King's Bounty: The Legend Review
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The Chest, which you get your hands on fairly quickly if you perform the missions that King Mark offers you, is a thing of beauty. It's basically a play on the old Pandora's Box myth, with four very powerful Spirits of Rage trapped in this chest. Each one of them only obeys you if you perform a certain task and each has four powers that you can use in battle. After use, each spirit needs to rest. The nice idea is that, as you use their powers, they level up and gain upgrades. By the end game, the Chest will be much needed as you battle more powerful enemy stacks. I mainly use Underground Blades from Zerock as an opening shot only to follow up with the Rage Taking and then the Black Hole from Reaper, the Spirit of Death.
The interplay between creatures, their special attacks, using the Chest of Rage and magic is complex enough to make players really think about what they are doing on the battlefield. Knowing when to use Running on your Giants might make the difference between victory and defeat, especially when fighting heroes who are apparently more powerful than you or when assaulting castles. One of the criticisms that can be leveled at the game is that some of the battles are very, very hard and that you really need to make sure you level back by clearing each zone you pass so that you are ready for the challenges of the next one.