King's Bounty: Armored Princess Review
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Gameplay
This being kind of like King's Bounty 1.5, should you consider Armored Princess if you haven't played the original? I'd recommend against it. The first one was a brilliant game overall, takes longer to ramp up in difficulty, and is slightly longer. Armored Princess is about the same difficulty but its gameplay, questing, and overall execution is more streamlined and polished, making it a fantastic game to play when you're ready for more, but not as good of a series starter due to its faster ramp up in difficulty. In addition, you're probably less likely to want to play the original after having played this and getting used to its small but noticeable improvements.
The essence of the gameplay in any King's Bounty is threefold: combat, exploration, and character progression, all of which are synergistic. Combat (for experience points to level your character) and exploration (questing and pickups) help character progression in tangible ways. Character progression and combat help exploration making it less dangerous and... what's left? Oh yes, exploration and character progression certainly help minimize losses in combat!
In Armored Princess, you'll take your heroine named Amelie into a strange new land, and wander (on foot, or flying mount, or ship) over many different unlockable islands in the search of the lost stones of hope. Eventually there's an overarching threat you'll have to deal with but I'll its unfolding a secret.
Character Progression
What's new with character progression? I'll start by stating what hasn't changed. You still have three "classes" to choose from at the beginning of the game: Amelie can become a warrior, paladin, or mage. They all play differently from one another (providing for some great replayability on top of the already randomized nature of the entire experience - more on that later), and roughly similar to how they played in KB:tL.
The main differences are with how their skill trees are laid out. Improvements, balance tweaks, and new skills are found throughout each of the trees, making this part of the game seem sufficiently new to the seasoned King's Bounty player. This time it will take you right to the end of the game to become powered up in your skill trees. In addition, on level up, the player no longer receives any main stat point bonuses such as Attack, Defense, or Intelligence, as these are all found from map locations and skill upgrades. Instead, on level up the player always gets a steady leadership bonus and a circulating assortment of runes (required to buy skills) depending on their class.
Exploration
Exploration is one of the other reasons this game is so addictive. On every path, grave, tree, and well-hidden nook and cranny you'll find all the items to help increase your character's power: leadership flags to be able to recruit more creatures, rare runes for buying skills, crystals for scribing and upgrading spells, money for buying items and creatures and spells, spell scrolls (all characters can and should still use magic), and new to this game, heavily guarded navigation charts which open up distant islands.
The great thing about exploring in King's Bounty is that the player, who normally runs much faster than wandering stacks, usually has the ability to avoid most of them as they try feebly to follow, and therefore skirt around to pick up all of the surrounding items without entering combat. This is something that's built-in to the game and I must say it's pretty exhilarating to go deep into the middle of a new area, passing up multiple enemies you know you might have trouble with on the way back out, in order to snag all the loot and therefore increase your power. When finally you escape with those higher level creatures you just bought from a store you really "shouldn't" be at yet, it's even a bit guilty. But this type of play is encouraged.
As there are many different islands to explore in the game, Armored Princess uses a system where a powerful stack of creatures stands (mostly) unmoving in order to guard the navigation charts needed to access new lands via your ship. Getting a "nav chart" is a moment to celebrate because it means you'll again have the chance to sail to all the landing spots of a new island, venture within, and pickup as much loot as possible before fighting again, in order to be ready for the more difficult combats.
Combat
Inevitably though, there's only so much new land to discover and it will come down to your stack and skills versus an enemy stack (sometimes with an enemy hero to lead them). Combat takes place in a variable hex grid (as did KB:tL) with obstacles randomly assigned, and the sizes adjustable depending on terrain. As before, your army is on the left and the enemy army is on the right. In turn-based fashion, each unit stack (the size of which is capped by your leadership number) acts according to their initiative and then has a chance to move across the battlefield and/or attack an adjacent unit, defend, use a special skill, or wait until later in the battle to act. Meanwhile once per turn (twice if your a Mage with an upgraded skill tree), you as Amelie can cast one of your many new or improved spells from the last game, minus some of the imbalances or overpowered combos that could be unleashed in KB:tL.
