and I'm going to buy it. Definetly. Shame the C1 online store doesn't support the payment options available to me but I'll call a friend in Moscow to buy.

After more than 10 hours of playing I feel obliged to share my thoughts... This game is a jewel. Really, it's not as open and free as Space Rangers 2 and at first it seems the gameplay isn't as rich and varied but this feeling quickly fades as you get deeper into the game.

Overview:
For my first character I created a mage and started on the max possible difficulty. After I passed the trials and was granted a noble title and the job of King's Treasure Hunter/Seeker I was introduced to the king who gave me my first assignment.
The first thing that strikes you is the beauty of the adventure map. The models are full of color and life. It really looks like a fairy tale. The landscape is varied - form the classical grassy plains and wet swamps to the cliffs of the gryphons and the islands of the pirates. There is also a graveyard area. And that's not even half the game.
The main things you do in the game are fighting, solving quests, exploring and of course - hunting for treasures. The things you DON'T DO are managing castles and having party members.

The Creatures
Remember Heroes where one could see all the fairy tale and mythology world has to offer? Here it is just the same. The creatures are divided in factions which include: Humans, Elves, Gnomes, Undead, Orcs, Demons and Neutrals. Each one includes a different number of creatures each one with unique abilities though creatures of the same faction share common traits. For example the Humans have Swordsmen, Guardsmen, Paladins, Cavalrymen who all possess a passive ability that reduces the physical damage taken. However their other troops - Peasant, Archers, Priests, Inqusitors, Archmages and other don't have it. The Undead for example are strongly resistant to poison. The other races I'm still not very familiar with.

Your army
The size of your army is based on your Leadership. It limits the number of different creatures you can control. I'll give an example. You have 500 Leadership. A single archer requires 50 Leadership. So you can take maximum 10 Archers in your army. Leadership doesn't limit the total number of creatures in the whole army but the number of creatures in each stack. So it's not a problem to fill all the remaining stack (6 or 7, I don't remember) with other creatures as long as their total individual Leadership requirement isn't above your own. Leadership is raised mainly through collecting flags. There is a talent that raises Leadership and you can add more points when leveling up.

The Characters
... are 3: Fighter, Paladin and Mage. Fighter is the opposite of mage. The Paladin is sort of hybrid between the other two.

Generally the Fighter has the biggest amount of Leadership therefore the biggest armies. Additionally he accumulates Rage faster and has a bigger Rage pool. His talent tree is the tree of "Power". It includes talents that make your troops stronger and give them new skills in combat. The Fighter is the class that makes the best use of Rage and Spirits of Rage. His mana pool and spell suck. he can wield two weapons and his main skill is Attack (increases damage dealt by troops).

The Mage is a natural spellcaster. He has the worst Leadership and smallest armies. His rage management is far inferior to that of a fighter but still can be of use. His primary attribute is Intellect which increases damage dealt by spells (1 point = +10%). His talent tree is focused on boosting spell casting and mana management. His ultimate talent is the ability to cast spells twice per round (up to three times in combat).

I ran out of time so I'll try to write more later.

 

[The Exar]

The combat is Heroes-like. The biggest difference is action points. Walking doesn't end your turn unless you cover the maximum walking range: you can walk 2 tiles of max possible 3 then still perform an action unlike Heroes where you end your turn regardless of what you do (except wait). That means in one turn your archer may get out of melee range and still shoot. Of course using an ability, attacking or defending will end the turn automatically.

On my difficulty (Impossible) the encounters are pretty challenging. It is vital to keep your casualties minimal because creatures in castles and encampments are limited. Only in the capitol there are limitless amounts of creatures but they are usually weaklings. Some creatures on will join you but these are rare occasions. You can add units to your army from eggs (spiders and snakes), coffins (undead), sprouts (plants) and other items which you carry in inventory and can use any time you like.

Except the passive bonuses, our character can actively intervene in combat. That's done by casting spells or using The Casket of Rage.

