RPGWatch Feature - King's Bounty Review
 

While we get our RPG of the Year awards together, Magerette brings us a review of Katauri's delightful King's Bounty: The Legend. Here's an excerpt:
Head here to read it all!
More information.

Nice job, Magerette! I haven't gone far with KB but I look forward to spending more time with it soon.

Great review. Exactly my thoughts on the game too. Though I didn't even notice the translation problems too often, it was definatly a lot better than the usual. I might be a little more forgiving because I just recently replayed a little of Prince of Qin.

I loved the humor in the game and how magic items sometimes came with a moral. I really didn't understand that I had to battle my shoes to increase its moral until later in the game. I thought it was just for upgrading them.

The babies were a nice touch too, though all they really are are magic items. I'm not sure real babies give you a +2 spell holding ability;) But it was a nice touch and something I hadn't seen before.

King's Bounty was easily the biggest (positive)surprise of 2008. I eagerly await the sequel\exspansion.

What is up with the format of the review? I got a bunch of if's and strange formatting problems which prevented me to read it.

It looks fine in Firefox and Chrome to me.

Edit. Ah, IE shows some stuff the others ignore. It will take me a few minutes to clean it up.

Edit 2: Better?

Good job, madame! :)

yep, looks good now! and a good review too! Good job.

Well written! Bit long for my taste, but eh.. it's a complex game. ;)

A well explained review in compact detail from a gamer perspective and with no fluff, couldn't be better.

I award Magerette that rare and much coveted standard of merit,

the "Gamer-Reviewer Gold Star" - :star:

Since I never played any HOM&M this game was like a breath of fresh air,in an average year for RPGs apart from Witcher EE and the first hours of F3 this game was the best game I played.I'm definitely gonna try HOM&M after Kings Bounty.

Great Review Magerette.

So you've been secretly lusty pirate wenching eh?

great review indeed. In some place there is a mention of 4 wives… I think you can also marry the daughter of the dwarf king and the pirate chick

No, it's true. My first baby gave me a bonus to night time operations, and the second +6 inventory slots in my car. Unfortunately, they also include a major income penalty.
:P

You are lucky to have received a well-done, pre-patched version. I got this one when it just came out in Russia half a year before the worldwide release and it was spoiled by show-stopper bugs and weekly patches that forced me to restart the game. I really enjoyed it, but got ultimately tired and never completed the game to the end.

Thanks so much, everyone, for all the kind words. Your opinion as readers is very important to me. But it wasn't hard to say positive things about this game--the hard part was reining in my fanboism. :)

@ drum--that's a shame. The version I played was absolutely not buggy. Sorry you had to beta test it, but maybe someday you might reconsider the fully patched up game.

@wolfing , you're correct, there are more than four choices for wife--I forgot completely about the really….plain…dwarf princess. And after the boss battle and a further trip to slay her current fiance, you can carry off Miss Mirabella , of course. I was being true to my Frog wife at the time with her +100% attack for snakes and spiders. What a woman.

@woges: Arrrrgh!

Very nice review, though I think it deserved another 1/2 star. I'll just chalk it up to RPGWatch's astronomically high critical standards.

I have to disagree with your assessment of "lengthy turn-based battles" though. King's Bounty has the fastest turn-based combat I have ever played.

best game in years indeed

Great game and very nice review :)

I agree, my definition of a lengthy TB battle was born at the time of the original King's Bounty when I was stuck at the end of a battle with a single ogre vs. a single enemy ogre :).

Nice review - I think I have a new game to play!

Excellent Review! It's so nice to read a well written review that emphasizes gameplay rather than graphics and annoying snarky sophmoric humor!

We don't do half stars ;)

Cool game, I just started it a few nights ago and so far really like it. Usually tb games put me to sleep, but this one's managing to keep me awake
Good review Mags.

btw - roaming grammar nazis are rumored to have spotted an "alter" 5th paragraph into the review that should have been an altar

Doh. I guess it was appropriate then.

You must faint at the thought of mine …

I love this review - I had a bunch of stuff written for a different review of the game, but when I read the review, there wasn't much of anything to add!

Heroes 5 hasnt had a look in on my PC since I purchased Kings Bounty. :biggrin:

Would be great if Katauri was chosen by Ubi to make MM10 (or Heroes 6 for that matter).

Yes, and I see I've got "dwarven canon operators"(presumably firing off points of dwarven religious doctrine?) instead of cannons as well…*sigh*…I useta cud spell gud.

I think the real time adventure map makes a huge difference in the not nodding off factor. Glad you dig the game and thanks.

About the 'lengthy tb battles may not be for everyone comment"--that was kind of directed at people who are not generally players of the turn base---not for us masochists who have played through every HoMM campaign including the locked ones….;) KB combat does move pretty quickly except for some of the big stacks, named heroes and that @$%&# spider boss. That one took me at least half an hour. Twice.

Me too, I'm glad I was able to rise above her clammy amphibiousness and focus on something really deep and meaningful like attack bonuses.

If we take this more seriously, then this is kind of an … I'll try it with the words "pro racial statement" : You can marry even wives that do not belong to the own race at all - yet still the partners benefit greatly from it ! :)

King's Bounty cheap
 

This most excellent review nicely coincides with GamersGate's current special:

50% off King'sBounty!
http://www.gamersgate.com/index.php?…view&sku=DD-KB

(It's now US $19.95 )

I've been tempted to buy it for a while now, and now I have no excuse.

I only just noticed that it's magerette and not margerette.

Don't feel bad--it's a common error (and I hope it doesn't imply my writing style and screen personality resemble artificial butter. ) In fact, I got the "marge" thing so often,I used to have a quote in my sig to explain:

Mage: practioner of the arcane arts, magus, wizard, warlock, sorceror
Magerette: politically incorrect feminine noun form of above