If I’m not mistaken, it all started in 2008, when I was a salesman in the “Mood” store (cinema, music, video games) and at my work I bought a special edition of the game “King’s Bounty: Legend of the Knight”. I don’t really remember what was special there, besides a larger package and a deck of playing cards, which, it seems, I still have.

And, yes: another emphasis is on bought, T.To. I used to sin by untimely borrowing something from the counter for home use. It is clear that periodic re-accounting prevented me from completely unraveling, as a result of which all shortfalls were blamed on the store employees. But on my last work shift, I brought out a whole collection of DVDs with films that were interesting to me. Like, they won’t hang me up anymore. What a young, unscrupulous scum I was..

Returning to the first paragraph, of course I’m not mistaken, everything was like that. But, Why that’s how it was? Why was I looking forward to this game so much?? Moreover, he bought it, and did not “borrow” it. And even a special edition, and not just a disc..

As for the latter, perhaps it’s just a whim and the pursuit of trinkets in the form of some kind of exclusivity. But as for the anticipation of the exit… I can’t accurately reproduce what was going on in my head 14 years ago (but judging by my actions, a lot of crazy things were going on), so I’ll have to make assumptions and build a logical chain.

Let’s rewind another 10 years ago, when I, being completely snotty, after school, went to visit my friend Sana Mediainen (or simply Medimyau, for those who are not used to Ingrian surnames). His house was closest to the school (just a dream! you can sleep until it melts!), and the older brother was a bit of an informalist (as it seemed to us), he loved rock sports, aircraft modeling and was good with a computer. Accordingly, he had all sorts of progressive games on his computer.

What do I mean by progressive? In the very shaggy 80-90s, games were inaccessible and were more of an entertainment for geeks. Then the spread of personal computers happened, so video games became more widespread and became an element of public entertainment, along with cinema, TV, music, etc.d. So my peers will probably understand: we, who were in the thick of these events and got our hands on outlandish PCs from our mother at work or in a gaming club, had no time for clever games, but needed to get emotions from them here and now. Therefore, the main favorites were simpler and single-cell games, such as Doom, Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Quake, Carmaggedon, Need For Speed. Shooting and racing games: run, shoot, overtake. And only with the suggestion of someone more experienced did we explore the world of strategies and RPGs and began to be interested in games with a plot – more progressive games.

So, on Sanya’s brother’s computer, I became acquainted with such legendary universes, which later became icons for me, as for many, such as Fallout and Heroes of Might&Magic (in common parlance – Heroes). I met exclusively through Sanya, t.To. You were allowed to touch your brother’s computer only when Sanya was in a very good mood. And in this case, these were my first let’s plays or offline streams, as you wish: I sat and watched Sanya play Heroes and Fallout. And I didn’t understand a damn thing! Where is the dynamics??! Where is the shooting? Where’s the action?? Some kind of boring..

But the young brain is inquisitive and absorbs everything like a sponge, and there was no Internet with Instasamka yet, so instead of walking in a balaclava and with a portable speaker on my shoulder, listening to “I wear capital in a thong, Juicy smells like money,” I also started playing Heroes with my dad on his computer.

And then there were https://lordpingcasinoonline.co.uk/withdrawal/ summer holidays with Makhlai and Vitko. 3 months in Toksovo, in a room with a sloping roof where there was a computer. And Vitkovsky disk with Heroes 3: Revival of Erathia. We played with each other, and on scenario maps, and went through the campaign, and tinkered with the map editor ourselves. In a word – they got as excited as they could!

To understand the level of involvement in the gameplay, I have one story. You can skip it. Just start reading the next paragraph. No?! Well I warned you. T.To. Heroes is a turn-based strategy, so you don’t have to be on different computers to play together with friends. It has a Hotseat mode. Hot chair. You play in turns at one computer: first one player makes his move, then the second, third. Then the next round and again – one, second, third… One computer, one chair and three, replacing each other behind this computer and chair, asses. Young, growing organisms. Grandmothers feed us fried dumplings and potatoes. Good metabolism. And flatulence. And there was a cushion on this simple wooden chair that spent the entire summer holidays under our butts. When at the end of August I decided to smell it (the young brain is inquisitive, we remember)… Let’s say, if hell had its own “Perfume”, then in the final scene of the film this pillow would be used – the quintessence of all the hellish smells that the pillow absorbed during 3 months of hotsit in Heroes.

