There have been a lot of great games over the years that people wish someone would upgrade with modern graphics. These games of yesteryear often had a much better appeal and more compelling play then many of the modern games now offered on the market which seems to be filled with endless shoot em ups and sequels to successful games of last year or the year before. King’s Bounty is one of those games of years ago that people wanted to see redone and it looks like it was redone quite well..

King’s Bounty the Legend is a single player role playing game where players command armies in a mythical kingdom and solve a series of quests in which they gain gold and experience for their character and his party. Unlike other role playing games the player does not actually fight in battles but acts as leader and issues commands to his troops on small hexagonal battlefields when enemy forces are encountered.

The first part of the game is choosing the class of your character and giving him a name, or accepting the default names the game offers. You can be a traditional leader and command more men, a Paladin and have more virtue and different missions, or a mage and be quite powerful in spell craft. You don’t have to choose any at start, you can play the tutorial as a test of your abilities and the game will recommend what type you should be, or you can skip this and just pick what you like.

If you take the test it acts as a tutorial teaching you the basics of the game play. You learn how to move and search as well as how to command forces in combat. This all takes a very small amount of time so you can get right into game play without having to learn a lot of different things to enjoy the game.

After you complete the tutorial and select your game character type you are now in the castle of the king of the game and he will provide the first quest. This involves finding and punishing robbers who stole the special currency used by the kingdom in the game and takes the form of little blue coins in the game and they are scattered around the kingdom for you to find. You probably won’t find all the coins right away but you will find the robbers easy enough.

Before you leave the castle you can hire men for your army from what the king has available. There are many different troop types in this game and run from fantasy standards like archers to monsters like zombies as well as all sorts of mythical creatures like griffons and so on.

These forces have different movement and combat abilities as well as spell casting capabilities and some types are more effective then others against certain types of enemies.
As you leave the castle you will see a beautiful and somewhat fanciful landscape of a town and the surrounding woodlands and farms, and you will notice people and creatures moving about. By hovering your mouse over them you can discover if they can be spoken too or if they are enemies to engage in battle with.

The enemy groups will attack you if they notice you and you can run from them as they have a limited area they patrol back and forth, while others don’t move at all unless attacked.

Battle is fought on a small hexagonal map board that looks like whatever area you encountered the enemy in. Parts of the board may have special items like treasures or neutral obstacles that attack both sides and some hexes may be impassible. Combat continues until one side or the other is wiped out or you decide to run away leaving your forces to their fate.

Combat is conducted in rounds in which each side’s troops move according to their unit’s speed, carrying out movement and attacks on each other’s forces. You can use magic and special abilities that your forces may learn as they gain experience in battle. All the forces are animated in battle and move and fight with each other sort of like an animated chess match.

The game has a huge game board that is covered in clouds that disappear as you travel around the map, and you quickly discover that you are on an island and can buy a ship and sail around. There are other islands in your world to visit as well as caves and buildings and swamps and forests, all with their own friends and enemies to engage.

The interface is smooth and easy to use and there is quite a beautiful soundtrack for the game, and everything about the look is nice even if sometimes it might look a tad cartoony. The game quests are simple and the game play is engaging so it makes a satisfying game to play and you can spend many hours in the kingdom enjoying the king’s bounty.

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