King's Bounty - Preview @ Hooked Gamers

Hooked Gamers previews Katuari's tactical adventure /RPG, King's Bounty:The Legend, giving a general overview plus some gameplay details:

Developed by Katauri Interactive, Kings Bounty: the Legend mixes RPG adventure with more tactical, turn-based combat. During battles, the player controls an army of strange creatures, moving over a grid made of hexagons. Your army improves as your leadership stat does. Although your hero does not appear to directly participate in battles, he can summon creatures and give other aid to his allies…
My first impression of the King’s Bounty: The Legend battle system likened it to a game of chess. Big, shiny, tough, sparkly, flashy, pointy-thing chess. With swords. In other words, it looks like fun, particularly for fans of other tactical games.
Units…will also be able to acquire greater skills and specific features to give battles a greater tactical aspect. Your hero can command up to five squads, and while he summons Rage spirits and casts spells, his parameters, skills and totems will influence the units.

More information.

So far, the graphics don’t look any more advanced than, say, Might & Magic VIII, a game released eight years ago. That said, the Might and Magic series looked pretty good for its time

Eh, sorry? Graphics in MM8 (6-9 imo) were ugly, even for their times. How can he say that the graphic are not better than those games. Kings Bounty is absolutely beautiful.

RPG players are usually dead against linear plots in their games, voting instead for free-roaming adventures.

This is also stupid, because while rpg players MAY like nonlinear games more, there are really not much of them on the market. Right now only Oblivion and 2Worlds come to mind. Whereas NWN2 and many other rpgs right now are more or less linear.

I think the game looks gorgeous as well … I so love seeing the hex grid

This game is out due Q2 2008, right?
It reminds me alot of HoMM and that i love !

Endoria ? Reminds me of this one … http://www.thelegacy.de/Museum/4805/

But, well, since Star Wars "Endor" from the Bible should be a known word for everyone ….

Is it populated by Ewokerians?

Looks graphically like a cross between Warcraft 3 and Homm 5. I like the looks of it.

Unfortunately, turn based just bores me to tears. Of all the TB games Ive played, the only one that I can really tolerate is Disciples II, everything else just puts me to sleep!

I'll play the demo on this, maybe it'll have something that will put some vim and vigor in the tb thing for me

Did you try Civilization IV? It's the best turn-based game ever made.

Also, Temple of Elemental Evil has very fun combat if you haven't played it.

Also there's quite a bit of the game that's in real time, all the exploration and so forth. But the combat will probably be a lot of the game, and it is definitely turn based. I of course thrive on the stuff, but hopefully the 3-D elements, summoning rage spirits and so forth, will jazz it up a bit for those who find tb less than spinetingling.

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
Did you try Civilization IV? It's the best turn-based game ever made.

No offense, but blech! Dull and very, very shallow. Underneath all the reams and reams of "stuff" (i.e. units, techs, buildings, etc) are thin mechanics with relationships and interactions that are not complex or interesting at all. Just my opinion, 'course.

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
Also, Temple of Elemental Evil has very fun combat if you haven't played it.

Now that's a sentiment I can get on board with. Hell yeah!

Originally Posted by chamr
No offense, but blech! Dull and very, very shallow. Underneath all the reams and reams of "stuff" (i.e. units, techs, buildings, etc) are thin mechanics with relationships and interactions that are not complex or interesting at all. Just my opinion, 'course.

I love Civ IV (best ever, not so much) … the Beyond the Sword add-on is really excellent as well.

I'm still a fan of Age of Wonders … Allthough I haven't played it in ages …

TOEE was very nice - once I understood the system.

Yes, "Age of Wonders 2" was very good at reminding me of the brilliance of "Master of Magic".

Only last October I was able to get a specimen of MOM.

Since I dabbled with it, I clearly saw why so many people saw in it the "spiritual precessor" of AoW.

Originally Posted by txa1265
… the Beyond the Sword add-on is really excellent as well.

To be fair, I haven't tried the expansion(s?), so I can't comment on those.

But since others have brought it up, AoW: SM is an excellent contrast to CivIV. It has lots of variety and depth in gameplay.