King's Bounty: The Legend Thread

Title says it all. I'd call it official but I'm not an editor. Lot's of talk about it in the news threads so I thought we needed something semi-permanent.

Dhruiny calls this game a gem, Mags calls it a strategy/rpg hybrid. I call it King's Crack.

Question: JDR, how are you liking the game? I was going to recommend you not get it if you didn't care for the demo but now that you have the whole thing are you of my opinion yet?

Critics are falling all over themselves about strategy with combat but personally I think it was implemented in HoMM better. I'm playing a mage and though I have dozens of spells now, I find the best thing is to constantly throw fireballs at my enemies.

The English version is still not patched and I have not got the Russian patch to work, though others claim they have.

There are some minor bugs I'm running into such as Furious Paladin being totally borked after fulfilling his quest. I hear there's a bug with Mirabella if you try to marry her after a divorce but there's a fan patch for it.

Also the feat to fire multiple spells in the same round (cost me 35 gems!) often works spotty.

Other than the last one bugs are minor and the game is amazingly addictive. I'm shocked that it works as well as it does. Levelling is tight and the skill level you can obtain is well balanced. I just wish there were a multiplayer option.

After playing the demo, I can only agree that this game is a gem.

Funny how such a great game can come seemingly from nowhere.

Lucky Day said:

Question: JDR, how are you liking the game? I was going to recommend you not get it if you didn't care for the demo but now that you have the whole thing are you of my opinion yet?

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This game is flat out GREAT imho. Granted I'm only about 6 hours into it right now, but I'm loving every second so far. My only complaint is how sometimes you'll run into an extremely powerful group of monsters in an area that you weren't expecting, making the 'Scouting' skill more of a necessity than an option.

They also don't penalize you enough for losing a battle. You simply reappear back at the castle and the king gives you a bunch of gold to restock your army.

Overall this game is fantastic, especially coming from a relatively unknown developer.

Playing as a Paladin...

You guys obviously didn't play much Space Rangers. My expectations were pretty high for this.

Yeah, Space Rangers was a little gem too, Katauri sure love what they're making...

Bundyo said:

Yeah, Space Rangers was a little gem too, Katauri sure love what they're making...

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It's not the exact same team though, Space Rangers was developed by Elemental Games. Although some former members of Elemental Games indeed formed Katauri.

I might just have to grab Space Rangers 1&2 now.

Not dying was a mistake on Wikipedia I corrected too. If you lose a battle when near a castle it is only then when you are actually restored. Dying too far away from one won't just penalize you it will kill you outright.

If I some how make it back to the castle I will personally always restart. I don't like getting rewarded for dying. This, I think, is actually consistent with the original game.

The other "reward for dying" is the enemy is no longer on the spot or is severely reduced so you get another crack at a now weaker enemy.

OTOH army resources are limited (unless you can recruit from a "Horde" which you get eventually) so its not inventory you have to manage but recruits. I swear those Barbarian leader guys are just suicide machines. Better make sure you cast kamikaze on them when they jump on the enemy's spears.

@Dhruiny: No, I did play and like Space Rangers I but no near as much as this one. After playing SRI I found SR2 too involved with all its RTS etc.

The level of RPG and involvement in KB:L I was not expecting at all. I was expecting much more a pure strategy game like its namesake and its clones. This is a far, far better game than I was expecting .

I'm days into the game and I've only just met some elves and dwarves. I can tell there's tons more game to go still.

Does anyone use any other strategy as a mage other than just casting fireball? I've used Phantom a few times when I'm in over my head and that really helps cut down your losses. There's too few of them at Level I (20%) to make me bother with casting target on them as a good meat shield. They don't last long enough to encourage to waste a spell turn for that instead of another Fireball.

Lucky Day said:

Does anyone use any other strategy as a mage other than just casting fireball? I've used Phantom a few times when I'm in over my head and that really helps cut down your losses. There's too few of them at Level I (20%) to make me bother with casting target on them as a good meat shield. They don't last long enough to encourage to waste a spell turn for that instead of another Fireball.

