![]() ![]() ![]() Through the quest system, you can also acquire a more intricate item in the form of a wife, who will confer various stat benefits, and produce children who will equip as items with benefits of their own if you agree to fatherhood. Again, the concept of layers applies as you gain strength and level up yourself, you have the opportunity to treat your items to the same progression. To do either, you undertake a battle within the closed world of the item, and the higher the upgrade or more valuable the item’s powers, the more difficult the forces arrayed against you. ![]() Others have to be conquered to provide higher levels of benefits. Many are alive and have morale, a quality that requires you to keep them happy or deal with their rebellion, a state that removes their powers. Items are a world of their own, literally. ![]() While there isn’t quite the focus on builds that action rpgs like Diablo and Titan Quest revolve around, there’s still ample room for customization and that’s one of the joys of replaying the game. However, because of the balance of runes a given class generates on level up (that is, the specific types of skill points needed to advance in each tree), doing so involves sacrifice and prioritizing. Each class receives two class specific skills, but other than that, shares the same potential skill trees of Might, Mind and Magic, which means theoretically they can learn all or any of them. Paladins can concentrate on the Mind skills or are well adapted to combine aspects of the other two classes into whichever flavor of hybrid you prefer. The player can chose to be a user of 3 schools of diverse and powerful magic, a straight-up warrior, or a paladin. The skill system is both simple without being monotonous and complex without being tedious. NPCs abound, and conversations range from the sublimely nonsensical to the ridiculous, but seldom are they without the opportunity to pursue an avenue to wealth and/or experience and thus feed your need for checking off each NPC’s box in a satisfying and occasionally mind-boggling way. Not here, where the quest system is alive and well and quirky, with both a perfect willingness to replay the golden Fedex oldies like clearing the cellar of rats (or in this case, a garden of overly-aggressive plant material) or to work in some of it's own twists on the usual, like helping the dwarves improve the quality of their wartime brew, coercing the portrait of the griffin king out of an extortionate artist, bribing your way into prison, or swindling a scamming pirate. Many games including most arpgs have the first two down, but flunk on the third. The core role-playing elements that stand out in Kings Bounty are threefold skills, items and quests. This is the main force that takes the game in its own unique direction and lifts it above the Tolkienian clone level too many fantasy games endlessly revisit. It’s a game that brings the old slogan of bygone days to mind: “By Gamers, For Gamers.” Every detail seems both a bow to those who have gone before, and a personal tweak springboarding from a comfortable familiarity with the conventions of both genres. It bestrides the fence between these two genres with unusual grace, and while being a hardcore strategy game at heart, manages to layer in more traditional role playing elements than many action rpgs. King’s Bounty is a game distinguished by balance, and layers that build on each other in perfect equilibrium. ![]()
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