King's Bounty II - Impressions @ C4G

Before I watch that vid, lemme share something.
Started it today, finally got some free time so I thought let's put a couple of hours in…
Next thing it's time to go for bed and I played it for 10 hours streight!

Sure, UI is clunky, "running" is too slow for it's own good, but all those thumbs down on Steam are ridiculous.
These are small annoyances, the game is fun.

I'm gonna watch the vid now.
 
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This doesn't look too bad.

My biggest issue so far would be that I'd like to play a male mage, which doesn't seem to be possible.
 
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Before I watch that vid, lemme share something.
Started it today, finally got some free time so I thought let's put a couple of hours in…
Next thing it's time to go for bed and I played it for 10 hours streight!

Sure, UI is clunky, "running" is too slow for it's own good, but all those thumbs down on Steam are ridiculous.
These are small annoyances, the game is fun.

I'm gonna watch the vid now.

Well you're opinion is worth more to me than all those professional reviewers, who often don't seem to be the target audiences for the games they are reviewing. They took some risks with this one and unfortunately when you make changes to any series there are fans who go an a rage about some feature or another and review bomb your game.
 
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Well you're opinion is worth more to me than all those professional reviewers, who often don't seem to be the target audiences for the games they are reviewing. They took some risks with this one and unfortunately when you make changes to any series there are fans who go an a rage about some feature or another and review bomb your game.
Before you go ahead and dismiss valid criticism of a game as review bombing (which is only what happens when people en masse rate something negatively for reasons unrelated to the game, usually political shenanigans), I'd suggest you actually look at the reviews by people and what are the common criticisms.

The ones just rating it badly because "it isn't like it used to be" are a very small fraction.

- Horrible UI (it is pretty clear this wasn't playtested on PC by anyone, this is Oblivion-tier bad UI)
- Game wastes TONS of your time (the worst thing a game can do IMO) via WAY too slow speed, constant mounting/unmounting for interaction, no speed-up in combat, etc.
- Bugs, bugs and some more bugs
- Only a small amount of gameplay time is spent in battles (which should be the core experience of the game), the rest is... walking around.
- The price is ridiculously high for what is on offer

It seems to me, though, that many of these things should be patchable, so maybe, MAYBE this will reach a good state at some point. That and a sale could definitely change things.

Should have never been released in this state, though. Or in early access instead.
 
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@TheSHEEEP;, thanks for the insight! So if we're lucky it was just a rushed release.
 
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Well, I guess I might just try this one eventually once it gets cheaper and hopefully, most of the issues are somehow addressed.

It's not a game I had high expectation for, anyhow.
 
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Ehhh, if a rushed release is the only true problem, that can be easily corrected with a few updates/patches. Let's see how things shake out in a few weeks/months, I'm willing to give them some leeway here.
 
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Pretty much every negative media review I've watched has left me feeling I'll like the game. Feels a bit like some of the original North American reviews that came out when Gothic 1 was released… I'd read them and go "Huh. Seems like a cool game'. Lol.
 
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- Game wastes TONS of your time (the worst thing a game can do IMO)
Are you and me the only two people in the world who believe this (about games in general, not just KB2)?
Drives me MENTAL when a game makes you watch a too-slow animation 10,000 times, or acts like traveling across a map instantly is a "nice to have feature, maybe we'll patch that in later."
The only reason I'm not playing KB2 right now is I'm waiting for that time saver patch.

Also read that the too-little-combat complaint only applies to the first few hours, then it's 50-60% combat.
 
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Are you and me the only two people in the world who believe this (about games in general, not just KB2)?
Drives me MENTAL when a game makes you watch a too-slow animation 10,000 times, or acts like traveling across a map instantly is a "nice to have feature, maybe we'll patch that in later."
The only reason I'm not playing KB2 right now is I'm waiting for that time saver patch.
We're definitely not the only ones.
I guess how bad such a thing is depends on the person, but for me, the lack of speed-up options is one of the core game design sins that will make me not want to play a game - even if it is otherwise good.

I had a lot more patience for games wasting my time when I was a kid/teen.
But once you get to the point where you're happy if you have a few free hours per day, I don't get how anyone can still stomach getting their time wasted.

E.g. recently, I was playing Solasta. The game's otherwise good, but after 12 hours or so, the slow ass combat without proper speed-up options just wore me down and I had no intention of playing any further.
Necromunda I didn't even try to play because of that - Mordheim was already way too slow, even with the speed-up options they patched in.