The Spells
The Spells are pretty common with some nice exceptions like the Book of Evil - a mystical summoned book that casts really powerful spells but needs to consume creatures during combat to regain mana. I'd like to point that I'm not that far into the game and there are still many spells I haven't seen.
What makes a mage stronger in spellcasting? First - the Intellect attribute - every point adds 10% to spell damage and every 15 increase the duration of spells. So 20 Intellect increases your damage 3 times which might be devastating! Next - the talents. Getting your spell schools to max level (3) you are given the option to learn and UPGRADE each spell individually making it far more powerful than its basic version (and costly). Thankfully you can cast a downgraded version.

Will write more later...

 

[Hamster]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy...clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;title;1

The kingdom of Darion was once a peaceful place, but those days are over. The setting for the upcoming King's Bounty: The Legend is now populated by werewolves, necromancers, undead monsters, and man-eating plants that look like they were cultivated at the Little Shop of Horrors. As in any good fantasy game worth its weight in rupees, it's up to you as either a warrior, mage, or paladin class to clean up Darion and, above all, serve the king.

Combat in King's Bounty is turn-based and fraught with dragons.
We played through several hours of a demo version of King's Bounty and are pleased to report that fans of the old-school turn-based role-playing game should enjoy the familiar gameplay mechanics as well as a few new surprises. First we chose a mage from the three preset classes. There are no immediate player-customization options, but you will equip a number of items as well as pick and choose your way through skill trees moving forward. The mage specializes in magic, the warrior in combat, and the paladin dabbles in both. We went with the mage, simply because he had the coolest costume of the bunch.

Immediately you are thrust into the service of the king and told to undergo training with Iron Tooth Richard, a grizzled veteran soldier charged with teaching raw recruits. After enjoying a humorous text conversation with Richard, we started our first training test: to rescue the princess from the dragon. Movement throughout the gameworld is all in real time--simply point and click with your mouse to explore, pick up items, and converse with fellow citizens. Combat, on the other hand, brings you into a turn-based mode. Our mage didn't actually take to the battlefield himself. Instead, he had an army at his command with a number of unit types that fill five unit slots. In combat you may see a single peasant move across the honeycomb-shaped squares of the battlefield, but the number 27, for example, indicates there are really 27 peasants on the prowl for evil monsters.

We had a flaming-arrow magic attack available from the outset. It is only available once per turn and depletes the magic meter, but the powerful missile from the sky deals a lot of damage, and we couldn't resist using it over and over again against the wily dragons. The turns passed and the dragon blew fire at us, but the brave knight and his swordsmen proved victorious. The combat is slower paced, of course, but it's a nice throwback to the turn-based RPGs of old.

After passing Richard's tests, we entered the kingdom proper and met the king and his young daughter. We were enlisted as the king's treasure hunter for our ability to rustle up gold and told to go forth and collect the king's bounties. But first, we used the contents of our purse to replenish our unit slots with swordsmen and archers. As mentioned, Darion is a dangerous place.

On the adventure map, red dots indicate enemies. You can simply ride your horse around them and try to pick up crystals and gold littering the roadsides, or you can engage the enemies in battle. Then again, they may choose to engage you. Either way, the top-down adventure map reverts to the turn-based battle screen and you'll be forced to slay the enemies or perish. If you lose, you'll be returned to the castle, where you can purchase more units and replenish your ranks.

The demo version had plenty of invisible walls that kept us within a stone's throw of the castle, but there was one main quest available to dive into. Man-eating plants have invaded the area, making life miserable for a small village just outside the castle walls. The village leader told us to find the leader of the plants, a giant red plant, on the banks of nearby lake. Eventually we found the giant red plant and had a conversation with it. It seems that the soil of their native land was no longer "tasty," and the plants were forced to survive off "two-leggers..." or humans. In the branching dialogue tree we had the option to attack the monster at any time, but we chose instead to hear out its problems and return to the village leader and let him know the plants' predicament. He suggested we give the plant a cow to fertilize the plants' land, so we bought a cow, returned to the monster plant with the gift, and the monster promised not to eat the villagers anymore. Problem solved, quest log updated.

