It will keep you busy until Heroes of Might & Magic VI comes out...whenever that may be.

User Rating: 9 | King's Bounty: The Legend PC
King's Bounty – The Legend is a strategy game with RPG elements that plays similarly to Heroes of Might & Magic games. But, while in Heroes of Might & Magic a player had god-like control over castles and heroes, in King's Bounty he takes control over just one hero and through battles and quests, develops his abilities.

While traversing the map in real time, the hero can engage roaming (and stationary) enemy armies, gather scattered gold and runes, visit shires for experience, and castles, towns, and huts for quests and to recruit troops. Gold, which is needed for recruitment, can be obtained by finding chests on the map, winning a battle, or by completing quests. Quest completion and battles also provide the hero with experience, which allows him to rise in levels and improve his abilities.

Before you engage in combat and if you have Scouting skill, you can right-click on the opposing army to determine its strength. This can save you from attacking an army which could easily overwhelm you. Battles are very much like Heroes of Might & Magic: troop movements, spells, initiative all very much mirror HoMM games. One new element is the Chest of Rage, which allows the hero to cast additional spells that belong to one of four Spirits of Rage. By killing opposing troops, the hero gains rage points, which are then used to cast the spell from the Chest. Each of the four Spirits of Rage has four distinctive spells which can be improved as the spirit gains levels.

Graphically, I found the game very attractive. Art is very detailed, bright, colorful, and pleasing to the eye. There is so much "prettiness" on the screen that sometimes it's easy to miss a clickable goodie like a skeleton you can search for gold. Sound is good and orchestral soundtrack typical of the genre. However, it's no Jeremy Soule and after a while, it becomes fairly repetitive and forgettable. There is no voice acting and a fair amount of reading is required. I find the game very engaging, but I'm a little dubious of its lasting appeal. There are only three hero types available (a warrior, a paladin, and a mage) and once you've beaten the game (and it will take many hours to do so), there might not be enough variety to try to beat it again. However, if you like Heroes of Might & Magic (and especially its tactical combat, which there is a lot of in King's Bounty), you should definitely give this game a try.

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Played on Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700; 4 MB of RAM; 2 x 768 MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX;