At first I wanted to write some randomly ramblings in this post. After I finished the game, I decided to make this my review.

At the end of my first couple of hours in the game, I was ready to call it quits and leave a 2 star review (for effort). Within literally the first minute of the game, I found that my character Aivar's dialogue felt mismatched with the jailer's. It was like they were not talking to each other, but rather responding to a narrator who was describing what the other was saying. Speaking of which, why was Aivar in jail? The character selection screen very clearly said all three main characters were going to a meeting. I head out and find a winter wonderland that reminded me of Skyrim but not as good. Riding the horse almost made me sick, so I spent most of the first map on foot. The first village I came across was completely abandoned for reason that I never found out. Instead of people, I found bunch of junk in scattered containers whose sole purpose was to be sold for gold with a single holding down of the space key. I found that Aivar, not being a mage, could not resolve the first power/finesse choice using finesse. Finally, as the last straw, I found that the tactical camera rotation could not be changed. It always rotated opposite of how I like to do it, even if the keys were unbound. I was fed up.

Lucky for me, I bought King's Bounty 2 Duke's Edition when it was a bit more expensive. Since I spent a bit more money than it costs now, I thought I spend a bit more time with it. The final bit of Albian Highlands, the snowy introductory area, was starting to get good. I was beginning to forget about my camera rotation complaint. Then I arrived in Marcella and the game just exploded before my eyes.

After completing the game pretty thoroughly, I'll share what I like the most about the game, and its most glaring problems. I will stay away from what the game isn't, I know there are a lot of complaints about that, and focus on what it is.

+The world looks pretty and fun as long as you don't look too closely. Right out of Marcella, you see an erupting volcano in the distance and a giant statue straight out of the Lord of the Rings. The color is vibrant if not that nuanced. The houses, whether in the city or the villages, feel well-proportioned and uniqued laid out. I never got the sense that anything is cookie cutter. On the other hand, the grass and many shrubbery have no collision detection. You just clip right through them. In one egregious case, the body of a villain who died floats a good six inches above ground. It's almost comical. The world is nice to look at, but it's easy to break immersion if you look closely.

+The music is generally unobtrusive with a orchestral melody that is both light in volume and presence. In rare moments though, hauntingly beautiful vocal scores will play for brief periods. The music is nothing extraordinary but the game uses what it has very well. It's good enough that I don't regret buying the Duke's Edition. The music has a tendency to periodically cut out. It's rare enough not to be distracting but noticeable.

+The main story is simple and predicable for a veteran gamer or consumer of this type of story. However, weaving around the main story are side stories that are frequently a bit unusual. An undead mage holding vigil over an abandoned village. A damsel in distress who turns her back on her coward of a lover then insists on getting him back. A troll who finds intelligence and whose first action after finding that intelligence is... I will let you discover it for yourself. It's a lot of fun. I don't remembe a single fetch or kill X quest, except one where you have to find several colorful chickens.

+I think more than the story or the quests, the writing is what sets King's Bounty 2 apart from many games, turn-based strategy and RPG alike. It's not edifying, or florid, or even very high quality. However, it is imaginative, unapologetic, and a lot of fun. I will remember for some time a totally minor dialogue between two nobles in Baron Dupont's estate, that some players will miss completely, and goes something like, "Has our gallery project kindled his interest, do you think?...He promised to introduce us to some new models... How timely, the previous ones were frightfully inflexible. Their screams were such a distraction... Have you tried using cadavers?...I have, but the rigor mortis ruined the tableaux." It is not just what is said, but how it is said. I have never heard a more brilliant relevation of the dark depravities of the ultra high society. There are dozens, hundreds perhaps, of little side conversations like this. There is even a running journal by a young woman, named Folie, infatuated with the prince of the game kingdom, that describes how a simple merchant's daughter look at the events and places that you experience. Her journal can be found in most of the game's important locations.

+Now let's get to some gameplay. This type of collecting units for an army then fighting on hex based tactical maps is old school. Two things about King's Bounty 2 stood out to me. First, it is surprisingly deep. For example, I have always considered it beneath the player's dignity to work with tanks that use some random skill and somehow the enemy suddenly ignores clearly higher priority healers and DPS and go after the tank. Tanks in this game has very limited aggro keeping, easily dispelled. Each tank can typically keep aggro for one turn at most twice per battle. However, units that pass/leave hostile zones of control get hit, but they don't stop. An aggroed unit passing through multiple hostile ZOC, even just for a turn, may get killed. There are numerous examples like this in KB2: clever use of seemingly elementary skills. Second, terrain not only matters a lot in this game, you can actually strategically alter it to your advantage. You can start many tactical battles by stepping inside a combat zone in the game world. Many such zones can be approached from different directions. if you enter the zone from a different direction, you start the battle at a different place on the same tacitcal map. For some battles, this can make a big difference. Admittely I have not played too many games like KB2, but this is the first time I have seen a feature like this.

+There is a quest involving 12 pre-made battles that introduce different tactics possible in the game. It has to be one of the best tactical tutorials I have seen in a game. Not a tutorial of mere mechanics, but actual challenges that test your application of nifty mechanics.

(There is apparently a hidden length limit to posts.)

KB2 of course has its problems. I will list the most annoying ones I found:

-Despite several quests that have you collect pieces of writing, like journals or historical events, all over the game world, I have not found a way to actually read those after I collect them. There is not a dedicated records section in the interface. The writings don't show in the quest log. In fact, because the writings are often quest items that disappear after a quest is complete, the writings often disappear from the game world permanently after finishing the quest, without my having ever read a full, chronologically correct version. What a shame!

