14 DAY TRIAL // 
King's Bounty: The Legend is old school while also being innovative. And it's coming from a Russian developer, so you know you can expect something a little bit weird, like CD Projekt's The Witcher or STALKER from GSC Game World. It does not disappoint those who are into tactical battles and character development, even though the game, out of the box, has some well defined bugs and at times seems to be just too hard for the average gamer.
Other than that, King's Bounty: The Legend is a blast. You get a hero, you can recruit an army, you get spells, fight monsters, save princesses and defeat the baddies. What more could you want? Well, even if you don't know it, you actually want more humor, weird fantasy tales and fighting options and that's exactly what King's Bounty offers. How about having a zombie wife whom you can turn into a human and then back into a zombie for humor? How about having a Pandora's Box which you can control for more combat options? And how about ending a dwarf miner strike for more fantasy storytelling? These three ideas sum up King's Bounty pretty well.
Story
You are the official Treasure Searcher. The Human kingdom is plagued by a lot of issues which seem to have started when King Mark received a daughter from the stars. As the designated Treasure Searcher, you will be the one who will end up trying to unravel the mysteries of the game world. And there are surely a lot of them.
There are three classes in the game, all pretty standard RPG fare. You can be a Warrior, which means that you command more troops and that you develop combat oriented skills easier. Paladins are more oriented towards Mind skills and can get access to skills which help them take out the undead while also allowing them to upgrade Priests to Inquisitors, which can be crucial late in the game. The Mage is the typical spell oriented class, who can do a lot of damage by using his magic book. He is the only one who can use spells twice a turn. For my first game, I went with the Warrior and I will probably take a Mage after that for a spin. A good thing is that the game randomizes a lot of things once you start a new one, like enemy stacks, so that the replay value is not diminished significantly after you beat the game once.
As you progress in the game, you will get to visit a lot of fantasy inspired locations. There are a Dwarfen Kingdom, a Demonic setting, the Elf great forest and undead sections. The game feels very familiar, with all the creatures and characters well developed and colorful. The translation from Russian is not perfect, but you can easily understand what it is all about and humor abounds in the way the characters tell their issues and give you quests.
While playing, you will upgrade your character, using Runes, which come in three varieties and allow you to unlock better skills. You also get items, some of them sentient (which can be upgraded if you fight evil Gremlins that inhabit the item) and you can even get a wife and babies who bestow bonuses on your character. It's a bit quirky, but finding a good wife, which can hold a few additional items, is one of the most interesting choices you'll make in the game. At the moment, I am rolling with a girl who, at times, turns into a frog thinking I had my mind set on killing a certain pirate and stealing his fiancee.
Concept
There are two sections to this game. The strategic map is isometric and you are the guy on a horse that can visit all the adventuring hubs in the world. There are castles, homes, inns, factories, magic towers, caves, hidden passages. You can move around by yourself and you can explore the sea by boat. There are also dirigibles, trains and submarines that can take you from place to place quickly. The steam powered train is very cool, especially the way it changes direction via turntable.
When your character meets an enemy stack or an enemy hero, you go to a turn based arena where you battle. This portion feels very much like Heroes of Might and Magic III. The creatures you command are occupying hexes and have different abilities. You can move, attack and use spells on the battlefield to change the outcome. And there's a little thing called the Chest of Rage.
The Chest, which you get your hands on fairly quickly if you perform the missions that King Mark offers you, is a thing of beauty. It's basically a play on the old Pandora's Box myth, with four very powerful Spirits of Rage trapped in this chest. Each one of them only obeys you if you perform a certain task and each has four powers that you can use in battle. After use, each spirit needs to rest. The nice idea is that, as you use their powers, they level up and gain upgrades. By the end game, the Chest will be much needed as you battle more powerful enemy stacks. I mainly use Underground Blades from Zerock as an opening shot only to follow up with the Rage Taking and then the Black Hole from Reaper, the Spirit of Death.
The interplay between creatures, their special attacks, using the Chest of Rage and magic is complex enough to make players really think about what they are doing on the battlefield. Knowing when to use Running on your Giants might make the difference between victory and defeat, especially when fighting heroes who are apparently more powerful than you or when assaulting castles. One of the criticisms that can be leveled at the game is that some of the battles are very, very hard and that you really need to make sure you level back by clearing each zone you pass so that you are ready for the challenges of the next one.
Elven days
Visuals and sound
The game is a fantasy. It doesn't need to be realistic or even beautiful. The creatures look good, the battles move well (you can change some of the speed of the action in the Option menu) and the adventure map, although a bit confusing at times, takes your where you need to go. The spell effects and the animation for the Spirit of Rage powers are very good, even if you get tired of some of them, like that for the Smashing Sword, pretty quickly.
The sound is pretty generic but, after all, this is not a shooter or a survival horror game where music helps set the right atmosphere.
Conclusion
King's Bounty is not for all gamers. People who are not acquainted with role playing games and with tactical battles will probably not like it too much because there are a lot of things to learn pretty quickly. If you enjoy distributing Runes to various upgrades which influence your combat style while recruiting the perfect mix of troops needed to take on Cyclops and Devils, then King's Bounty is for you.
Considering that Heroes of Might and Magic IV and V have been fairly disappointing, this feels like a spiritual successor to HoMM III, without the city management lair. The story is very good, even if it's not the strong suit of the game. The real highlights are the battles, especially some of the harder ones, like with the Kraken or the Demon Princes you encounter. Just save often and be careful which fights you pick. Otherwise, you risk to re-play significant sections of the game as I did when I accidentally took on too tough a foe in the Dwarven lands.
