As I was unable to find a review that would give enough prise (IMO) to this game I decided to write my review for it (a bit late I admit :D but better later than never :) I'm playing the series since well.. first King's Bounty if to consider it through HOMM1, 2... 5 Tribes of Eeast. We enjoyed ourselves playing the second and the third installment with my friends at home. I was very happy when I was sick and could play the whole day :) I loved every part of it. But the third, fourth and fifth are the best each in its own niche. Among them the fifth with Tribes of East add-on is my choice for the last 5 years. To let you probably better understand my preference I should tell you that I'm always playing on the hardest difficulty (the least resources/gold initially) without saves with my friends hot seat or solo vs PC custom game. I completely ignore campaign, and I also think that playing on easier difficulties absolutely trashes initial development tough choices and race balance (example: Wizards have problems with having the very first town hall upgrade requiring city level 5 for it. Thus they have tougher initial budget. But they have more town income later in the game than most other races thanks to the Treasure cave giving 500 gold extra. If you remove tougher initial leveling you will get only late game bonuses) The main reason I consider this one the best: the abundance of meaningful choices, intricate balance and game diversity. Pros (mostly compared to the 3rd one): 1. Skills rework in Skills/Abilities result in intricate in-direct way to affect Hero Development. Tough choice between taking several useful skills like Logistics, Offence, Defence versus having better chance to achieve specific ability (like embued ballista for rangers) 2. Massive diversity of skills/abilities with no skills feeling useless (maybe only barbarian magic suppressive ones) with only some abilities being questionably useful but often leading with very powerful advanced abilities. Example: scouting ability in logistics leads to swift mind which means your hero will have bonus 25% initiative for the first turn. That for instance might mean that you're guaranteed to prepare counter-spell before the enemy or cast mass haste in-time 3. Race specific abilities and buildings. To me - they are absolutely amazing and make every race play very differently. 4. Hero specialities feel way more defining and powerful. For instance having very though start on hardest difficulty might stress your choice between Wizard having fireball and effective spell power boosted for it with every x levels (way easier start) VS a Wizard that makes magic mirror ability redirect enemy offensive spells to his own creatures more often than to yours one (which might absolutely define mid game fight outcome) 5. Initiative. There are so many intricate ways to interact with it. To me it's way more interesting and strategic than having fixed turns. Separately to mention separation between speed and initiative, with significantly less ways to modify speed 6. Magic schools and nerf-rework of specific spells that used to feel to me way more useful that others in the 3rd part. Now everyone has access to short-range campaign teleport and town gate spell. No need to ALWAYS go for the earth magic to have town portal. 7. Alternative upgrades. They are superb with most choices either being meaningful alternatives (will u take Griffons with single target Double Dive power or Griffons diving along the line with now friendly fire but only once per combat and 0.75 against each target and having cumulative multiple retaliation bonus damage), early vs late game alternatives (like faeries that can heal-resurrect treants being obvious late game choice vs faeries with limited spell casting abilities), or mid-game-take both (djiins that grant curses/blessings can be combined in one army with djiins granting luck buff/debuff). The best part - you can change upgrade at any time in your town for non-significant amount of money Now about the cons, non-pros: 1. Many people were upset by initial problems the game had with bugs and increasing memory consumption throughout prolonged gameplay. Most of it were solved and the game now very rarely crashes (for me at least) 2. Graphical art: I personally love both approaches, but some people dislike the change 3. The only real problem for me: is turn waiting time. That is definitely not fun especially on the largest maps Overly to me the game seems like an improvement in pretty much every way (gameplay wise) over the 3rd part it's most compared with.
