Konung 2 - A Hidden Gem?

Hey everyone!

So, I spotted this game in the Indiegala bundle yesterday and it caught my eye. Did a little research and it turns out it's an isometric, party-based RPG. It sounded interesting, but there was very little info about it that I could find online in the way of reviews and stuff. For $1 I figured it was worth a shot.

So I jumped on it and installed it today just to see what it was like. Wondering if it was good or not was really a shot in the dark. But again, $1.

First impressions were rough. It seemed very slow, and the first enemies in the starter area mauled me to death! Multiple tries and it wasn't even close; I could not kill them! I couldn't even kill one of them! In the starting area! lol

Turned it off and ate lunch and then put it back on to give it more attention. Played it for 3 hours after that and was hooked! It's not bad at all. It's not Baldur's Gate, but it's not really trying to be. It's got some city management aspects as well which makes it unique. You can have your villages build new buildings that will add to the village in some way. It's sort of like part simulation, part RPG.

As usual, there's quests, a bit of story, and best of all, no hand-holding. You're basically set loose in a large, open-world and expected to follow clues along the way to find what you need.

Again, only spent 3 hours with it, so I can't comment too much about the finer details, but I read the manual a bit and learned as I went. I'm going to start over tonight and start a new character.

The character building is pretty nice as well. Lots of stats you can boost per level up and a bunch of skills to invest in.

Also, lots of treasure hunting as well. You can use magical mirrors to see where hidden treasures are on the map. I found an unidentified item and it turned out to be a crazy battle axe. Cool stuff .

There's also alchemy and recipes to uncover, but no magic. There are party members that can join your group, up to 6 hirelings, I believe.

So yeah, pretty neat little game that I'm interested to see more of.

Question, though. Has anyone here actually played it? Or even heard of it, at that? You guys should pick it up for $1 on Indiegala. I already got my money's worth at that price . Very interested to see what some fellow RPGWatchers think about it...

I've heard of the series and got Konung 3 quite awhile ago in a 1C bundle with Ascension to the Throne but haven't gotten around to trying them. I mostly got the bundle for King's Bounty but I was curious about those too. The fact that you've been enjoying it is tempting me to load 'em up tonight.

I've heard about Konung - Legends of the North and saw it a few times in game shops long time ago in Poland. I wasn't attracted t this game due to poor graphics and "city management" aspects. I was thinking of jumping into Konung 3 - nice 3D graphics, unique mythology, but the game got rather poor review in PC Powerplay and in 2011-2012 there were quite a few interesting games on PC so I missed out.
But I must say that sometimes it's good to discover an "underdog" game - a game that didn't have marketing campaigns, a game that is not cool by reviewers standards and yet it you can find some charm in it (for me it was Avadon, King's Bounty series, Drakensang (Dark Eye) games and Jagged Alliance clones and mods).
Thanks for this post and let us know how the game develops later on!

I didn’t play Konung 2. But Russian cRPGs usually suffer from poor translation. Much of the story and dialogues are wasted while translating from Russian to English. “Hard to Be A God” and “Farewell to Dragons” are good examples to that. Both of them have decent gameplay mechanics though. If you haven’t played already I recommend Evil Islands, a 2001 RPG with great party mechanics. Its graphics were way ahead of its time when it was released.

greywolf00 said:

I've heard of the series and got Konung 3 quite awhile ago in a 1C bundle with Ascension to the Throne but haven't gotten around to trying them. I mostly got the bundle for King's Bounty but I was curious about those too. The fact that you've been enjoying it is tempting me to load 'em up tonight.

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Give it a shot, you might like it.

In Konung 2, it's got a lot of RPG elements, for sure, but there is also a little simulation aspect going on. The open-world is an evolving, living place. Bandits roam the map freely and from what I read in the manual, will attack your villages and try to take them over, and villages change based on how you manage them.

As I said before, you can have the village build a smithy or a barracks or something, and then actually find people to work it who are skilled in those trades. So the simulation aspect is definitely there.

From what I read in a guide for the game, how you play the game is up to you. You can manage your villages or largely ignore them. You can participate in heavy combat and treasure hunting or you can ignore it. It's up to you and gives you a large amount of freedom.

xep624 said:

I've heard about Konung - Legends of the North and saw it a few times in game shops long time ago in Poland. I wasn't attracted t this game due to poor graphics and "city management" aspects. I was thinking of jumping into Konung 3 - nice 3D graphics, unique mythology, but the game got rather poor review in PC Powerplay and in 2011-2012 there were quite a few interesting games on PC so I missed out.
But I must say that sometimes it's good to discover an "underdog" game - a game that didn't have marketing campaigns, a game that is not cool by reviewers standards and yet it you can find some charm in it (for me it was Avadon, King's Bounty series, Drakensang (Dark Eye) games and Jagged Alliance clones and mods).
Thanks for this post and let us know how the game develops later on!