Choose your own path on skill trees based on your preferred play style. We like trying to kill everything that moves.
Our action was limited to this small area, but we did see several other kingdoms on the map, including the Freedom Islands, Ellinia, Kordar, and Murok. The typical races are in play: humans, dwarfs, elves, orcs, undeads, and demons. Thankfully you'll be able to outfit yourself in a number of interesting ways to better fend off your enemies. There are item slots for weapons, helmets, armor, shields, boots, and belts, with an endless number of options. The first helmet we found was actually a clay flowerpot; our first shield a wheel from a cart. We found it's best to head to the castle shop for more powerful--and expensive--items.

So far, we've enjoyed the smooth battle animations and sense of humor in the numerous text conversations. King's Bounty: The Legend has already won several awards in its native Russia, and is slated for release in North America later this year. Until then, fans of old-school RPGs certainly have something to look forward to.

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/157/939197_20080606_screen016.jpg

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/157/939197_20080606_screen018.jpg

 

[Castanova]

:shock:

The art in this game is sick!

 

[Gragt]

Hm, found an interview at IGN that says the game supports pixel shaders 2.0, not just 3.0, if it's true I'm in luck!

Then again other places claim it requires 3.0 so... I'm not sure at all.

 

[Dabrinko]

So, release in English, when? WHEN?

 

[pkt-zer0]

So, release in English, when? WHEN?

From the screenshots, it looks like it'll be more Engrish than English. Anyway, release is planned for "the 2008 holiday season". Considering that they already released a press demo, I'd hope that a public demo would be available sometime soon.

 

[Hamster]

From the screenshots, it looks like it'll be more Engrish than English.

Sucks for western users, in russian version quality of language is pretty high.

 

[Gwendo]

Thank you, russians, for beta testing it for us.

 

[MetalCraze]

Katauri is not known for buggy games

yet Katauri needs less fantasy and more free-form living worlds like SR

 

[CrimsonAngel]

As long as i can understand it and the Game is awesome then i can survive Engrish.

 

[Texas Red]

So can a 6600 Geforce run this baby?

 

[MetalCraze]

why not?

 

[Gwendo]

Downloaded the russian version, just to check it out.
Looks good. I would like to be able to zoom out a little bit more.
For now, it's only the sound effects that bothers me. (Lack of).

That and not being able to read russian

 

[Texas Red]

why not?

Because the requirements say it can't but the game itself doesn't look next gen enough. I can run HoMM V perfectly.

 

[MetalCraze]

Mass Effect requirements also said 6600 can't
if you have a ps3.0 vcard you're able to run everything on winxp - because it is its top limit

 

[Gragt]

Yeah and it's a pain for people who bought an x800xl, an aging but still very decent card that unfortunaly does not support pixel shaders 3.0, a feature many developpers seem to be forcing into their engines while forgetting to support pixel shaders 2.0 (something I heard is very easy to add). At least the recent games I wanted to play (like The Witcher) supported PS2.0 as well as PS3.0 (seems even games like Crysis or UT3, that do not interest me, also support PS2.0) and I did not care much for Bioshock or Mass Effect. But King's Bounty would be a pain to miss especially since the graphics do not look that advanced.

 

[pkt-zer0]

It doesn't seem to be overdoing it with the shader effects, it's just high-res textures and good art design. Per-pixel lighting is about as hardcore as it gets, or so it seems from the screenshots.
If it ends up not working on SM2 cards, I'd wager there'll be a fanmade fix for it, like with Bioshock.

 

[spacemoose]

this game does not look like something I'd enjoy. and the art direction borders on jrpg. what's with the clown armor and giant swords

 

[Higher Game]

Hopefully someone releases an Engrish --> English translation like many people do with console jRPGs. :D

 

[Micmu]

I'm waiting for Egnrshi -> English translation of Pathologic for two years now and it never happened.
I hope this won't be that bad, though.

 

[Texas Red]

Mass Effect requirements also said 6600 can't
if you have a ps3.0 vcard you're able to run everything on winxp - because it is its top limit

You have 6600? Did ME lag?

 

[MetalCraze]

ME lagged on 6600 like hell but it still worked.
sometimes I didn't really understand why the lags were there as they are the same in both very detailed outdoors and small indoor empty rooms.
I say lagged like hell and I really mean it.

 

[The Exar]

Looks good. I would like to be able to zoom out a little bit more.

There is already a fan mod to fix that.