E3 2008: King's Bounty: The Legend Late-Game Impressions

We recently told you all about the beginning of the upcoming King's Bounty: The Legend, but at E3 2008, we recently got a glimpse at the end of the game and the powers you can expect to wield toward the end of your quest in the kingdom of Darion. We don't want to tell you too much about the units we were using or the quests we were on because you'll definitely want to discover those things for yourself.

As a brief recap, King's Bounty: The Legend represents the resurrection of a strategy/role- playing series known for its turn-based battles, legions of monsters, and epic exploration. The Legend will continue this tradition and build on it with new lands, monsters, and abilities. Several of these new powers depend on something called "Rage." Rage is a point value that builds throughout a given battle, and you can spend these points on devastating abilities.

Provided, that is, you have a rage spirit. A rage spirit is a type of powerful entity (of which there are several), which you will encounter in your travels. If you collect one, it will ask you to complete some quests, and upon doing so, it will ally itself with you, placing its formidable abilities at your disposal. One rage spirit we saw resembled the grim reaper, and when summoned, could cast a black hole on the battlefield. This not only looked cool (a giant, black swirling vortex presided over by a wicked wraith), but it also damaged every enemy on the hexagonal field. It cost all of our rage points, but boy, was it worth it.

We were also able to collect runes we could use to develop our character's talent trees. Because our hero was a paladin, all of his talents and skills had to do with leadership and magic. We also had a huge assortment of equipped items that boosted our stats. Now, your champion doesn't go into battle himself; rather, his attributes provide significant boosts to all the units under his command.

In an interesting twist, our hero was married. His wife was depicted in the upper left-hand corner of the character screen, and she had four bonus-bestowing items of her own--including a baby (+5 to combat experience!). We aren't entirely sure how matrimony or procreation will work in King's Bounty: The Legend when the game finally ships on September 23, but we can't wait to find out.