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No problem. I'll keep this thread updated as I play. It definitely seems to be an underdog type of game!

And keep in mind, the city management aspects are optional (if the Gamefaqs guide for the game is to be trusted), so if that's not your thing you can ignore it.

Gokyabgu said:

I didn’t play Konung 2. But Russian cRPGs usually suffer from poor translation. Much of the story and dialogues are wasted while translating from Russian to English. “Hard to Be A God” and “Farewell to Dragons” are good examples to that. Both of them have decent gameplay mechanics though. If you haven’t played already I recommend Evil Islands, a 2001 RPG with great party mechanics. Its graphics were way ahead of its time when it was released.

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Thanks for the recommendation, that game sounds wonderful!

The writing is not too bad in Konung 2, but it's not award-winning stuff, either. The translation seems okay, I haven't really noticed anything weird yet. I'll keep an eye out for that and report back later when I have more hours played.
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It's also a very relaxing game to play. The music is nice and soothing and it's not very combat-heavy unless you want it to be. In the beginning levels, you have to run from nearly every combat because you will get ganged up on and killed pretty easily. The gear you're wearing actually makes a big difference in how much damage you can withstand, but if you're fighting a group of enemies, you're in for a serious battle.

In the 3 hours I played, I actually didn't kill one living thing! The encounters were just too tough for my low-level character. I enjoyed exploring the villages and the maps, though.

To anyone interested in this game, you must read this FAQ first to learn some of the lesser known things about it. Also, reading the manual is a must as well. Here's the guide (it's pretty much spoiler-free, too) - http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/915038-konung-2/faqs/35020

I'm going back to play for awhile today and I'll report back new findings and how it's going!

More Impressions

Well, I like the game, it's interesting and all, but I'm not sure I'm playing effectively or if the game is just too hard.

I'm 5 hours in and still haven't killed anything! I've tried, but the enemies come in groups of 4 or more and they gang up on you and kill you quickly.

I have amassed 2 party members out of a possible 8-person army you can lead, but they are pretty useless as well. They are lower level than me and don't have much in the way of damage output or many skills.

I've made a nice sum of money (which is precious in this game, as it's not that easy to get rich), but I have lost my first village to enemy troops. There's not much I can do about it, because the enemy troops are extremely powerful and there is no chance that my little ragtag group can handle them.

So, with one village lost, I'm trying to figure out what to do next, and it seems you have to do some free-form exploration to find viable things to do. That's cool, because it means you can explore and see what's out there in the world.

Following the main quest is much too hard for me right now, so I'm forced to do side quests and try and level up. I'm putting a lot of points into my Charisma stat so I can recruit a large army.

There is inventory management for each party member and they all have their own unique stats and skills, which is great. You can outfit all party members with appropriate gear and make them stronger as you see fit.

The one thing I'm a bit worried about is losing the village already. It was my main source of income and I fear that the simulation aspect of the game is too hard for me at this point to really survive long and keep villages prospering. I currently see 2 roving bands of soldiers on the map and they are close to other villages, so I could be fighting a losing battle at this point.

The treasure hunting is awesome. You can buy a spade and dig randomly, or you can use a magic mirror to uncover the treasures. On top of that, you will need to use either a torch or a magic potion to be able to actually see the treasures on the map. I used my first magic mirror on a town map and uncovered three hidden items on one map! It's really a cool system.

What else? I have to take notes about certain aspects of the game so I don't forget things. I'd recommend others to do the same if they try this game.

I'm going to play it some more and see if I can't make some real progress. I've got a nice chunk of change that I spent on a few great items, such as a magical chalice that increased my Charisma by 10, as well as a magical apple that gives you free experience, and some scrolls that increase my healing and merchant abilities. It's fun distributing your points into the various skills and stats.

So yeah, back to the game I go. Hoping things turn around a bit and I start making some progress in the right direction

Wow. A super cool feature I just discovered is that you can talk to your party members.

I took a party member back to his home town (which I didn't realize I was in at the time). I wanted to heal him, so I CTRL+clicked his portrait, and he went into dialog about being back home. Cool! Not only that, but he had an inheritance for a huge sum of gold kept there, so I got rewarded with a ton of gold for doing it. Awesome! And I stumbled on it completely by accident. There was no prompt or anything to do that... .

