King's Bounty II - Review
- Thread starter HiddenX
- Start date
I almost forgot about this. I never did end up trying it. This guy seems to like it more than the masses, but the user scores kept me away. 65% on Steam and even lower on Metacritic.
I think going with a new developer for this one was a mistake.
I think going with a new developer for this one was a mistake.
I never tried the game either. I was excited when KBII was announced but the reviews kept me away. Same with the new Disciples game. Not sure I will ever try them.
SSIGuy
An Islander Returned
I bought it, played a couple hours and refunded - and my expectations weren't that high and I've followed this closely so knew how it differed from past KBs.
It's not a terrible game - but it also wasn't very good. It is a game I might repurchase in the future if it is cheap enough and I don't have anything better to play... but there's the rub. These days, there are a lot of other good strategy games to play that will likely keep me from ever getting back to this.
And that's a shame... I think the game design concept for this is still kind of cool - but the execution is so poor in so many areas.
It's not a terrible game - but it also wasn't very good. It is a game I might repurchase in the future if it is cheap enough and I don't have anything better to play... but there's the rub. These days, there are a lot of other good strategy games to play that will likely keep me from ever getting back to this.
And that's a shame... I think the game design concept for this is still kind of cool - but the execution is so poor in so many areas.
JFarrell71
SasqWatch
I haven't played KB2, but I have played several hours of the recent Disciples and it's worth playing.
I found this for five pounds in a used game store. Was surprised it was so cheap given it came out quite recently.
I have *really* enjoyed it. It is obviously a B-tier game, and some of its cool innovations have downsides, but overall it is a fun game with nice HoMM style combat.
The camera has been brought down to a 3rd person RPG view, and the game is now very much an RPG as well as a strategy game. Almost every quest has multiple solutions which affect your character's leanings towards Order, Anarchy, Power and Finesse (magic). There are no "kill x" quests and fetch-style quests invariably have a twist that leads to a choice.
Graphically the engine is solid if unspectactular. Being a lower budget title, I've had the occasional "stuck on scenery" bug (about 3 times during 40+ hours). I also got stuck inside my horse once! Horse movement is a fun addition, but the momentum makes it difficult to turn in tight spaces. I tend to use the horse to travel distances between teleport points, rather than to explore.
Speaking of exploration, almost every nook/crannie has a chest or cache of goodies in. Mostly this is just loot to sell, but occasionally you'll get spell scrolls or equippable items. Biggest gameplay criticsm is that the equipment could be more interesting and varied. Many of the cool items I got had negative points on them, so weren't really useable. Only near the end did I really have enough gold to get good gear, and even then it wasn't game-changing.
Battles are up to usual standard, and I liked that the difficulty could be set on the fly if something turned out to be too difficult. Good selection of troops split into the tendancy groups I mentioned previously. Usual morale things as per HoMM.
Innovation-wise, there were two elements I enjoyed a lot, but which had side effects. Firstly, I could pay gold (typically less than I won in the fight) to restore lost troops in the battle. This was a big time-saver and worked well. The downside is that you couldn't restore completely destroyed unit stacks - if all the members of a troop type died, you had to re-recruit. This feeds into the second innovation - unit xp and unit levelling. Each unit can level up three times, often gaining cool abilities (eg. ranged attacks). However, if a troop type is completely wiped (as mentioned), you also lose your level-rank. As a result of these, you *really* don't want to have a troop stack wiped out. This can be hard on tough battles.
The other element I disliked was not knowing how many of the "choice points" I could earn, so I wasn't sure quite how to min/max my quest choices. This was solved by looking online, and is more generous than I thought.
Something I thought would be a problem is that stack sizes are limited to small numbers. No 1000 ghosts or bone dragons here (thanks HoMM2!). 10 is the max for weak troops, dropping to 2 or 3 for top end units (and 1 for specials). This creates quite a balanced system, with real decisions between dropping (say) 10 level-3 Archers vs one or two level 1 mages (max 3, but needs a lot of leadership).
Overall, this is a really fun second-tier game. It works well on console, but the battles are probably best on PC given mouse control over units/hexes. The third person exploration is probably better suited to controller, but keyboard warriors should be fine.
Overall 7-8 out of 10. One of the best 5-pounds I've spent recently!
I have *really* enjoyed it. It is obviously a B-tier game, and some of its cool innovations have downsides, but overall it is a fun game with nice HoMM style combat.
The camera has been brought down to a 3rd person RPG view, and the game is now very much an RPG as well as a strategy game. Almost every quest has multiple solutions which affect your character's leanings towards Order, Anarchy, Power and Finesse (magic). There are no "kill x" quests and fetch-style quests invariably have a twist that leads to a choice.
Graphically the engine is solid if unspectactular. Being a lower budget title, I've had the occasional "stuck on scenery" bug (about 3 times during 40+ hours). I also got stuck inside my horse once! Horse movement is a fun addition, but the momentum makes it difficult to turn in tight spaces. I tend to use the horse to travel distances between teleport points, rather than to explore.
Speaking of exploration, almost every nook/crannie has a chest or cache of goodies in. Mostly this is just loot to sell, but occasionally you'll get spell scrolls or equippable items. Biggest gameplay criticsm is that the equipment could be more interesting and varied. Many of the cool items I got had negative points on them, so weren't really useable. Only near the end did I really have enough gold to get good gear, and even then it wasn't game-changing.
Battles are up to usual standard, and I liked that the difficulty could be set on the fly if something turned out to be too difficult. Good selection of troops split into the tendancy groups I mentioned previously. Usual morale things as per HoMM.
Innovation-wise, there were two elements I enjoyed a lot, but which had side effects. Firstly, I could pay gold (typically less than I won in the fight) to restore lost troops in the battle. This was a big time-saver and worked well. The downside is that you couldn't restore completely destroyed unit stacks - if all the members of a troop type died, you had to re-recruit. This feeds into the second innovation - unit xp and unit levelling. Each unit can level up three times, often gaining cool abilities (eg. ranged attacks). However, if a troop type is completely wiped (as mentioned), you also lose your level-rank. As a result of these, you *really* don't want to have a troop stack wiped out. This can be hard on tough battles.
The other element I disliked was not knowing how many of the "choice points" I could earn, so I wasn't sure quite how to min/max my quest choices. This was solved by looking online, and is more generous than I thought.
Something I thought would be a problem is that stack sizes are limited to small numbers. No 1000 ghosts or bone dragons here (thanks HoMM2!). 10 is the max for weak troops, dropping to 2 or 3 for top end units (and 1 for specials). This creates quite a balanced system, with real decisions between dropping (say) 10 level-3 Archers vs one or two level 1 mages (max 3, but needs a lot of leadership).
Overall, this is a really fun second-tier game. It works well on console, but the battles are probably best on PC given mouse control over units/hexes. The third person exploration is probably better suited to controller, but keyboard warriors should be fine.
Overall 7-8 out of 10. One of the best 5-pounds I've spent recently!
Thanks for the impressions. Much appreciated.
I've been playing this recently and the battles are excellent. Sadly it has way too much exploration and not enough combat. For example I recently did a dungeon, it had one optional combat in it. That's it, no other battles. It was relatively interesting anyhow, however as a player of the previous games I'm playing this because I love the battles!
Ah well it's decent enough.
Daniel.
Ah well it's decent enough.
Daniel.
i like the new Disciples more, but kb2 is not good at all!
Each to their own, I guess @ikbenrichard;
One feature I remembered tonight which I really enjoyed is that quests often lead on to further quests, and questgiver characters move around in reaction to their completed quests. You can then meet them later in the game, elsewhere for either more questage or to catch up with them and see some closure on their stories. For example, having done a series of quests to help two characters get back together, I recently found them living in a small village having bought a nearby farm.
One feature I remembered tonight which I really enjoyed is that quests often lead on to further quests, and questgiver characters move around in reaction to their completed quests. You can then meet them later in the game, elsewhere for either more questage or to catch up with them and see some closure on their stories. For example, having done a series of quests to help two characters get back together, I recently found them living in a small village having bought a nearby farm.
I never had it on my radar screen because of its lack of comic look.
No buy because or that for me.
No buy because or that for me.