Russian developer Katauri Interactive does the legend proud with a terrific updated version of the New World Computing classic.
Remakes are a tricky business. It's always tempting to update a beloved property from the past so a new generation can appreciate it. But how much can you modernize without losing what made the original so compelling? Do it right and you get the new "Battlestar Galactica." Do it wrong and you end up with "Godzilla" starring Matthew Broderick. Russian developers Katauri Interactive took just such a risk when they embarked on a labor of love to resurrect New World Computing's classic King's Bounty and thankfully the resulting title, King's Bounty: The Legend, is far more "Battlestar" than "Godzilla."
The basic premise of King's Bounty: The Legend is standard-issue fantasy. There's a magical kingdom run by a noble king named Mark who has a beautiful daughter who apparently fell from the stars. Despite Mark being all good and nice and stuff, the kingdom has fallen on some difficult times as the number of bandit attacks and monster sightings has gone up in recent months. It's up to the player, a new hero and recent graduate of the Darion Temple, to head out into the world, fight a gazillion assorted monsters, loot everything that's not nailed down, track down the source of this new evil and blast it to smithereens in the name of truth, justice and all that stuff.
A great story and well-written dialogue in an RPG can vault an otherwise mediocre product into greatness. King's Bounty's story, on the other hand, marks the game's most significant weakness. While the game has already been on store shelves in Russia for several months, publishers Atari and 1C made a point of trying to make sure that the game got a good translation for the English-speaking market. The grammatically challenged, typo-ridden and poorly written game text doesn't seem to have benefited from the extra effort (although we question how much good stuff there was to work with in the first place).
Players travel through the world on horseback via an isometric overhead perspective. The world itself is lovely if a bit cartoonish, filled with all sorts of eye-pleasing animations, with well-designed (if a bit generic) fantasy creatures wandering about the landscape and all-sorts of little ambient details that make the world an enticing place to explore. As players travel around, they'll run into various wandering monster armies as well as hero-led troops that can be fought for gold and experience points. There are also a number of castles, towns, building and ruins filled with all sorts of baddies to kill. Many of these must be cleared as parts of long quest chains, while many others offer long-term benefits or serve as a source of troops when their guardians are cleared out.
It's when the player goes into combat that the real attraction of King's Bounty: The Legend becomes clear. The conceit of the battle system is that the player's hero doesn't personally fight in battle. Instead he acts as commander and chief spell-caster for armies of men and monsters that struggle with each other across a hex-grid battlefield in the manner of classic turn-based strategy games. Katauri Interactive's recreation and update of this system does their team and the legacy of New World Computing proud. King's Bounty's battle system is incredibly deep and enjoyable, more than a match for the original game or any of the classic Heroes of Might and Magic games they inspired.
While there's a lot to the system that makes it work, two elements in particular stand out. The first are the game's beautifully drawn interactive battlefields. What battlefield the player fights on is dictated by where on the overhead map the hero encounters the opposition. While each battlefield is somewhat randomized, they'll usually have a chest the player can open (in later stages of the game, these chests become a significant source of income and magical items) as well as environmental hazards such as a bee's nest that attacks both sides or a cursed cross that slows down any army near it. That makes every battle tactically unique and really helps to stave off the "same old, same old" feeling that can come from a 60-70 hour game like this. It also makes the player's choice of where to fight often as significant as what to fight with.
The second is the sheer variety of armies the player can command. The world of Endoria is filled with a ton of controllable creatures ranging from poison-spitting mobile plants to vampires and dragons. Each comes with their own set of basic abilities as well as special powers (basic archers, for example, can be upgraded with fire arrows that do damage-over-time or ice arrows that paralyze enemy units). As the player rises in power and clears out more of the world they'll be faced with more and more powerful army mixes that will require a strategist's eye in putting together a coalition of unlikely army units to stop. Players will also acquire the ability to command "Spirits of Rage," four super-powerful units with different powers that can be leveled up separately and then employed at strategically critical moments.
What makes the game's battle system especially enjoyable is the way it dovetails seamlessly with the player-hero's RPG mechanics. Players can choose from one of three classes (Warrior, Paladin or Mage) and each choice has a significant impact on the way the game's strategic battles play out. As the player wins battles they gain experience points in order to level up, but unlike in traditional RPGs, the heroes of King's Bounty: The Legend utilize an MMO-style "talent tree" in which skills are purchased via runes littered about the overworld landscape. As players continue to clear out areas and lose troops with every battle, they'll uncover new sources of troops, gold and magic runes. Clearing out a haunted castle, in fact, may just result in the artifact or the new source of purchasable zombies needed to take down an obstinate army that's been bedeviling the player for a few levels.
The result is a game where the logistic aspects of the overworld game are as much a strategic consideration as the choice of what troops that player takes into battle. It doesn't take too many levels before a player starts to realize that each and every talent purchase has a significant impact on how their army fights. The overworld's resources are not unlimited, either. As players fight and lose troops with every battle, scarcity can becomes a reality, forcing players to radically re-order their army's composition or shift their explorations because a key troop is no longer available. Both RPG and strategy game fans will have a great time digging into this impressively detailed system and when they're done, game randomization ensures there will always be another challenge.
The game does have a few other minor negatives. The very randomness that ensures replayability also contributes to distinctly weird creature distribution. It's not unusual for players to see massive armies they have no hope of defeating in the game's introductory zones while end-game regions will sometimes be loaded with creampuff battles that do nothing but slow the game down. There is an automatic pilot for combat but the game desperately needs some sort of autoresolve function to avoid players sitting through five minutes of boringly unlosable combat. The crowded overland map also makes it difficult to pick up what features are interactive, what's just scenery, what's a road and what's not (this has an unfortunate consequences if the game's pathing runs the player into a battle he or she's not prepared for). The game could also use more fast-travel options and some sort of a central "bank" for purchased creatures. As it stands now, the player often has to backtrack over huge swaths of landscape to find the troops they need for a particular combat.
Despite a couple of missteps (most notably the poor translation and storyline) none of the game's annoyances should keep any serious strategy gamer from seeking out King's Bounty: The Legend. The game's RPG trappings are just the sugarcoating for an incredibly deep and enjoyable strategic experience. There's a whole host of classic games out there just waiting for a fresh coat of paint and a serious upgrade from a developer who loves them as much as the team at Katauri Interactive obviously loves King's Bounty. Here's hoping they do as good a job!
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