King's Bounty: The Legend (Gameplay #5) (ENDING)

Channel:

Demiath

Subscribers:

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Published on January 6, 2011 7:48:29 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhh9GPZ4oT0

Game:

King's Bounty: The Legend (2008)

Duration: 13:41

4,865 views

7

After having spent roughly 60 hours methodically exploring the game world of King's Bounty: The Legend - and carrying out what basically amounts to ethnic cleansing of all its hostile inhabitants - I finally reached the last boss battle, which turned out to be surprisingly easy compared to earlier ones. Despite being an almost sadistically addictive game - "just one more turn" etc. - I think it's also fair to say that it overstays its welcome somewhat by having such an absurdly long campaign mode. After about 30 or so hours I felt I had seen every gameplay twist and basic type of challenge that the developers had come up with..and by that time I was still only half-way through the game.

The problem with KB is that since there are no AI-controlled factions and armies exploring the world at the same time as the player, the game lacks that crucial strategic dimension of games like Heroes of Might & Magic or Civilization. Winning in King's Bounty has nothing to do with making clever decisions about, say, what city to attack next or which resources to defend, and rather boils down to simply collecting everything that isn't bolted down and slowly whittling away at the enemy forces in each area. Thus, the gameplay experience isn't characterized by the same tension as a "true" strategy game, and at times degenerates into an almost MMO-like grind (which could have been avoided by making the game shorter). Also, the strange but absolutely essential trick of avoiding enemy troops on the map in realtime is poorly implemented and thus can be a real pain to execute properly.

That being said, I should perhaps stress that I *did* have a ton of fun with King's Bounty, all the way through. The tactical elements (i.e. minimizing your losses in each battle) manage to stay fresh and exciting since they constantly require a fair amount of smart thinking and experimentation with different abilities and troop combinations. Just exploring the game world, grabbing loot and levelling up your hero can also be hugely satisfying. Indeed, immediately after finishing King's Bounty I booted up the latest KB game, Crossworlds (which expands upon the previous expansion Armored Princess), and immediately got sucked right back into the addictive aspects of building up a new character and exploring areas I hadn't seen before...

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