This is the background of the game Heroes of Might&Magic in my life. But we started with King’s Bounty, remember? So, the ancestor of combat mechanics and the game that had the greatest influence on the appearance of Heroes and inspired its creators was King’s Bounty from 1990. And in 2008 its remake was released. I was not familiar with the original, but out of duty, and for the sake of interest, I read various gaming press, such as the magazine “Gaming” and, for sure, knew about this relationship between King’s Bounty and my favorite Heroes. And the remake was developed and published by Russian studios. Probably, all this in the compartment influenced the above-described purchase of the special edition “King’s Bounty: Legend of the Knight”.

Dozens of wonderful hours were spent in fantasy adventures. Although I never really liked the fantasy theme itself. A thick book of Tolkien, slipped by my mother in high school, went on the shelf after a couple of dozen pages. I watched the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, but they did not qualify as more than films of the “pleasantly while away the evening” format in my personal film hierarchy. Well, I had a crazy pleasant experience with the game Fable 2. That’s all for this. Only Heroes and Kings Bounty. Now I’m sitting here, rolling my eyes at the ceiling, and remembering, maybe I had something else fantasy… The Witcher 3 is basically good, but in the game I didn’t even sail to Skellige, that’s about 1/3 of the plot. And the series turned off after 20 minutes.

“King’s Bounty: Legend of the Knight” was good for its colorfulness, positivity, humor, plot without “complicated things”: the seriousness of fantasy stories often makes me funny, because I don’t believe the word “at all”, but here somehow everything was simple, like a fairy tale, or something. There was also great music. It was in perfect harmony with what was happening on the screen, perfectly complementing and immersing you in the world of the game. King’s Bounty, like Heroes, was very tube. This concept is a little blurred now and is often used in different situations. For me, one of the main criteria for a lamp is the feeling that you are sitting in your small room under a source of directed weak warm yellow light and are captivated by something very peacefully cozy. This is just about King’s Bounty.

And now we are gradually approaching what prompted me to remember all this: the fact that the other day I completed the relatively recently released second part of King’s Bounty. "You’ve got to be kidding me?! Such an introductory sheet?!». But, excuse me, I have a stream of creativity here, and not an article with a review for a run-of-the-mill gaming magazine.

By the way, about articles or, much more relevant, reviews on YouTube. Many of them are titled in the spirit of: “Opinion about King’s Bounty II after 30/50 hours of play”. 30/50 hours is not enough, if anything. I played on PS4 and there is no time counter for the time spent in the game, but it feels like at least 100 hours. And for me, it’s like the joke about a blind boy who regained his sight for a few seconds in the zoo when an elephant stood with his back to him, and then asked all his life, “Is this as beautiful as an elephant’s ass?”?!». It’s a little strange to draw any conclusions without having the full picture. It is clear that bloggers and gaming publications have their own race: if you publish a review later than a competitor, you will already lose a decent share of views. And so the guys with red eyes play a new game day and night, just to have time to quickly create a review. The oxymoron is that they play for work, it turns out, and not for pleasure. That’s why sometimes reviews come out emasculated. Yes, with a good journalistic style, structured, but somehow stingy with sincere emotions, or something.

But personally, I see a direct relationship between the time spent in the game (read – whether you completed it completely or only partially) and the emotions received at the end. Because at different stages of the game I experienced different emotions.

In the first third, the game seemed very calm and meditative to me: you run around, vacuum every corner of the location for useful loot, slowly understand the plot of local twists and turns, complete simple quests, and occasionally take part in some simple battles. King’s Bounty did not pose any impossible tasks, although I chose the highest difficulty level to complete it. Moreover, the “riddles” that appear periodically in the game are just laughable: click on three stones in a certain sequence and the door will open. It is clear that the gameplay is not tied to them, but if the creators diversify it with the help of some “puzzles” (lol!), then let them cause at least a little difficulty. In general, I was chilling, relaxing and returning to Kings Bounty for relaxation sessions.

