King's Bounty 2 Review

In King's Bounty 2, you choose one of three characters who take over the main story and all follow the same plot. The sights are a bit stronger here, as you will find most of the nooks and crannies of Kings Bounty IIs, and you won't find a shortage of containers where you can search for random items and gold, but I can't remember many outstanding areas.

After you select your character, the game starts with you being released from prison and your character doing a job for the king. In King's Bounty II, you will roam the world, taking on side tasks, making morally changing decisions, and completing tasks with loot crates, barrels, and chests.

Thanks to its simple combat mode, the game is a great introduction to the turn-based role-playing game genre for newcomers. Kings Bounty 2 is an open-world role-playing game for third parties with a massive map and lots of well-written quests. Unlike previous games in the series where you would try to run from beginning to end to complete the main quest series, it is better spend time completing side quests as they will result in more skill points being awarded and more powerful characters being able to rise up.

The realistic style is extremely detailed and looks like high quality graphics from 2012 in the end, and a bit of stylization goes a long way, but those who loved the comic fantasy / fairytale style of the old Kings Bounty games will miss it. The Xbox One game has some tweaks over the Xbox, with character models looking a generation better. There is still a strong bias towards the RPG side of the game, and while you would expect more choice, it doesn't seem to exist because your character responds to their personality and respects them as you think they should, rather than each other.

The long-awaited sequel is back and at its heart you will find the same satisfying turn-based tactical battle inspired by the Heroes of Might and Magic series but locked into a clunky, open world marred by lackluster storytelling. One of the things that makes Kings Bounty 2 a little different is the fact that it switches from an isometric turn-based strategy title to something where you're directly involved in the fight. Tactical battles, in which five units dance around a narrow hex-based arena, show a little more interesting mechanics than one would expect from a modern tactical game with forced movement and manipulation of the battlefield.

Kings Bounty 2, conceived by 1C Entertainment and published by Koch Media GmbH, tries to combine the story of a role-playing game with the tactical strategy of a game but it doesn’t quite work. King's Bounty is at odds with the series, which is more of a strategy role-playing game with tactics, cash maintenance and combat maneuvers than one with epic role-playing and exploration. Theoretically, the sequel aims to change that by letting the story follow the decisions of the main characters who influence the world.

The Switch version suffers from a texture pop-in and sometimes trembles at frame rate, but the vision of the world is appealing and the pulp fantasy stuff that plays out is important to the overall impression of Kings Bounty, but most importantly it is the battle that makes Kings Bounty II. The battle controls you get in Kings Bounty 2 are simple, but they are enough to win battles if you think about strategy. Using terrain heights, placing units, managing troop morale, and knowing when is the best time to use your characters'abilities, buffs and spells in combat are keys to success.

Nevertheless, the fight in King's Bounty II is a profound combat system, and I'm sure there will be many wikis after launch detailing its operations, but I found myself isolated during my review period stumbling through early encounters. It has never grown old, and the game has had a long campaign that involves a lot of fighting. My only big problem with this game, which seems to be a universal Eurojank role-playing game, is that the difficulty spikes can be so obscene that you don't know what to do when you wander into one.

Moving characters can sometimes be morally grueling, whether they are strategy battles or elements to save the game. This can feel like a limiting factor for a character and is contradictory, but there are many side quests and puzzles that need a magical touch, and Aivar the mercenary grumbles his way through.

Despite some graphical glitches and typos, Kings Bounty 2 is otherwise solid, and there are no serious design flaws around the game's RPG-related systems. It leaves behind a sense of artisanal adherence to genre trends, while still being fulfilling and complementary to the core game.

Building on the legendary video game franchise Kings Bounty, one of the most iconic representatives of turn-based role-playing genres, a new epic story, a fraction of enemies and new features create an open break from the fantasy world of Antara. The Kings Bounty series occupies a special place in strategy games, as it is considered one of the earliest role-playing-tactical hybrid games and is widely accepted as the spiritual successor of what is now considered the infamous Heroes of Might and Magic - series. As mentioned in Chris O'Connor's preview of Kings Bounty II, I played what I believe to be one of the longest running games of Kingss Bounty on my Steam wishlist, and when someone told me it was Crossworld, I couldn't play what I loved more than what I had played before, and that remains the case when I play Kings Bounty 2.