RPGWatch Feature - King's Bounty: Armored Princess Review

King's Bounty was a staff favourite last year, so we looked forward to Armoured Princess with anticipation. Aries100 brings us his review as a newcomer to the series, with additional comments from the team. Here's a snip:

I didn't expect to find the turnbased combat as fun and strategic as I did, since turnbased games aren't my usual preference. However, the combat in KB:AP is fun, engaging and challenging - just like a good game of chess. And the combat never becomes trivial or boring, since each troop has their own unique abilities you'll need to put to good use. This ensures varied gameplay in combat.

Read it all here.
More information.

Good review guys, nice follow ups as well.

Wow…that was fast.


Nice review.

Great review. I also picked the green dragon for it's treasure seeking abilities. I totally agree that the dragons are a definite 'pro'. Yes, they are cute and cuddly and sorta remind me of a reptilian Stitch from Lelo & Stitch, but it was a better than 4 different spirits trapped in a box. Loved the treasure seeking ability and that dragon egg saved me more than a few times in some tough battles.

I like the dragon, but I don't know about it being better than the Rage Spirits from KB:TL. They just had a certain coolness factor…

I've lived in Asia way too long. The love for cute and cuddly mascots is starting to rub off on me.

It was just too cool when the dragon cast the lightning spell and ran away and hid behind a tree.

KB:AP is a great game, I've been playing it a ton since I picked it up cheap on the steam xmas sale ( which is also going on right now if anyone here hasn't gotten this or the KB:TL yet ).

A few notes on the review. The choose your dragon really has very little impact on the game, the tiny bonus is all that matters as all dragons get all abilities eventually. Yes some player prefer to have Treasure Searcher right off the bat but all dragons get it shortly.

The going back for more units would bother me less if it was easier to switch between stacks. It's good to adapt to the units available on an island so you can quickly refill your units but it's sucks to have to dismiss a half stack of a previous unit because you can't replenish that type easily. KB:TL seemed to have a lot more friendly castles for troop storage than KB:AP does. I would have liked to see the boats provide storage slots (magically shared) for units similar to friendly castles. Or perhaps a skill to expand your reserve slots.

The music is good but it's rarely inspiring, it works well with the game and it's not distracting but you've heard better too.

Melee enemies do rush you but I'm glad for that, if the AI played as cautiously as I do battles would take forever. Ranged units do their best to stay out of melee range and hit you from afar. The AI is never going wow you with it's tactics but it's not completely stupid either.

No mention of the medals? I thought these were a really nice touch, they add meaningful bonuses and give you another thing to work for when planning your combat strategies.

My biggest complaint would be that Mage characters or those who hadn't played the original may find it a tough to get going, the first island is about the right difficulty level but it gets hard quick on the next few islands. Supposedly it gets not quite as hard again later but I haven't gotten that far yet ( or maybe I suck ).

Originally Posted by LuckyCarbon
My biggest complaint would be that Mage characters or those who hadn't played the original may find it a tough to get going, the first island is about the right difficulty level but it gets hard quick on the next few islands. Supposedly it gets not quite as hard again later but I haven't gotten that far yet ( or maybe I suck ).

Mages are supposed to be difficult to play in the beginning.

Seriously, after the first island it gets really tough out there. My only advice is to mostly stick to the mage skills till at least level 10. Don't spread yourself out too thin like I did with my first attempt. In my second attempt, I used the runes to beef up my rage pool and concentrated on getting three skills into one of the spell groups as fast as possible. I also used the dragon as much as possible in the beginning and that mystery egg really does help out a lot even though it costs a ton of rage. Just try to keep maximizing your rage pool even though you're not a warrior.

The difficulty balances out later on and now I have a hard time finding anything that can defeat my princess. I ran across a dragon cave which kicked my butt in less than 3 second, but other than that my red dragons, black dragons and spells are enough to blaze a trail through the enemies territory.

Oh and it does make a huge difference when you choose your dragon. You don't want to be looking at an ugly red dragon the whole time You gotta go with green.

Nice review, although the rating seems a bit low.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Nice review, although the rating seems a bit low.

Agreed … we need scores that go to 11!

Rating scores to 11?? Hmm, I think we would have to change our name to RPGspy.

Personally, I think it deserved a 5, but you know me I'm more forgiving than most and it's only a number….well star in this case.

There are not that many expansions out there that have this much TLC put into them. Anyone want to bet that the Dragon Age expansion that is coming up won't even come close to the length or extra content that was put into this one?

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
There are not that many expansions out there that have this much TLC put into them. Anyone want to bet that the Dragon Age expansion that is coming up won't even come close to the length or extra content that was put into this one?

Probably cheaper though, I paid a full £30 for mine.

I know the pound's worth nothing at the moment (barely more than a euro) but still.

I paid $9.99 for mine That was during the Steam Christmas sale and now they have it even cheaper than that.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
Rating scores to 11?? Hmm, I think we would have to change our name to RPGspy.

Personally, I think it deserved a 5, but you know me I'm more forgiving than most and it's only a number….well star in this case.

There are not that many expansions out there that have this much TLC put into them. Anyone want to bet that the Dragon Age expansion that is coming up won't even come close to the length or extra content that was put into this one?

Sorry … it was a Spinal Tap movie reference

Turn it up to 11!

I think the score is good. But it might be worthy of a full five stars—it's hard to call a game that way because it implies a game is perfect, even though our policy states that isn't necessarily the case.

Armored Princess really *is*an excellent game, more of a sequel in length and scope than an expansion, and has a lot of very nice touches to make the game play fresh and enhance replayability like the medals mentioned— great for the over-achiever They actually do reward you for playing smarter, or developing a particular skill as well as just killing things. Also the way they've reworked the skillsets, which could have been a disaster, instead is well-balanced and enhances different approaches and styles of play. I particularly like that they've given you devastating spells as a mage, but they're very infrequent and hard to find til late in the game when you really need them, and that alternatively, they've tweaked the Higher Magic skill so you can use simple spells more often and more sneakily to accomplish your goals instead of just spamming Geyser or Fire rain.

Anyway, this is actually in some ways a better game than the original, but since it builds so heavily on it, I see the two games as more of a continuum of good stuff.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Sorry … it was a Spinal Tap movie reference

Still thought it was funny. Loved that movie, just haven't seen it in awhile. My spinal lingo is a little rusty

Originally Posted by magerette
I think the score is good. But it might be worthy of a full five stars—it's hard to call a game that way because it implies a game is perfect, even though our policy states that isn't necessarily the case.

"5 – An outstanding game that will be remembered as a classic. A score of 5 indicates a game that is equal to the best gameplay available in the genre at the time of writing. It is, however, important to understand this does not represent an absolutely flawless game."
It doesn't have to be perfect.
I haven't played it, so of course I can't say whether or not it deserves more than a 4. I only meant the text sounds like a 5, not a 4.

For me it's 4,5 out of 5 -> a near perfect strategy game.

Tiresome to backtrack to buy more troops

Why backtracking ? Yes, I have my favourite troops, but I stay often with the units that are locally available. I find it interesting to experiment with different units / unit compositions.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
For me it's 4,5 out of 5 -> a near perfect strategy game.



Why backtracking ? Yes, I have my favourite troops, but I stay often with the units that are locally available. I find it interesting to experiment with different units / unit compositions.

That was my thought, but with no halfsies Id go with 4

I also don't backtrack much. New island = New troops