-You can get stuck on something as simple as a rock barely higher than your feet. The physics and collision of this game is best swept under the rug. If you look to be stuck, retrace your movement or call your horse if you are outside. I only got permanently stuck one time.

-Magic is a big part of KB2, and you can viably use magic as all three classes. You can learn I think over 70 spells, each with three levels of upgrade. However, for reasons I cannot understand, once you upgrade a spell, which then costs more to cast, you can no longer cast a lower level of that spell. So if you only need a slow spell on one enemy instead of every enemy for twice the mana cost, you are out of luck. This and the first problem I described above, genuinely irritated me.

-Scavenging gold or the occasional loot from containers peppered throughout the game world is fun in a top-down map with big, clear visual markers. It can be downright depressing in a 3D game with sometimes dense foliage, or wheat. The game does try to make your life easier. You can make all interactable items be highlighted in gold. Regrettably, that also ruins the few puzzles in the game that relies on your searching out hidden switches to open doors, but it's great on replays. More helpful is that your map auto updates with the location of a container once you approach close enough, whether you saw it yourself, and the game world has enough geographical variations and details for you to systematically divide and explore small chunks of it as you play. They should rethink this if they ever make a sequel.

-The gear progression of KB2 is also disappointing. You can earn one of four sets of legendary gear in the game, rewarded through several quests with a couple pieces sold at merchants. However, unless you know exactly what you are doing, you have basically zero chance to get a matching set, especially if you like to play around with different army composition and ideologies. You can also buy several full sets of gear at merchants, and some are good, with at least one very fun necromancer set. But all except the two lowest tier ones are sold only in the last city you visit. By then, I had stopped caring. I bought the full necromancer set and used it in exactly one battle. Compared to KB1 where I kept over two dozen gear pieces for various effects, this was a wasted opportunity.

Final thoughts:

King's Bounty 2, like its predecessor, is so very charming for those who click with its general feeling. It's as MandaloreGaming described in his review of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, another controversial gem loved by some and despised by others: "If you know, you know." It's slightly unpolished but not game breaking or even game interrupting. On the other hand, it offers a rich tacitcal combat experience that plays smoothly other than the rotating camera issue I found at the beginning, that I stopped caring about after the introductory area, and the ridiculous inability to cast lower level spells after upgrading. Perhaps most importantly, it is surprisingly fun for those who enjoy its antics: the writing, the game world, how you make your way through the story. I cannot adequately explain this last point. I get the same general feeling with several other 1C Company games, whether they developed it or published it: games like Fantasy Wars or Star Wolves or Desert Law. Once you get past the 3D graphics and the addition of terrain in tactical battles and the more controversial mana as a limited resource, this game is not unlike KB1. It just feels much nicer to play.

I have not discussed the idealogy point system and its connection with the main character's skill tree. It's not that important in practice. Most players of strategy games, I think, will end up with more than enough points to max out the finesse tree with its all so important casting two spells per turn. The trade off between order and anarchy skills are not as critical, and I think both trees have their advantages. If you end up locked into one, just try it out, but I think most players not on a replay will go for the finesse tree. It's a unique feature of the game, and fun, but not one that is groundbreaking.

That's the most important thing about KB2, I think: fun. It's regularly on sale for <$10. If you have any interest in this type of game or had any good experiences with another 1C (sorry, Fulqrum) game, it's worth checking out. Chances are high you will love it. If you don't want to risk it, just watch a gameplay video or two on YouTube. Try to watch one of someone who isn't rushing through it or has exploited the shit out of the game, and in the main lush green area of the game instead of the intial boring snowy area. If the game does click with you. I hope you won't get addicted.

This is the track you speak of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFSnn74BJxM

And yes, it's pretty much the only one that stands out besides the menu music. The rest I found to be pretty mundane/unmemorable. Especially the combat tracks were disappointing, as there are only 2 of them, for normal fights and in the void or whatever it's called. There is a way to cast spells at a lower level even if you upgraded them. Can't remember exactly off the top of my head, but I think it was holding CTRL before clicking it to cast level 2 and ALT or something like that to cast level 1. But you definitely can choose to cast a level 1 spell even if you upgraded it to 3. Very true. You basically have to spam save/load before turning in certain quests to get the piece of the end game set you want. Very badly done, they should have just let you choose what piece you want after finishing the quest.

Also, avoid everything from the Duke edition like the plague. All the items are insanely OP compared to the regular items you can find at the level you unlock them. Same with the extra units. They are basically normal units on steroids and vastly stronger than their regular equivalent. Firehand Golems are one of the biggest balancing jokes I have ever seen (basically an "I win" unit). The connection between skills and "ideology" is one of my main gripes. If you gain too much affinity with one of the 4 talent groups, you get auto-excluded from picking the opposite choice in dialogues. This mundane restriction throws any and all potential roleplaying out the window.

I finished the game as Aivar, then played as Katherine. Did not finish as Katherine, because I maxed out Finesse (because magic), which led to me not being able to choose the Power option when dealing with the bandit leader. I've despised bandits as Katherine pretty much the entire game, but the game suddenly decided that the only option for me to get over that part was to become the bandit leader's bootlick, having to go run his errands, help his schemes and whatnot instead of just telling him to go stuff it. Because that is obviously a "Finesse" option I guess....

And casting 2 spells a turn is not nearly as important as rushing Order tier 2, because of the extra XP skill you can unlock there. Pretty much mandatory for any character and a bad design (as most "meta" progression skills usually are, like magic find or bonus XP, especially in a game with limited fights).

Otherwise, it was a fun game and I'd agree, very worth on sale. Although not impressive in pretty much any regard. And the obvious sequel-bait ending, that is pretty much guaranteed to never appear now is a pretty sour note to end the game on.