King's Bounty: Warriors of the North - Complete Edition

The first two games in the series (The Legend and Armored Princess) are classics, the last two this one and the next are not so much. Most of the criticism is for this game is applicable for The Dark Side as well. Good: - Same old mechanics, just slightly improved. - The world is vast. - music is still great. - you meet some characters from previous two games. Bad: - the story line is cliche. The main character is stupid (if you play it you'll see). There is very little imagination in naming NPCs (i.e. take famous painter Aivazovsky and name orcish painter Ay Vaz, etc.) - the game is unpolished and possibly unfinished - the bugs are aplenty: crashes (save after each battle or you'll be sorry), uncompleteable quests (such as "paper for the professor"), parts of the world you cannot get to (you see it in Demonis). - game is much easier than the first two - by the end any battle will be a cakewalk. - if you want achievements and medals the game involves a lot of grind. So if you really liked the first two and want more - buy it and play it, otherwise don't bother.

If you liked TL and CW and you have the itch for a new KB game, I don´t see why WotN I&F would not satisfy you. -Bugs and crashes: I haven´t found many. A secondary mission I couldn´t finish, a set whose bonusses didn´t work on the character, a crash when asking a vendor to see his goods, and 2 more sudden crashes during a game that was around 80 hours long. Not a big deal. It´s clear that the game was rushed when it was released. Hence all the complaints about bugs. And it is even more clear after having played the game with the DLC. I&F ads a new island. but also lots of secondary missions linked to the other islands of the game and a new area in the Demonis map. It is so deeply integrated into the main game that I can´t help but think those parts were left out of the initial release due to time constraints. Added later as a DLC. The DLC is a must have to enjoy the game to its fullest. -I played the game on Hard difficulty with the warrior class. And the game felt a little too long and easy. But The Legend felt too long for me too (that last maze was a nuissance) and Crossworlds also felt easy on Hard difficulty with the warrior class (not as easy as Warriors of the North, though). If I knew this, I would have started the game in Impossible difficulty. Perhaps I´m becoming too good playing this game series. -The game adds new Viking units that are much more fun and interesting than the ones in Crossworlds, a new rune system to tinker with during combats, and a new magic class (Rune Magic) to add to the other four. The game reuses some maps from The Legend. The four Darion areas and the two pirate islands. That´s it. The other 12 or so areas are new. So the fact that some areas are taken from the first game is not a big deal to me. In fact, I think it was interesting to revisit these areas, taking into account this game is a sequel to the first two, and we can see how the pass of time and the different events have changed the landscape and the characters.

NOT RECOMMENDED. It's a game hastily put together from recycled assets from KB the Legend. The plot is a paper thin joke of undead appearing along with a super obvious villain. This is such a lazy cash-in it's not funny. The same goes for the DLC content that ranges from useless and stolen (new units taken without changes from Red Sands Crossworlds fan mod) to generic and boring (the new Viking race). PSA: if you do not set the compatibility mode to e.g. Windows 7, the cutscene sequences are stuttery messes that have a real chance of crashing your game. Uve been warned. Things that suck in Warriors of the North and its DLCs: 1. Valhalla Edition (or 'Valhala' in the GOG listing) is COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. It gives you a four-set of equipment, none of which is any good. Also some extra artwork. The paid DLC in a nutshell: "Not to mention that those `NEW` undead lizardmen are just copy/paste units from Red sands mod for CW. NEW locations, as in they opened whole Demonis as in original game the Legend. NEW unit creature skill system, also taken from red sands mod. As far as I can see, only new thing here are cold elves (same models as old elves, with different talents of course), and maybe couple items/quests. All in all done by 3-4 people over new year holidays for easy gold coins inflow from fans of this great franchise." 2. Vikings reference the Norse mythology, though they are never fleshed out. That's like making a Metallica greatest hits record and not including Master of Puppets or any other hit. All Viking stuff you get is a few units that vaguely look like comic book vikings with horned caps and such they never wore in reality. No Odin, no Ragnarok. Even Loki is just an upscaled lvl 2 Viking unit with a morning star. So it's a Viking game with no genuine Viking content. 3. There is no plot most of the game. You beat up your bro, run from dad, kill some necromancers and done. 4. It never gets good. Unless you worship the "combat chess" i.e. battles.

I'm a fan of the series but this one especially crashes too much.

This is, by no means, supposed to be a condescending remark. and I hate to add a "review" here since GOG does not allow replies to user reviews, but in response to user lonewolfgk, GOG's system is not flawed (though admittedly, I think it could be improved), but a user can add their "rating" without necessarily writing a review. That is why it seems like the average rating was higher than it should have been: more users rated the game than actually rated AND reviewed the game. The stars you see are based on user ratings alone (or perhaps GOG has a formula to add some weight for reviews as well, I don't know). So in order to submit this review, I have to rate the game, and I'm giving it 3 stars - middle of the road - because I have not played this game.