Further, for the first time I began to encounter opponents who were too tough for me, but I still had a bunch of side quests, completing which I pumped myself up and returned stronger to win. By the way, by the end of the game I completed all the quests and activities. And here we can mention balance: completing third-party quests and receiving experience and resources from them is really very important for successful advancement in the game. Every experience point, every coin and junk found in chests can play a role. Here you won’t run around with ahuliard for a day, not knowing where to spend it. True, before the final battle I sold all the clothes that I wasn’t wearing and it turned out to be really a lot of money. But I saved my gear so that it could give me variability in characteristics and abilities, depending on the enemy. By the way, special respect for this: there are no overtly imbalanced weapons or armor in the game. Like, he took the sword of a thousand truths and went to crush everyone left and right. Everything you put on, hang or pick up adds bonuses to you just a little bit, without sudden boosts. Or, by greatly adding one characteristic, it has an extremely negative effect on another: if you want powerful armor, be prepared to walk slowly.

About 2/3 of the way through the game, I discovered that all the side quests available at that time had been completed, and in battles with opponents that I needed to win to further advance the plot, I was losing. And then I encountered a real challenge for the first time and got high! I tried to rebuild my army, sold unnecessary gear and bought new units (every coin counted), studied new spells and pumped up old ones (every mana crystal counted), combined all this with an eye to the abilities and characteristics of my units and, of course, based on the enemy, I built tactics and formation. I gave up the fight, went to bed and before going to bed I thought: “Yeah, I can try this and that” – I got out of the problem and looked at it from the outside))) Yes, this is just some kind of chess, only with its own specifics and more multifaceted, I thought. And I even wanted to learn how to play chess. Although, they are probably a little more boring than King’s Bounty.

“But still, this was in Heroes and in the previous King’s Bounty,” you say – “Spells, manipulations with army combinations, tactics, placement, unit features”. That’s what I thought about now. Well, apparently before that I played like a sucker, at low/medium levels. Here’s how high difficulty reveals the game!

The final battle is absolutely the sweatiest skating rink. After several attempts, I sold all the clothes that I wasn’t wearing in order to slightly change the composition of the army: I can’t have people in the army, because.To. the enemy had the ability to restore health from people as much as he dealt damage; and I couldn’t use units that have the ability of suggestion, t.To. the enemy cast a spell “Mind Control” that I had never seen before, as a result of which my squad simply became his squad and fought against me. I also bought and studied spells, including those that ignored enemy armor, which had simply incredible parameters. Just like his resistance to magic, making him practically invulnerable. Oh yes, he also had some kind of fierce resurrection spell: you barely kill his squad, and he just takes it and resurrects it. Fully.

Well, for starters, I completely reset the skill tree and redistributed my hero’s talent points so that he could cast spells twice in one round. I know this sounds like a lot of nerdy stuff, but just know that it all helped me score a fun victory. We both ran out of mana (although he had 2 times more mana, but his cheating spells clearly also consumed more of it) and we could not cast spells. But I still had scrolls in my spell book that didn’t require mana. And a ranged unit. And he has a melee unit. As a result, I slowed down his unit with scrolls, and accelerated mine and simply ran from him around the map and fired at him. Such a glorious victory))

I would definitely praise the game for the tactical part and balance. Otherwise, you should understand that this is definitely not a AAA project. King’s Bounty II is more likely aimed at those who played the previous part, maybe also at fans of Heroes and hardcore fans of RPG, fantasy or some kind of tactical strategies. Therefore, it’s hardly worth analyzing it as a game designed for a mass user. And I turn a blind eye to things like graphics from 15 years ago. Although maybe this is a port on PS4, because reviews from PC on YouTube look prettier, as it seemed to me.

King’s Bounty II looks and feels quite dated. Although, if we take into account that its target audience is quite outdated, maybe everything has grown together quite successfully?

Okay, that’s it, I’ve already fallen asleep in my rocking chair 5 times while I was writing this (and I can’t even imagine how many times you’ve fallen asleep), so I’ll go put out the kerosene stove, put my jaw in a glass and fall asleep with the memories of the games of my youth.