King's Bounty: The Legend

Excellent game. One could say this is a HoMaM clone, but this game is more than that. Genetically enhanced clone, if you will. Castle management is simplified and you have only one hero, so the world map is real-time, but combat is turn-based. You have to take care when upgrading your hero though, and monsters on the world map do not respawn, so you cannot farm experience and because of that, the game can be quite difficult, but definitely worth the money. Downloadable soundtrack would be great but you can copy it from the game's directory so no harm done :)

First off, this game should not be compared to HOMM. HOMM is a strategy game with turn-based combat, KB is an adventure/rpg hybrid with turn-based combat. It looks a lot like HOMM, but it really is a completely different type of game. KB has none of the base building and territory claiming aspects of HOMM. The game is colorful with nice high-fantasy graphics. Nothing particularly spectacular, but they fit the setting well. The story and adventure elements are fairly uninspired mix of going from place to place delivering items and killing beasts. Nothing to write home about. It's a little annoying that a game from 2008 has no spoken dialog, but I guess it's better than some terrible translated dialog. The combat is good and has a fair amount of tactical depth with a large selection of units with special abilities and lots of spells to play with. The downside of the game is its steep learning curve. Even the introductory quest is a little touchy for a beginning player, especially since its not really a tutorial and you're never told that your unit losses don't matter in that first quest. You should be able to get through it okay, but you may suffer greater losses than you're comfortable with. After you get out of the introductory part you'll find yourself mostly running away from enemy stacks that are far too strong for you to handle while trying to find some stacks that are weak enough for you to take on without crippling losses so you can build up experience to hire a larger army and finally take on those stacks that were too tough. This mechanic leads to a lot of running back and forth between areas to cherry pick the weakest enemies and then restock your army. This is fine for a while, but as you progress the curve doesn't really get any easier. When your level 17 and enter a new area where everything enemy is strong and you've run out of weak stacks to beat up on, it just gets frustrating. The limited restocking of certain units also makes this more frustrating when you find you've run out of your preferred unit and have to switch.

Heroes of Might and Magic was my absolute favorite game when I was younger, but Ubisoft ruined that when they secured ownership and development rights from 3DO after they went bankrupt. They produced HOMMV, and it was absolutely tragic. For me, King's Bounty captured the essence of Heroes of Might and Magic that HOMMV didn't have. A Fantastic game, and there's no coincidence why I liked it so much. King's Bounty is also the original property of New World Computing/3DO, the company responsible for the original (and best) Heroes of Might and Magic!

I am new to the franchise. I purchased this a while back because I enjoy the whimsical fantasy settings and Heroes of Might and Magic style battles, but this game surprised me with so much more. The character you design will be a crossbreed of Heroes of M&M and Diablo proportions, and while never participating in combat you get the distinct feeling he is an entirely different body. In this game you adventure throughout the land in a purely novel manner. No epic quests or moral dilemmas, just adventure, fantasy, and sweet story-line moments. This is high fantasy with a few twists and turns, an excellent bit of humor, and bright and colorful fantasy setting with dream like qualities. It's as if you are playing some sort of old picture book of fairy-tales and quests. You can choose wives, build armies with the mass varieties of units available, get lots of spells (They were my staple) and more! Sail the seas and marry a pirate, or capture that inner dreamer and kiss the frog for an enchanted princess. Just remember to pay attention to them! The quests are fun, the game a blast. It is sleek and the frame rates steady, some of the effects will still make you smile, though. I thoroughly enjoyed this game. A singleplayer experience not to be missed, it captures the imagination and the fantasy lover in us all.