King's Bounty: The Legend Review
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I was definitely in the "bewildered and lost" category for much of my stay in Calradia. That wasn't because of my overpopulated quest log, though: King's Bounty is a satisfyingly deep game, but it's horribly inaccessible. Turn-based battles on a hexagonal grid might not sound that complex, but factor in managing your character's skills (which you assign through a Diablo II-esque skill tree), dozens of different unit types with special attributes and abilities, randomly generated battlefields and enemy encounters, and you'll quickly find you're hitting the quick load hotkey much more often than you are the attack command.
Randomness is a huge issue, because the game will often populate an area with enemies far beyond your means. Getting my zombie wife was no stroll in the park. The path leading to the NPC I needed to find to complete the quest was blocked by a spider that I wasn't nearly powerful enough to defeat. Experience trickles down at a snail's pace, and I needed experience to get more troops, so I couldn't just grind it out to get stronger. Besides, I'd heard that the zombie wife was a highlight of the opening area of the game -why should there be a random artificial wall blocking me from my true undead love? I ended up awkwardly luring the spider out and dodging it. For a game that's all about the combat, shouldn't avoiding fights be the last thing I want to do?
