There is a lot of Good in this game, but just a little too much Not so Good....
First the improvements:
- The game has a much less linear feel, your character appears to be to roam around the game world more freely, as more of the navigational charts (another nice touch) are found.
- Environs appear to be more varying and monsters more diverse than in KBTL.
- The Pet Dragon as your companion and the its use in battles with the rage factor, the ability to level it up and improvement its attacks is a very nice feature.
- The overland spells that buff the character for upcoming battles for one or more durations certainly help in the more difficult battles.
- The flying horse feature in the latter part of the game is also very useful in moving around the map quickly and getting to the more inaccessible parts of each of the lands/islands.
- The 3D graphics improvement, while not extremely significant, adds a nice feeling of depth to the various topographies.
Things that stayed the same (compared to KBTL):
- Yes, lots of quests, but not very inspired, mostly go kill this individual, or the FEDEX action (find the item and deliver it back to the quest giver, sometimes thru several NPC's). Not a significant change in RPG play in the last 20 years.
- The text conversations with NPC's are sometimes corny and not very stimulating either, and the so-called moral choices made by your lead character don't really appear to have too much sway in the overall game. In some cases, it would simply mean that the quest does not get completed, or in (most) other cases, no matter what choice you make, you end up in battle anyway. Not anywhere near the consequences of, say, a game like Mass Effect.
- No voice acting at all, but perhaps that's a blessing in disguise, because this game was apparently designed by folks from Eastern Europe, and I cringe to think of the English accents that could have been used.
- Battles after about the 50th or 60th time, tend to get tedious and repetitive.
- Way too many spells to choose from, some really worthless. What I will say was a nice touch, was a new tab for Often Used Spells, such that you didn't have to go searching all of the time. Out of the dozens of spells available, I used about 7-10 most of the time, but maybe that's due to my style of game play in this type of strategy game.
- Camera control can be iffy at times in that there are many parts of the map that are not accessible to the player. And, if not careful with your mouse, one can caught by very strong enemy pursuers that you're trying to get away from.
The not so good:
- Like it's been said in a number of reviews the game difficulty ramps up exponentially very soon after leaving the first land, and one must be careful to not get killed by the first enemy encountered on an unknown (and perhaps extremely difficult) new land. I found myself saving the game quite a bit, and that's the key, continually saving after EVERY battle is really required.
The Really Not Good At all:
- The game is difficult at times, but as mentioned above, the Pet Dragon is a nice field-leveler in some difficult battles. So imagine my surprise when I encountered my first Boss Battle, and when trying to use my Pet Dragon's abilities I got a little pop-up ("nyah-nyah") that said, "You Can't Use Your Pet Dragon in Boss Battles". What the heck is up with that? There's no explanation for the reason why. One goes to a lot of trouble to buff up your Pet Dragon, and in the critical battles of the main story line quest, you simply can't use the Pet Dragon, because the game designers say so, apparently to make these battles much more difficultly handicapped? That's whack!!...
The Unacceptable:
- Well, when all said and done, I did finally make my (what I thought was Very Strong) character (level 56, well buffed up and with respectable armies) to the final battle against the last Boss, Baal (whatever he is/was…). I had started the game on the easiest level to get to know the game mechanics well, and found myself in the final battle with a Boss of around 125,000 hit points aided numerous high-level henchmen, (all) with devastating attacks, endless magical spells, and crushing retaliations each time against multiple adjacent armies, when attacked by one army. After the 7th-8th time of getting soundly defeated on this lowest difficulty level (using both my strategy and auto-combat) and without the ability to go back and buff my character anymore because I had already completed everything, I called BS on the situation and turned to the cheat codes. I had to significantly upgrade my armies (twice) using the cheat codes by around 60% in number of individuals in each to become even mildly competitive in the final battle. That's ridiculous, and betrays an almost sadistic streak in the designers. The fun factor in a game like this gets lost quickly when it becomes apparent that only a masochist could love such a final predicament. Thank God for the cheat codes….
Having said that, I really, really wanted to give this game a good rating of at least 8.0, and would have, if the Pet Dragon could have been used during Boss Battles, and the last battle would have been remotely reasonable in difficulty.
But because of that, it's my rating as above, one time thru only for me with this game, and if you want it, you can find it being sold by me on eBay.