King's Bounty II Review (frangge)
The latest part of one of the best computer game series - a review .... or rather: a rant.
First, like lots people who had a look at this game I came from playing all of the games of the first series and I loved all of them (maybe except for the wikings one which was "just" good and not great like the others). I knew that they had changed the graphics to a more "3D" experience. While I didn't really understand why this had to be changed, I was willing to give it a try.
In the end, I have to say: This game sucks. Hard. Really hard. Really, really hard.
The good:
There are some really nice aspects I liked about this game, like the army management (including gold management), the learning curve and the difficulty. Yes, this game is in my opinion quite difficult compared to similar games and you have to pay for mistakes early when your gold is short. Units are really expensive but at some point you have to switch a complete stack to get ahead. But since your old units were at max level (3), your new units are only slightly stronger at the beginning.
These features alone could make a nice game but the rest ruins it.
The bad:
Like many games, they wanted to add some puzzles you have to solve during your quests. Not sure how they were designed, but according to the difficulty level, they were designed by a five year old so that a three year old can solve than in 10 seconds. You find all hints (typically there is just one) directly in front of the riddles and then it is like "light four candles. First north, then west, then east, then south". I can't imagine anyone having fun with puzzles that are solved without thinking. Either make decent puzzles or keep them out!
The story overall is nothing special, neither in the main nor in the side quests. Especially the main quests is far from being interesting. And the resolution at the end is truly underwhelming. No explanation for motives, just like "That's the bad guy.".
Let's come to the point everyone was wondering about. The graphics. The obvious difference to the old games. The graphic is really nice. IF YOU ARE LIVING IN 2005. It takes at most 30 minutes until you ask yourself "Why the **** did they use a 3D graphic if they did not have the time, money or skill to make it look properly?". I mean, considering the price, they pretend to deliver a AAA game. Where I expect a decent graphic in 2020. If you walk throgh grass or bushes, you literally walk through them. They do not budge or anything, the leaves etc just vanish in your chest and reappear from your back. Instead of giving you three movement speed options sneak (which you need exactly one time in a side quest), walk and run, they chose to go for sneak, walk and ride on a horse. Riding on the horse looks wierd just from the way the character is sitting on it. It's like a puppet where every part of the body is stiff. The horse is really clunky to move and I felt like the movement keys were reacting completely different from walking.
What really, really annoyed me about the graphic are the "obstacles". Here it is not possible to accidentially fall from a cliff since this is just a no-go area. That's nice. You can't run through trees or walls. That makes sense. In many areas of the game, it is not possible to step up or down a wall/stone/something similar that is at most as high as your ankle. You just have to run around to find a place where you can go by. Why? Even the three year that is meant to solve the puzzles could go over these stones.
There are some video sequences with dialogs. Like the graphic in the game itself, they are just bad. "Puppet faces" without mimic, no real voice acting. Decent German translation though. Not sure if this would have been good even in 2005.
The characters you play also have no real background story (not much more than 3 lines of text) and are highly replacable. I played as paladin and a bit as a mage to see if there are any differences. The paladin is just a random character with a bit of empathy. While the mage (like most of the NPCs) is just a blunt a**hole. Not one of the funny a**hole characters you find in some games and movies but a "Shut up and never talk to me again" type.
Another really annoying part is the loot. You will mostly find gold and dozens of items with sometimes normal names (like city map) and sometimes names that indicate they might be useful (like mask of smiling death). Don't get confused. While there are a ton of them, they only have one use: They can be sold for gold. (There are some skills or items that increase the sell value, so it makes sense to not just give you gold, but there is absolutely no need for this amount of items to litter your inventory). The drop rate of items you can actually equip is way less than 5%, so basically all gear you get is from fights or merchants.
While I would gladly accept some of the bad points I mentioned, the graphics and the "puzzles" are really so annoying that I can't recommend this game. It would be a great game if had just reused the old graphics but like this it's unfortunately not enjoyable. Not even at 75% discount.
But if you are looking for a game that killed its series: You may have found it.