Also read that the too-little-combat complaint only applies to the first few hours, then it's 50-60% combat.
That's possible, of course.
But not exactly a good impression, either way.
 
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Personally, I have only 4 hours free time in the evenings.

Yet I do not want and fast speed games. I want to slow down, try thinking, and if a game needs its time, then I accept it.

I think it is rather a sign of our society that everything has to be fast.
Somehow, societies have lost the ability to take thinkgs slow. Only lockdowns made them learn that again - and then it clearly showed who was fine with that and who wasn't.
Personally - maybe it's just prejudice, I don't know - I rather believe that it is more the introvert people who want things to be slow than extrovert people.
This prejudice goes even so far that I tend to think that extrovert people are not so much interested in stories in games than introvert ones are.
However, the biggest parts of social life are modelled after the wishes and needs of extrovert people, that's what I think.

However, trends like "Slow Baking" show me that there is something going on.
 
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Yet I do not want and fast speed games. I want to slow down, try thinking, and if a game needs its time, then I accept it.

I think it is rather a sign of our society that everything has to be fast.
Somehow, societies have lost the ability to take thinkgs slow. Only lockdowns made them learn that again - and then it clearly showed who was fine with that and who wasn't.
I'm with you here, but there is an important point. The thing you do slowly also needs to be enjoyable. There's a good saying: "The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time".

If we go back to topic and look at a movement in a video game, then in my opinion slow movement is not a problem if for example you have a very beautyiful world where you can look at things or listen to sounds (or music!) while slowly walking.
But if the wold is bland and dull and there's no joy, but boredom in moving slowly, it is a problem.
 
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I'm with you here, but there is an important point. The thing you do slow also needs to be enjoyable. There a good saying: "The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time".
If we go back to topic and look at a movement in a video game, then in my opinion slow movement is not a problem if for example you have a very beautiful world where you can look at things or listen to sounds (or music!) while slowly walking.
But if the wold is bland and dull and there's no joy, but boredom in moving slowly, it is a problem.

I so much fully agree with you !!!

Yes, indeed ! : "Eye candy" is much better to be played slow than ugly looking stuff !
 
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I went against the negative reviews and bought a copy of the game and I must say I really enjoy it. It does have a horrible UI and the walking is slow. I only encountered one major bug. I do not mind the slow walking, it gives you time to take in the scenery and what it also enables exploration. There is a lot of loot and scattered around and it gives a really gives a good feeling when you go look at the back of a house on a hunch and find a stash. It 3rd perspective also enables more/better puzzles but till now I only encountered a few, I hope there is more. As for the price, at this price you expect a AAA-title and this is not it. If you love the genre but are afraid of the negative reviews I suggest you wait till a sale before giving the game a chance.
 
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Here's my overall impression: It could be a pretty decent game if they just bothered to fix some stuff. Still, a step backwards compared to some earlier Kings Bounty games.

The running / walking / riding (esp. in city) speed is horrible. During development, there would have been two fixes possible for this: a) design the game so that you nearly never have to backtrack. Pretty much impossible now, the game forces you to backtrack all the time for fetch quests and for the choose-your-next-battle-wisely meta game. b) Increase movement speed considerably (double it).

Luckily, you can mod (or ini edit) movement speed. See Steam guides.

The only other major complaint I have is line of sight (LOS) in the actual battles. Dunno if I miss some essential UI element, but determining from which position your archer will be able to hit some specific target sometimes is only possible by actually moving your archer to that position and trying it. Which means you'll often waste turns, potentially ruining the battle outcome. LOS is always a bit tricky to determine in grid based combat, but here it's aggravated by obstacles (which may or may not hinder LOS) and elevation (very hard to see from most camera angles, and near-impossible to determine LOS impact).

Since the battles are the core of this game, this is actually a pretty serious issue. At this point, I'm considering to ditch ranged units completely (unless they have some redeeming qualities like certain skills).

Other than that, the battles can be a lot of fun.

I love the occasional "blight" battles, where you play a pre-set army rather than your own army. Those are much more difficult to win, and actually often feel more like puzzles.
 
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I noticed that when you hover over a hex when an archer is selected the game sometimes tells you what units you can hit by making them red. But this is not consistent, I think it's a bug. I'm now further in the game and have found more bugs that ruined some fights:
- taunt only works for one turn. but multiple turns if the enemy casts it
- some units have a life leach skill, for some reason it does not seem to work for me.
All of those things can be patched out thankfully and I hope they do. This game has potential I hope they won't abandon it like Ubisoft did some of it's HoMM games.
 
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