Combat is variable every time, tactical, never dull (unless you're prolonging it on purpose to sustain no losses), and rewarding, as it takes less experience to go up levels now than it did in KB:tL. In fact, rather than being capped at 30 (or 31) as was KB:tL, some players have reached near level 60 in Armored Princess, and were there additional fights possible, could reach even higher. This provides more opportunities to examine and assign new skills to your trees, as well as recruit more creatures due to your leadership.
Recruiting into your army is made easier than in KB:tL. From the start you're given the two additional army slots you had to buy in the previous game. This makes switching out armies and having a backup easier. It's still not perfect having to wander back to the place of purchase every level up to replenish troops, however it's only a minor complaint - it doesn't take too long in real time, and is usually not dangerous. Maybe in King's Bounty 2 there could be a method to buy more from wherever you were up to your leadership, cost dependent on how far away the shop was and modified by how naturally difficult the area is to your current level, etc. A new screen could display all available creatures of that type you've come across sorted by cost, with the name of the area above.
Finally, combat is even more compelling thanks to the use Amelie's new pet dragon, which replaces the box of rage you received in the original and plays a huge part of combat. The dragon is able to increase in levels, get new skills and upgrade them to maximize this supplement to combat. Better utility spells are included as well so that even a player who doesn't always need the pet's powers, finds ways to utilize it.
To sum up gameplay, it's addictive, fun to explore and add to your character's powers, and leaves you with a sense of accomplishment after most every battle. So how about graphics?
Graphics
For the original King's Bounty: The Legend, I gave the graphics the full score of 10 out of 10. This was due to two things. They didn't skimp in the graphic polish department, going well beyond what they needed to do for a successful 2D and 3D presentation, and the art direction. Units are colorful, well-animated, varied, and all of the special effects for spells and land detail are fleshed out and unique.
Even though Armored Princess isn't the first engine to use most of these graphics, they are still beautiful to behold and just as relevant today as they they were 1 year ago. They've added many new units and all are rendered beautifully. In addition, the pet dragon's animation is all unique and interesting to watch. Take for example when the pet uses and ability and then pulls up a mushroom as a pillow to await its next turn, then tosses and turns in its sleep. It's cute, and so what - you play as a feminine heroine anyway. It doesn't take away from the power of your dragon, but it might have been nice to see it grow in size throughout the game.
For the reason that Armored Princess continues to make its new graphics at least up to the same more-than-required level as the original, this game should also be highly regarded in the graphics department, though any further full-price "sequels" will need to improve upon or be different enough to merit high praise for graphics. I'll still recommend that you go to the official forum, then the mod section to download a camera mod which increases the viewable area to make it even more stunning.
Sound & Music
Armored Princess utilizes many of the same high quality sounds and tracks as in KB:tL, which I'm sure helped with development time, but this doesn't come off as impressive the second time around. For this reason suffice it to say that all spells, units, and areas, even the new ones, have appropriately thematic sound effects and tracks - but that we've heard most before it loses some brownie points for me.
Lasting Value
The game itself is long, likely taking 30-60 hours to complete for the average player (I must be average because I'm at the high end of that spectrum). There are nearly 300 wandering stacks of enemies to battle, way more creature shops per area than in the first game, and many items to find. Nearly all of it is randomized at the beginning of every game, making the journey of customizing your own army and progressing through the game a new experience every time, especially with 3 different classes.
The community is also very active in Armored Princess, providing in-depth FAQ's about units, spells, best tactics, combat mechanics, etc. It's a wonder what some people have achieved in the game, even on impossible difficulty. We're talking zero troop losses throughout the entire game and minimal travel between the islands. So for a "normal" game, when you're up against a "lethal" stack of creatures... realize that the game supports being able to use your spells, items and creatures in unique ways to adapt to much tougher conditions. Small comfort when you're suffering major losses, but perhaps will be some motivation to examine your army, skill, and spell composition and try to improve it.
Summary
Essentially, that's what the King's Bounty experience boils down to. Great character customization options and figuring out ways to improve your combat prowess to continue to get better at demolishing the enemy armies that litter a beautiful world. Armored Princess is a streamlined and more balanced game than the original, making it a must buy for any fan of King's Bounty: The Legend. Newcomers should get the first, first, but everyone should eventually get both if at all interested in RPGs or turn-based fantasy.
