Kings Bounty The Legend

In a fairy tale fantasy world of fearless knights, evil mages, wise kings and beautiful princesses, you are a hero. King’s Bounty: The Legend is an adventure game with tactical turn-based battles and role-playing elements. Gameplay is divided into two major sections: adventure mode and battle mode. In adventure mode you control your character in real-time. You move through the adventure map seeking various treasures, fighting monsters and accomplishing quests. In battle mode you lead your troops in tactical turn-based combat. Battles take place on land or sea, in dungeons or castles or even in some items. You yourself don’t participate in the combat, but can assist your troops by casting spells or summoning different creatures.
A rich role-playing system including 7 parameters and more than 30 skills and perks and a highly-developed system of tasks and relations More than 70 spells to use on the battle arena and in everyday life An alternative option for magic development are the Spirits of Rage to be summoned in combat More than 60 unique creatures with special abilities and skills ready to fight in your army Dozens of different battle arenas. Unique arenas for castle sieges Various traps and bonuses on battle arenas that can change the course of fight Unique system of live items acting of their own will and changing their essence Ability to start a family, find a wife and have children
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars If you like Heroes of Might and Magic you will like this
If you like Heroes of Might and Magic you will like this. If you dont you wont. End of discussion
4 Stars Great game for HOMM3 fans
This is a fantastic spiritual successor to Heroes of Might and Magic 3, which many people have played. The game world feels similar to Warcraft III and is very intuitive to play. The battles are fantastic and challenging against the right opponents, but early on, some players might get annoyed by quick, easy battles that seem to be more of an annoyance than a challenge. The Spirits of Rage system is an excellent addition as well that adds to the strategic options available to players. The story and sidestories, while a little corny and stereotypical fantasy, are nonetheless enthralling enough to keep a player going. There’s several “moral” questions in the game as well, and many quests have multiple endings. The Wife/Kid mechanic is also intriguing and interesting to manipulate. Min/Maxers will also be right at home and very pleased with the detailed statistics provided to players on each unit.
Things that might put people off, however, are kind of related to the things that make the game great. The camera can get a touch annoying at times, since you can only zoom out and pan around a limited amount. Keeping your army at full capacity can very quickly become an exercise in Recruit-Travel-Battle-Travel Back-Recruit-Repeat. Additionally, the limited stores of certain units can be frustrating at times. Finally, the presence of level-appropriate challenges can vary at times, exacerbating the Recruit/Travel/Battle issue. Finally, the lack of an auto-travel option is a little annoying, since you have to physically walk your character from place to place. The game also has dated graphics and animation, though this does make the computer load it exerts really low.
All in all though, the faults of this game are far outweighed by the positive aspects. It’s a great game for strategy gamers, fans of HOMM3, or anyone looking for a great RPG/Strategy game in a Medieval Fantasy setting.
1 Star Terrible support for Vista and/or 64-bit OS
Great game… from what little I have been able to play. Ever since I have installed a new soundcard, it seems this game refuses to play. Since I love my music more than this $[...] unsupported game, I kept my soundcard and just deleted King’s Bounty.
Good game… IF you have a 32-bit OS.
4 Stars Great Game with Big Bug
King’s Bounty is a really clever, fun, well-executed game. It is beautiful to look at and very addictive. A wonderful cross between RPG and Casual game (because it is easy to learn and (sometimes) relaxing to play). However, so far I’ve found one BIG bug which has not, apparently, been fixed by a patch yet. After hours and hours of playing, the game suddenly starts crashing due to a DEP (i.e. Data Execution Error) on Vista Ultimate 64. And the game will not run with DEP turned off! I’ve checked the web and many players are having this problem. But the game is still well worth buying and playing, especially if Katauri/Atari gets this bug fixed.
4 Stars Excellent update of a 19 year-old classic!
This is an excellent update / refresh of the classic PC game from 1990. King’s Bounty was one of my favorite games for the Amiga “back in the day”. KB:TL differs in many ways from the original game, but the core element of turn-based combat on a hex field is pretty much unchanged and is just as entertaining now as it was then.
