Hi everyone,

I played King's Bounty: The Legend years ago and loved it --- up to a point. It certainly had a very steep learning curve and I spent hours and hours building up my forces and level for the hero and progressing through the story... and then was bitterly disappointed to find that all progress came to an abrupt halt.

I had done every quest available in the areas available, and so It was time to move on to the next one, but I could not progress. The pathway forward was blocked by wandering packs of enemies, all marked "impossible." There was no way to win against such armies, and no way to sneak past to try to continue exploring.

So I moved on and forgot about the game, consigning it to the dustbin of poorly designed games.

I'd like to try the series again, but I don't want a repeat of my earlier terrible experience.

Are any of the later sequels more beginner-friendly, more respectful of gamers who don't have 50-100 hours to invest climbing a learning curve in order to get to the end of the game?

I don't know about other games on the series as only played Kings Bounty the Legend but I found exactly the opposite. It was my first "RPG" ish type of game so played on normal difficulty as a mage and at the beginning, was a struggle to even understand the game but as the time gone by, it became way easier. Actually around halfway it was so easy that was getting zero unit deaths on battles with enemies way more powerfull, like overpowering and impossible. To be honest it was so easy it became boring to finish the game...

I dont know what point in game you got but the only time I got powerfull enemies, without the chance to explore more, was right at the end where you fight a lot of dragons, most are rated overpowering and impossible and managed to beat them with only 1 unit refresh (meaning I kept going even if I loose units).

In a nutshell, the game is worth playing, even if your next battle is rated impossible or you may have missed a alternative road. Nothing wrong with the difficulty curve.
Also, loosing units is not a problem since you have way more gold than ever need but keep in mind units don't refresh, meaning if you have only 1 source of a particular unit, once is gone is gone. (Tip: you can go to a easy battle with only 1 particular unit and cast the spell "sacrifice" on other expendable units so you can get more rare units)