King’s Bounty: Dark Side Preview
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The folks over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have warmed up to the whole Steam Early Access idea, and have slapped up a preview of King's Bounty: Dark Side after checking out the pre-release version of the strategy/RPG firsthand. I'm a bit concerned that the author has never played a King's Bounty title in the past, however, as the biggest problem with the game is likely going to be the "I've done this before" feeling:
The Dark Side is like, what, the 23rd (expandalone) for King's Bounty? But, it's actually my first exposure to the series, and I'm super-digging the mix-and-match combat with my collection of monsters. Currently, my favorite move is to send my stout three-headed dogs charging across the board for a bite attack, then wait for my enemies to surround him on all sides, which they invariably do. At that point I have my demoness use her teleportation spell to swap my cerberi with my fire elemental. Oh, you thought you had a dog surrounded? No, you have a fire thing surrounded, and it can explode into an even bigger fire thing, burning anyone surrounding it. Suckers!
Of course, I can't stick with one set of monsters for too long, as I'm constantly coming across new beasties to add to my posse, and there are only so many slots. It's hard to resist trading in my demonesses for some creaking skeletal archers, because there's just something cool about skeletal archers. Some zombie units become available, and there's no way I can pass on sending a crew of maggoty undeads lurching into combat. Goblins, I could probably pass on, but these aren't simply goblins, they're Furious Goblins! I must have them. I'm in monster heaven! Which I guess is hell, technically. I'm in hell!
As with Endless Legend, I'm a little dismayed when I have to pit my collection of monsters against other collections of monsters my dream is for all monsters to be united but I have to admit that twice as many monsters on the battlefield make combat twice as much fun, even if they're not all on my side. I see vampires who can transform into bats, necromancers who can raise the fallen, laser-shooting floating beholders, flying griffins, giant snakes and spiders, even ancient bears (which are I guess are just bears, but older and thus more knowledgeable about bear combat).
