The return of King's Bounty
It was first released in 1990 for MS-DOS and it introduced elements and ideas that were later extended and refined in the Heroes of Might & Magic series.
Therefore, this game is related to Heroes of Might & Magic, however it has a lot of differences, so gamers who've grown fond of Heroes of Might & Magic gameplay might find themselves bothered by this somewhat different gameplay.
The game takes place in an old kingdom and the king has recently been attacked and poisoned by some vicious dragon. This poison will eventually kill the king and lead to the fall of the kingdom, unless someone retrieves a certain dragonbone staff, which has two powers: it'll heal victims of dragon venom and it'll grant it's possessor the ability to take on dragons. That someone to retrieve the staff is of course you and when you get it, you'll be healing the king and defeating the evil dragon, so he'll never bother the sovereign again.
When you start the game you have the choice between four different leaders (Knight, Paladin, Barbarian and Sorceress). Once you've chosen a leader, the game will begin. Your first task is to recruit troops for your army, so you can battle villains. A villain in this context is someone the king doesn't fancy and who happens to occupy a castle guarded by some troops. Your first villain to fight is a local pickpocket, but eventually you'll have to slay rebel leaders and willful warlords.
There are probably between 30-40 types of troops in this game. Since you start low on cash and leadership, you're limited to weak troops in small numbers, and thus you must start with the easiest villains.
Once you've decided what villain to oust, you must go to any of the kingdom's many towns and sign a contract for a bounty on that particular villain. Once signed, you attack the castle and if you win, the signed contract will allow to make some good money off the villains defeat. If you forget to sign a contract before attacking a villain, you won't be able to cash in on it, so it's plain wasted effort. This money can be spend on hiring more troops and building up a nice army, so you can defeat stronger villains. This cycle continues through about 25 villains and 4 continents, until you get the staff and nail the dragon. In this process, you level up, slay any stray creatures bothering you on your way to the villains' castles, get rich from bounties, get wicked magic spells and discover valuable artifacts.
Once you've gotten through it all, the king will thank you and the monarchy is safe again. You can be certain that there won't be any french revolution in this game, since the peasants are tremendously weak, so don't EVER recruit them for your army if you get the choice.
I played and enjoyed this game in the early 90's when I was a little brat and that has probably influenced my positive approach to this remake. I recommend the game and since it was released in 2001, it should be easily affordable today.