kings bounty the legend letters of request

This is something of a double-edged badger cudgel, because while it offers a throughline of strategy-brain pleasing nom-nom-numeric progression, it also hampers the storytelling. You choose a path, you get alignment points, you spend experience points (from battles and quests, but a separate thing to alignment points) to move further up that alignment’s skill tree. Story quests offer choices that correspond to an alignment. A pack of ancient wolves is Power, for example, while a deadly cadre of assassins is Anarchy. Each corresponds to a troop type and skill tree branch.

There are four: Order and Anarchy are opposites, as are Power (Might) and Finesse (Magic). The voice performances often evoke Resident Evil 1 with codpieces, though. Quests contain plots within schemes and character arcs peppered with sardonic humour that, while not gut-busting, isn’t unpleasant. Peasant trysts and noble lineage, myths and legends.

The snatches of lore found in notes and books aren’t incredibly engaging, but they are plentiful and varied. Ever stand around in a dungeon puzzling out which route the designer intended, so you can check all the other routes for treasure and feel like a trailblazing genius? That's often rewarded here. So there are dragons! Trolls! Gryphons! Literally everyone is white for some reason! No, don’t pay attention to that, look over there: it’s a wizard that looks like Gandalf! Remember Gandalf? It’s default fantasy flavour, although I sort of get it, since it originates from a time where simple genre shorthands were necessary for readability. The world of King’s Bounty II is.pleasant, in an almost proudly naff way. 'It’s the sort of fluff only necessary when trying to justify having such terrifyingly massive maps.' There is nothing quite on the level of DA:I’s egregious MMO-style timewasters, but at least then you were gathering plants like a manic apocalypse seedbank prepper in the service of a story and characters worth caring about. It’s the sort of fluff only necessary when trying to justify having such terrifyingly massive maps. Take item A to reprobate B, you mug, you absolute tool of a carrier pigeon. Collect five scrolls, dashing swashbuckler. Then, you run out of cash, or hit a wall, so you go a’questing. Bang your head against that one nightmare battle until you make one tiny adjustment that clinches a victory. Win battles, get money, hire troops, learn skills, hire new troops. Discard all that packaging, and, oh! There’s that cable you wanted.

I’d wager it’s this stuff that’s whacked it up to a princely fifty quid, too, a price I can’t recommend it at. Heaps of voiced dialogue, animated NPCs, big explorable maps, multi-tiered CYOA side quests, cutscenes. Or at least confidence in an audience to give it a second look if it doesn’t at least try to cosplay as a Bioware game.Īnd I must insist that it is absolutely fair to judge King’s Bounty 2 as an RPG, because a large chunk of it is one. It just feels like King’s Bounty II lacks confidence in itself. Opulently textured facial hair flowing from the chins of impeccably groomed pig farmers. Marble courtrooms with intricate, stained glass murals. Some of that packaging is really quite nice. There’s a tight, varied, often-challenging Heroes Of Might And Magic-style tactical battler here, but you’ll have to tear through layers of baggy Dragon Age-style RPG to get to it.ĭon’t get me wrong. You know when you order, say, a single HDMI cable from Amazon and it comes in a cardboard box the size of a dog coffin? That’s King's Bounty 2. Publisher: 1C Entertainment, Prime Matter.The RPG they’re packaged with, while sometimes gorgeous, is baggy and bland. King’s Bounty 2’s hexed-based battles, customisation and army management are all a good time.

Kings bounty the legend letters of request