Like The Legend... more than The Legend...

User Rating: 8.5 | King's Bounty: Armored Princess PC
One year ago Atari released the best Heroes of Might & Magic of ever: King's Bounty: The Legend. The game revealed itself a real surprise proponing a turn strategic engine absolutely astonishing, a good technical realization and a clever mix with RPG elements.
King's Bounty: Armored Princess (under 1C Company banner) it is not a real sequel, more a stand alone expansion, but overall is long as much as the original with a brand new continent to explore and a new pretty heroine: Amelie, princess of Darion, the little girl we saved at the end of "The Legend" now grown into a fine young woman.
We must say that "Armored Princess", though some minor differences, is practically the same game as his prequel, but this is not really a lack, since the high quality of the original game.

Game begins with Darion devastated under the siege of a hord of demons leaded by Baal, furious for the crushing defeat suffered against the hero of "The Legend".
With a desperate move the princess is sent trough a magic portal in order to find the hero, her mentor, departed to explore new worlds. She found herself in the new world of Teana and starts a quest to retrieve the Goddess Stones that once collected grant her a back trip to home together with the hero. Obviously the stones are kept by some of the powerful and terrifying being of the world, so, in order to complete this main quest she will have to accomplish an outstanding journey.

Normal exploration of the various Teana's islands works similarly to a RPG, in real time with the young horsewoman free to roam trough locations, talking to people and starting battles with enemies. Opponents are generally visible on the screen and clicking on them with the right mouse button you can see the strength of his army and the probability of defeat them. Once started the fight you'll find your men facing theirs in a battlefield where movement is allowed on an hexagonal grid.
Each fighting unit has several parameters to give attention, including: race, movement capacity, type and amount of damage dealt, and obviously the leadership value.
Leadership of a fighter indicates the base value needed to command a single unit of the troop. If the base leadership for a knight is 50 and Amelie can count on a overall amount of 1000 it means that a troop of knight under the young princess will had a cap number of 20. Beyond the limit leadership cap is still possible to hire and to line up a troop during a fight, but it will not the order of the player moving autonomously (often with terrible results). Leadership can be increased permanently leveling up our princess and gathering banners during explorations or equipping items of weapons providing a bonus. Other variable a player must give attention is the money availability.
Hiring troops is possible in almost every building of Teana, but the cost can be pretty expensive, especially for strong units. Since the game starts with a difficulty level of the early battles fairly high, adopting rushing strategies in battles or fighting too strong enemies can result in so much losses to corner player's wealth. This underlines one of the main features of this game: "Armored Princess" is surely more difficult than "The Legend". Personally I've found this general improvement of the difficulty level really stimulating, but be prepared to suffer a bit. Enemy troops are generally more numerous and stronger than yours. Obviously even a battle against enemies labeled as "Very Strong" or "Lethal" can be won, but with unavoidable losses. Since money will be a reason of concern for at least half of the game you'll have to manage losses and wealth strictly in order to don't finish broke.
Battle management is simply wonderful.
Fighting don't exhaust it merely moving and make battling units on the grid. Once for turn Amelie can cast a spell from her grimoire; spells can be learned by scroll bought of found during explorations and can be leveled up spending magic crystals to make them more effective. They have a wide range of effects, from damaging one or more foes to supportive aid in defense or attack, until resurrection or summoning of new troops. Amelie can use the help of her personal pet dragon too. The little dragon replaces the "Chest of Rage" kept by the hero of the previous game and, using rage points (some kind of alternative mana reserve), can use some pretty useful skills and unleash a couple of devastating attacks.
Last, in the creation of a strategy need to consider the talents branches available for the princess spending talent runes obtained during explorations, as reward for quests, and especially each level up. Amelie can undertake three type of careers: Warrior, Paladin and Wizard. The choice make at the begin of the game is permanent and affect plenty the game style. Warrior will give you more attack and defense to make your troops more powerful in battle; Wizard will gain more mana in order to base a strategy game on the spells; Paladin is a clever mid way between other two classes.
Surely you are not compelled to follow a strict way of character development since the three branches affect however might (attack and defense related skills), magic (magical talent skills), and mind (special skill). A mixed character can result very powerful, but the risk to invest the sweated talents runes in some useless skill always exists.

So far no one of the single elements of the game so described can be defined newness, but when the fight start the interaction between them give the game a totally new aspect, offering a range of battle options practically infinite.
Wanna build an army of range soldiers?
You can set traps and walls on the battlefields preventing the enemies reaching yours for a melee fight.
Want to use an army of dragons? (COOOLLL!!!)
The spell Oil Mist will enhance the damage of their fire breaths.
Those are mere examples of the strategies you could create simply knowing the possibilities the game offers and being animated by some will of test.
Technically the game surely is not of exceptional even considering that the graphic is the same as one year ago. Press releases boasted a "new graphic engine" but really I've seen no difference with the prequel. However the engine works smooth without any doubt as in the exploration as in the battles, with some new in-battle special effects, while the design of characters and locations is still pleasant and really well colored. Good even sound effects and music though fully imported from "The Legend".
Some work was done even in the balancing of the units. Some troopers really strong in "The legend" now appear less powerful while, unfortunately, some of the new units specifically designed for this game lack in efficacy and charisma.

In the end "Armored Princess" is really worth of play and of the money spent; just an advice.
Don't come near this game expecting a RPG, 'cause this game is indeed a solid turn strategy based almost entirely on the battles. Main plot don't shine neither in main story, neither in the dialogues; the game is pretty long and full of text, so be prepared to read a lot. Same for the dozens of quest you can undertake, often with a only method to solve them, generally involving a fight.

Final line
King's Bounty's fans will go crazy!
In "Armored Princess" practically there are all the features we loved in the previous game with a challenge slightly more hard (I approve!!!).
Some could complaint about the fact that this game is the same of "The Legend" only with a new story, main character and continent, while people who hated it will find no reason to love little Amelie.
People looking for a very good turn strategy can try trustful this saga (better starting with "The Legend") finding a real high quality product.

Final Score 8.5