Bit of an update - I re-loaded a previous save and the enemy hordes didn't overrun my village this time . So, it shows me that the simulation aspect of the game is pretty random in certain things. The way the enemies move on the map seems to be random, which for a game like this, is great.

I finally killed some stuff, too! 5 spiders. It wasn't easy, as you had to actively strafe around the battlefield to avoid getting swarmed, but with 3 attackers hitting them, we were able to win the day.

I played Konung 1 years ago and really enjoyed it. To me it's it's a real buried treasure. When Konung 2 came out I hunted down a boxed copy and found it to be more of the same… which is good in this case.

I own Konung 3, but haven't played it yet because I don't have a Konung 4 to look forward to.

Smorri said:

I played Konung 1 years ago and really enjoyed it. To me it's it's a real buried treasure. When Konung 2 came out I hunted down a boxed copy and found it to be more of the same… which is good in this case.

I own Konung 3, but haven't played it yet because I don't have a Konung 4 to look forward to.

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Aww, you should play Konung 3! From what I've seen in screenshots, I actually prefer the graphical style of Konung 2 more, but that's another topic, really. I'm sure Konung 3 delivers more good gameplay, and that's what counts.

Nice to hear you enjoyed the Konung series, though. I don't think it's got many fans here in the U.S. I'm going to buy a boxed copy of Konung 1 to try as well.

The game is definitely a hidden gem to me. It's so unique and has some really interesting ideas.

Question. Do you happen to know what a Falcon's Foot or Third Eye Berry do? Are they permanent boosts of some kind, or temporary?

Fluent said:

Question. Do you happen to know what a Falcon's Foot or Third Eye Berry do? Are they permanent boosts of some kind, or temporary?

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It must be years since I've played it, so I don't remember… but I found this about Konung 1 (I don't know if it applies to Konung 2):

"-Third Eye Berry (+100 Identification [100 is the max])"
and
"-Claw of Giant Falcon (+3 STR permanent)"

Found here

Smorri said:

It must be years since I've played it, so I don't remember… but I found this about Konung 1 (I don't know if it applies to Konung 2):

"-Third Eye Berry (+100 Identification [100 is the max])"
and
"-Claw of Giant Falcon (+3 STR permanent)"

Found here

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Thanks! I'll have to go back and collect the Falcon Feet that are for sale in different spots. I'm guessing the Third Eye Berry is a temporary effect.

Updates and more impressions:

Well, I'm certainly on the "right path" now with this game. I'm leveling up enough and just recruited a beastly party member. This party member has huge strength and vitality, wields a great weapon, wears wonderful armor and is basically a stacked warrior type. Can also use bows and crossbows very effectively, so he's versatile as well.

I'm now running with a party of 4 total and it's a lot of fun. I would have had 5 but I completed a quest for a party member who wanted to return to his home village. It turns out there are permanent party members who will stay for as long as you keep them (or until you assign them to a job in a village), and there are temporary party members like the guy who I just returned to his home village.

It's all starting to come together, though. My villages are prospering and I'm doing enough with my new party members to get them suited to run a few jobs in the villages. I'm currently grooming one character to be a blacksmith. I'm hoping to use the village's tribute money to outfit the townsfolk with weapons and sufficient training.

Like I said, though, it's fairly easy to ignore the town building stuff and just focus on the RPG part. There's certainly enough RPG elements to keep any RPG fan happy. There's a bit of story with sidequests, some dialog, some choices to make, etc. It's not as deep in the story and questing as Baldur's Gate, but it's still pretty good.

I think one of the best aspects of the game is running goods from town to town for the merchants. A merchant will send you with a bag of goods to another merchant in another town. It sounds simple enough, but you end up exploring the town a bit more each time, because the merchants' inventories change, so there is always a reason to check in with everybody in town.

Also, Charisma seems to change dialog options with people, so you'll want to check in with townsfolk when your Charisma is raised higher, as you might get new quests and options.

The gear progression is awesome. You start so weak and eventually are able to defend yourself, but it's still challenging. Every piece of gear you use makes a significant difference and could mean surviving an encounter or being wiped out.

The alchemy system is great, too. You can craft potions from recipes and even combine potions at will to create a stronger potion. You can keep refining potions into stronger and stronger concentrations until they are the strength you want them (given you have the required materials to refine the potions).