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Try to play at higher difficulty level, stacks are bigger so damage spell aren't that useful. I play at hard and currently roams in the land of the dead. The damage spell I use most is trap - best damaging spell and it kills black dragons (common enemy in these parts, really tought), it ends the turn of the guy who steps in with is very handy. And using it is very satisfying. Also magic mirror (returns the damage unit dealt last turn) is worth of looking at from damage spells, later it is able to deal huge damage. But mostly I spams slow, blind, magic shackles and other things like that to prevent opponent's action. Haste (mostly I used it when I was in dwarven lands and needs something to make giants useful), stone skin or stuff to lower enemy attacks is something I cast from time to time. There is also healing (rarely, but useful), resurrect (I got it very late in game unfortunately) and sacrifice (got it on the begging yet somehow missed how good it is, now it's something I build tactic around) to prevent losses.

Actually I got the impression that most of the spells in the game have theirs use unlike in other heroes games. True overpowered spells (like sheep - blind with ability to kill the bugger) are really expensive and using them is something very rare. On the other side spells with aren't that powerful (or seams like little of use) are nearly free (healing is good example). And there is no mass slow so there is no spell you cast at the begging of every battle no matter what (at least I hope the is no such thing). The longer I play the more I like the how the magic system is made in this game. It seams that there is abundance of possible tactics and the depth of tactical battles is really outstanding. Love it.

Lucky Day said:

If you lose a battle when near a castle it is only then when you are actually restored. Dying too far away from one won't just penalize you it will kill you outright.

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Ah, I haven't experienced defeat far from the castle yet. I like that they made it that way though, makes sense.

Good enough to spend EUR 41.99 on?
I generally like this type of games.

Are they churning out patches to fix those remaining problems mentioned?

What problems? It's one of the most bug-free games I've played in recent memory.

Zakhary said:

Good enough to spend EUR 41.99 on?
I generally like this type of games.

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If you like this type of gaming (fantasy-lite RPG with tactical combat ala Homm) then you will be in seven heaven. I know I am. And the more I play the more I love it.

Be sure to check demo thought. It give pretty good idea of the game. You won't be able to continue the game from the place you ended in demo but it's not really problem considering how huge and random the game is. Really, give it a shot, it'll amaze you.

JDR13 said:

What problems? It's one of the most bug-free games I've played in recent memory.

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This is true. The bugs I've mentioned are so minor they are largely not worth mentioning.

The patch is already out in Russia. The NA version is 1.6 b7. The Russian version is 1.6.4.

No one is sure why Atari hasn't released a patch yet but its clear someone has been doing some work on the English demo. The translation is apparently been approved and there's something about playable Orc races etc. but I don't see how that fits or why it would be implemented. Your hero doesn't get involved in the battles as a character, just like the original KB.

If I had to guess, Atari is likely upgrading the the full versions to add these same versions.

Since this is truly an epic game (I'm level 15 after many days of play on normal and there are challenge quests that require level 30) I can see why there would be a delay.

I think I'm sold, too.

I was just playing the demo and I was totally blasted !

By the way, I couldn't find a way to upgrade scrolls into permanent spells ... - Anyone help me ?

What I also didn't like was that the camera is so much low ... It's just as if the camera didn't want me to have an true overview over *everything* ...

All in all, this game reminds me of Age of winders at it's Best , combined with HOMM. It's to me as if the developers had taken the best from all currently available games like that and combined it.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

By the way, I couldn't find a way to upgrade scrolls into permanent spells ... - Anyone help me ?

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On the right side of the scroll in spellbook there is is special icon. If you hover your moue pointer over it, the message showing what you need will be shown. You must have some skills - there are 3 schools of magic and each have it's skill. An every scribing/upgrading spells cost some crystals.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the game as well.. though I am barely into it yet.

Thanks. I also found out that I can't inscribe scrolls into the spellbook without having learned the approprite magic school (it's in the "Magic" part of the "skill trees").

I finally got the sound to work, so I will be diving into it soon. If you have two sound cards, you have to disable one of them if you want sound in this game! I have no idea why it is like that? maybe the programmers didn't considers you'll have 2 soundcards? I think it is rather good to have 2 soundcards as I use one of them for skype calls, and one of them for gaming and other things.

Either way played for a little bit and it really reminds me of HOMM, it just makes me sad that 3DO is no more when I am playing it. Having fun so far anyway.

GG, you're the first person I've ever heard of having 2 sound cards in your rig. Do you mind if I ask "why"?

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