What I Liked:
- Fantastic graphics. The art style is vibrant and colorful. The isometric 3D view is well presented and gives a nice sense of depth and topography.
- Engaging turn-based tactical combat. Units have varied strengths and skills that require coordination. Balancing out your army with units that are fast (high initiative) vs. ranged attack vs. damage absorbing vs. high movement rate and so on is very satisfying. The game does a good job of forcing you to churn your army and learn different units because a) most units have a limited supply - once you buy them all up you have to switch to something else and b) units do not grow in strength, so while level 1 peasants and swordsmen are fine at the beginning, eventually you will need to switch over to more powerful units to take out the stronger enemies.
- The skill tree system is simple, clear, and effective. No wall chart like Civilization 4 is required. You can specialize in troop enhancement or magical power or try to blend both.
- Decent spell system. The spells are well differentiated and have a nice mix of flavor between direct damage, unit enhancement, etc. While it isn’t as deep or sophisticated as games like Master of Magic, it is quite functional and provides variety and excitement into the combat.
- No enemy AI to compete against. While I enjoyed several of the Heroes of Might and Magic games (which were spawned from the original King’s Quest game btw) I never cared for the competition element of facing AI controlled heroes who wander the map collecting resources and attacking your troops. It seemed like on lower difficulty levels the AI opponents were just fodder and not much of a challenge, while on harder difficulty levels you could play for 20 hours and then run into an opponent that was so vastly superior to your forces that he wiped you out. In KB the world is static, which is more to my liking. If you come across an army too powerful for you, simply avoid it and come back later after you’ve gained a few levels and hired stronger units. You don’t have to worry about that unit finding your home base and taking you out of the game.
What I Didn’t Like:
- Software isn’t stable. Many people have reported crashes and lock-ups with the game. It worked fine for me, and so it might work fine for you too, but be aware that some people have come across serious errors that prevent them from continuing to play the game. One known problem (as of this writing) is that the game crashes a third of the way into it if you have 64-bit Vista. Hopefully they come out with a patch for that.
- Graphics glitches. These were minor, but worth mentioning. Water in particular was a problem on my system. Sometimes while rotating the camera when water was on the screen, horizontal planes of light blue would appear and cover up the land beneath them. It was simple to get rid of them (just rotate the view a little more) but they were still annoying. Combat on a beach also had a problem where some units would appear faded out because they had a blue (water colored) overlay on top of them. Again, this is minor but really should have been fixed.
- Anemic rulebook. This is my biggest complaint with the game. The instruction manual is way too brief and does not contain anywhere near enough information, and the “tutorial” is laughable. For example, nowhere in the instructions does it tell you how to rotate the camera view. I found it completely by accident and it is something that is critical to know (you press and hold the right mouse button and then move the mouse). The “tips” on the load screens are very informative and fill you in on some of the details that aren’t in the manual, but on my system they go by so fast you don’t have time to read them.
- No unit stat chart is provided. While it is more of an “action RPG” than a deep strategy game, it still would be helpful to have a table with all the unit types available in the game, their stats (attack, defense, initiative, etc.), special abilities, leadership cost, etc. so you can easily compare different units and plan your army accordingly.
- Trite storyline & side quests. You expect a decent story in an RPG…even an “action” RPG. The story in KB:TL is strictly passable. The side quests are particularly trite (go get object X from person Y and bring it to me). While this didn’t dissuade me from finishing the game, it could have been done better.
Anyway, I enjoyed the game and encourage fans of the original King’s Bounty, the Heroes of Might & Magic games, the Disciples games, and even Diablo fans to check it out. It has that addictive quality of leveling up your character, finding loot, and fighting increasingly difficult opponents that all of those games share.
Buy/More Info
PS3 Games Strategy Adventure Game, Adventure Mode, Battle Arena, Battle Arenas, Battle Mode, Casting Spells, Castle Sieges, Castles, Fairy Tale, Fantasy World, Game World, Great Game, Heroes Of Might And Magic, Kings Bounty, Magic Development, Princesses, Special Abilities, Spiritual Successor, Turn Based Combat, Unique System