Armored Princess - Review @ Gamepex

Gamepex writes in with their review of Armoured Princess, which carries a modest score of 7/10. Graphics, sound and "constant restocking of troops" are all criticised, with the dialogue and engaging combat among the positives:

This, unfortunately, introduces one of the reasons why this game doesn’t come with a “guaranteed fresh” seal of approval. Let’s say you have 10 units, all of whom you take into battle. After celebrating your victory, you come to realize you only have two left. Two, unfortunately, is too few for the next battle, so you decide to buy more. Trouble is, this particular unit is only available on another island. So, back to the boat you go. Open up your map, click on the desired island, find the store and travel back. After. Every. Single. Battle. Obviously, this gets a bit old.

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More information.

Seems a bit unfair . . . you can manage troops well enough that losses are minimal, you can bring reserves with you allowing you to restock and perhaps most importantly you can vary your troop mix for different islands to take advantage of what's readily available there (which is annoying in some ways if you've got troops you're fond of but good in other ways as it encourages you to try out other things).

Puzzling. Reviewer seems to know about the reserve-troops feature, yet he ignores it when bashing the game.

That's... very stupid.

When a review starts off with, "I’m not much of a PC strategy game kind of guy", it's going to be hard to take anything he says seriously, he's already got a bias against this style of game play, then amusingly enough goes on to use Dawn of War 2 as a basis for PC strategy gaming.

I disagree with this review. I've been playing the heck out of KB:AP. Here's my impressions so far as a level 14 mage.

It's everything you know and love about the original with just a little more polish. Overall better skill trees and a few features have become standard ( like the reserve slots ).

The graphics still have that hand drawn and highly polished look. Cutting edge no, lovingly crafted no doubt. The music is mostly forgettable but I think that's because it's the same as the original. The new units have some fresh skills that add some nice strategy.

The boyfriend/advisor thing is pretty side of the road, so if you were concerned about "cruising for guys" don't, the potential romance aspect of it is ignorable (so far). The cutesy dragon isn't as much of a distraction as I feared it would be either, since you don't have to interact with him like you did the rage spirits, he's more of a combat tool than a character. The writing is good ol' KB writing. Well written and humorous without ever taking itself too seriously, it sets a nice tone that compliments the surface simplicity but deep potential of the actual game mechanics.

It seems a little more linear than the original, as a mage I'm bouncing all over the place trying to find manageable fights, there are less fights at your level (< lethal ) than there should be. This limits your options on what to fight next. The first island is great, it starts about evenly matched with a few tough but manageable fights toward the end. However the next islands all start hard and get harder. It does feel like there should be an Island 1b to give you a few more levels before moving on. It's always challenging but never quite overwhelming. There's always a manageable fight somewhere, but you may have to look for it.

Simply, if you liked Kings Bounty, you'll like AP more.

I pretty much agree with Lucky Carbon's analysis. I was very much afraid this would be a somewhat fruity, dumbed down version of KB:TL, what with the pastel dragon and chain-link bikini clad female PC and all, but it's definitely not. The scaling is challenging as a mage, a bit less so for other classes, but everything that made the original a solid game is here. You have to pay some attention to things like leadership, troop deaths in combat, etc, or you'll find yourself strapped pretty quick. But all the resources are there for you to succeed, you just have to work with them.

One of the few sequels around that actually keeps what worked in the first but isn't afraid to change up a bit to do a few things better.

magerette said:

One of the few sequels around that actually keeps what worked in the first but isn't afraid to change up a bit to do a few things better.

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Armored princess is indeed awesome, tho a bit hard till mid game, after that it starts to get easier again (mage). This game is great and for me one of the best and most ADDICTIVE turn based strategy game ever.

Wow

What an average review. Constant restocking could be a fair criticism if you weren't a strategic person but definitely not graphics or sound which are both superb.

Shame they didn't let you have babies again in this one, with reduced attack and defence but massively increased rage while pregnant & hormonal.

CutLunch said:

What an average review. Constant restocking could be a fair criticism if you weren't a strategic person but definitely not graphics or sound which are both superb.

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constat restocking is not a fair criticism either. It's a problem only for people who want to play with the same units from start to finish. Just like in real life, away armies usually have to replenish forces from local populations. Forget the 'build' mindset and just adapt. When you're in Africa, use lions. When you're in Asia, use Ninjas, when you're in the Caribbean, use pirates. That sort of thing. If you really really want to use the same units from your home area, that's your problem, not the game's.

can't disagree with the constant restocking comment. this game is much harder and there seems to be less control over the randomness than it's predecessor.

the graphics are redone for sure but more of the same is not a bad thing. The graphics were never mind blowing, physics busting blue smoke burning your graphics card but it's well done due to it's attention to details and obvious love the programmers put into it. I was impressed recently when a fish swam by my pirate ship.