Treasure hunting is also great fun. You find some awesome stuff that comes in very handy, like potions that grant you free experience, scrolls that increase your skills, enchanted items and more. The treasure hunting takes a thoughtful approach. You have to not only use a sorcerer's mirror to locate the treasure, you'll need either a torch or potion of seeing to be able to easily spot the treasure. If you don't do that, you'll have to carefully scour the terrain for the treasure spots, and they are easy to miss. This may sound like a bad thing but it adds a nice little extra wrinkle needed to be a successful treasure hunter, and makes things a bit more complex than usual.

I'm rambling a bit (a bit!?!) so I'll stop here. I'd suggest you guys to check out the game if you can still get it for a dollar. Even at the $4.99 price it's worth it.

Thanks for your posts. It's often hard to get quality information about these lesser known games, as many just dismiss them out of hand. Admittedly it's often deserved due to a game's shortcomings, but sometimes it's because the game has a different emphasis or vibe, or that it requires a bit more effort to get into it.

I have a boxed copy of the first game (Konung: Legends of the North) that I picked up cheaply on ebay - I'll have to give it a go.

Fluent's description of this game reminds me of Mount & Blade very closely. They both have many of the elements that Fluent descripted with the exception of treasure hunting.

I just bought the game with the Gala July bundle and will give it a spin some time (he said!).

groundhog said:

Thanks for your posts. It's often hard to get quality information about these lesser known games, as many just dismiss them out of hand. Admittedly it's often deserved due to a game's shortcomings, but sometimes it's because the game has a different emphasis or vibe, or that it requires a bit more effort to get into it.

I have a boxed copy of the first game (Konung: Legends of the North) that I picked up cheaply on ebay - I'll have to give it a go.

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Cool! I just bought a boxed copy of that game from Ebay as well.

Anyway, the reason I was rambling so much is to try and give some information about this obscure game, because as you said, there's very little information out there. So I'm glad it was interesting to a few of you!

I think Konung 2 suffers from a bad first impression. I'm telling you all, it's a rough start. You can't kill anything, don't have many resources, the movement speed is slow, etc. But play for a few hours and the game slowly starts to make it's impression on you. Play for a few more hours and you find yourself sucked into the world. A few more hours and you really see the genius of the game and wonder why the few people who did review it gave it such bad scores!

Okay, maybe I can see why. As I said, the game is very, very slow-paced. Methodical. Challenging. Combat is difficult and not that great. The translation at times is not amazing. But at it's core it's a very unique experience that has some great ideas executed pretty well.

And make no mistake about it, you need to invest in this game to see what it has to offer. If you're not willing to do that, just skip the game now because it's not going to be great for you.

But if you're willing to give it a few hours (at the very least) to develop, you just might have yourself a unique gem of a game to entertain you for awhile.

Another thing I like about the game - it's relaxing to play! The music is nice and the villages give off a peaceful atmosphere. The day/night cycle definitely adds to this feeling.

SpoonFULL said:

Fluent's description of this game reminds me of Mount & Blade very closely. They both have many of the elements that Fluent descripted with the exception of treasure hunting.

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I haven't played enough Mount & Blade to really comment on that. That's one of those games that I've been meaning to get into but just have been distracted with other games!

Inventory management of your party is awesome in this game. If you like crunchy inventory and loot systems, you'll dig this one.

Basically, it's mandatory that you keep your group properly outfitted. Character stats determine which gear a character can use, so you'll need enough strength to use that sword, or enough vitality to wear that chain mail.

When a character levels up, you can distribute points in their stats to help them along. It's great because you can also buy rings and amulets that boost stats, so if a character needs 28 vitality to equip something, and currently has 25, you can look for items to bolster the vitality in order to allow them to equip the item.

Once they equip the item, it's a huge difference. A shield in your hand could mean the difference between life and death. Your characters start to grow and their gear gets better and they turn into tough warriors. It's very rewarding to go through this process and it seems to work really well in this game.

I love inventory management in this style so it's great for me .

You convinced me. I went and bought it and #3.

Wisdom said:

You convinced me. I went and bought it and #3.

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Cool! Good luck with it. As I said before, just be patient and it will start to get much better as you go on.

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Simply put, this game is awesome.

I'm now strong enough to clear maps and it's just a ton of fun. The inventory management is some of the best I've experienced and the character progression is fantastic. The quests are rewarding and the amount of interaction and interactivity in the world is great.

This is a seriously fun game. It's starting to get very good and I'm about 20 hours in, so keep in mind that the first few hours might be slow, but it starts to take off and definitely hooks you after some time.

Side note - The translation has some issues, so be warned. It's not the worst translation ever, but some text requires you to read slowly and figure out exactly what they are trying to say. Some of it is just a bit...weird, and you can tell something was lost in translation.

Still, I'd highly recommend the game, just don't expect superb writing and translation .