By Jim Rossignol on September 16th, 2008 at 2:59 pm.
Space Rangers 2 folks Katauri Interactive are releasing their new game, King’s Bounty: The Legend, in the US soon (possibly in the UK, but nowt confirmed) and the English demo is out already. Get it here, at a muscular 687mb.
It’s a shiny-looking Heroes of Might & Magic type fantasy RPG, albeit modernised and polished up in a rather Blizzardian fashion. The Russian press gave it a big thumbs up. Let me know what you think, I’ll be really interested to hear everyone’s impressions of this one.
I rejoice at the fact my post is premium for above article.
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Fairy chick at right intriuges.
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Demo logo fairy chick at thee homepage does likewise.
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I tried it out last night for 45 minutes or so. It didn’t click for me. The turn based hex combat bit didn’t seem deep enough and the real time world map bit was kinda messy.
The camara was fiddly and the avatar hard to control. I didn’t explore the options too far to be fair, maybe some of that is fixable with rebindable keys and camara options.
It was just a bit bland as well. I don’t like the art style much. Considering I’ve been playing AoW:SM recently this is not standing up well in comparison or on the fun factor.
The text is cute like in SR2, I guess. Man this sounds all so negative. I guess I can say that if you like this sort of thing then you’ll like this sort of thing. Um. That’s my first impression anyways.
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Fairy chick at right intriuges.
She must be the titular Kings Booty.
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is it me or does the graphics engine look like the Warcraft 3 ???
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The graphics are a little bit shonky here and there, but that’s totally forgivable if the game is fun to play.
I forgot to mention that there’s no tutorial for how to interface with the game. Which might be why the TB combat didn’t seem deep to me since I was just walking guys up to the baddies and hitting them. Maybe there’s more complex tactical considerations that I just couldn’t see.
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is it me or does the graphics engine look like the Warcraft 3 ???
Then it’d be a good work laptop game ;)
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Heroes of Might and Magic has been pretty horrible through the past few iterations, so it would be nice if this game was actually fun. Running around and collecting treasure/artifacts/monsters used to be one of the great pleasures of life.
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I thought it was very polished, and quite enjoyable. Definitely a game I am going to get, so I didn’t bother completing the demo. AFAIK it’ll be out on Gamersgate at the same time as the US-release.
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I liked Space Rangers 2 better, really.
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I would try this normally because I’m a fan of Heroes of Might and Magic (old HMM, anyway), and the title reminds me of an old Amiga (I think it was, that or Megadrive) game. But due to Spore I’m all strategy’d out, and in the way of strategy Spore is all I want to play at the moment.
This is primarily because I am determined to master that game, and my loup garou children will become ubiquitous throughout the cosmos! So… indeed, it’s a shame. I’ll try and get to it, but it might be a bit away. Due to some of the comments though, it sounds like it may just be one to avoid.
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Oh god, as a huuuge fan of SR2, I’m all over this like white on rice.
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Well I’ve tried the demo and it’s brilliant. It’s a lot like Heroes of Might and Magic, but it’s an RPG and not a strategy game. You get quests, level up, engage in dialogue etc. Graphics are great, gameplay is great, PC-centric game, I’m definately going to buy it. If you like RPGs you should give the demo a try.
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That website is taking a beating. Reminding myself to look again later.
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Ooh, I shall be looking at this once I get home. I looked into it a bit the last time RPS covered it, and was just recently wondering how it was progressing.
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I finished the demo today, and I think it’s a great game. Normally I would be put off by the vibrant colours (I come from similar games like Disciples II and Warlords III), but it really works here. Like people mentioned above the game has a real polished feeling to it. It’s also refreshing that the world map works in real-time, compared to the turn-based battles.
The battles are identical to those of HoMM (some icons are exactly the same even), with some minor differences. With King’s Bounty you can summon (after finishing the first quest for the King) so called Rage Spirits. You can compare these to the summons used in Final Fantasy, up to the long animations after casting. The spirits can level up also and their effects vary from AoE or direct damage to defense spells and dot’s.
All in all, I really enjoyed the demo (although it’s funny that some quests can’t be completed due to geographical demo restrictions) and recommend it to anyone who enjoys games like HoMM, AoW, Disciples and Warlords.
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Anyone know when the Space Rangers 2 reboot’s out in the UK? Stardock won’t sell it here, sadface.
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Am I the only person in the world who remembers being slavishly addicted to the Mega Drive version? :/ If I recall, this was actually the precursor to the HoMM series. Although I could well be wrong :P
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I have the whole thing imprinted on my memory, especially the 10-second loop of music. And yes, I seem to remember it being by the same people as HoMM.
Have to say though, that new thing up there doesn’t look all that interesting.
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I see a lot of people citing the remake of King’s Bounty as reminiscent of HoMM. That’s probably because, prior to making the HoMM series, New World Computing made a game called King’s Bounty.
When I get my PC fixed, I’ll have to take a look at this one.
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That is an adorable Cerberus.
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