GameBanshee gives us a review of King's Bounty: The Legend, a game which has had little PR in comparison to other, big name titles such as Fallout 3, released at a similar time. Reviewer Tyson McCann gives us a look at this under-represented game, delivering a score of 9.3 at the end of his multi-page review, citing toughness at normal settings and issues with gameplay as reasons for docking it down from a perfect 10.

As for replayability? The game has been out in Europe and Russia for several months already, and the localized North American release has been updated with the thoughtful changes that have so greatly balanced the classes to an individual play experience well worth replaying - at least 1 or 2 additional times. As each class plays fundamentally differently and the game's creature and spell system is nearly completely randomized, it virtually guarantees a different experience replaying at least once as another class. With we'll say at minimum 40+ hours for an experienced gamer to go through it a second time, there's potential for significant amount of replayability for this type of game. Still, it is single-player only and the quests are always the same, making the overall experience a 2nd and 3rd time somewhat less about that aspect and more about combat and building your character and his army, which is the main element anyway. There is also a high score board for personal or bragging rights; though a nice and ultimately desired touch, I can only see those with the much more free time than I have using this to any extent.

Though King's Bounty doesn't necessarily lend itself to typical multiplayer turn-based gameplay like hot-seat and e-mail games -- turn-based only applies to combat here -- there are some possibilities for extending the game in a unique and fun way. Something like a "Hero Arena" could allow two players to choose a class, distribute a set number of attribute points, hand-pick their army from the same limited selection of random monsters using a balanced pre-set number of leadership points to purchase them, then select a limited number of spells and a few extra skills to upgrade in the tree of their choosing, and then go at it. Best two of three rounds wins the match using the same army, and perhaps to the victor goes some sort of prestige points with the possibility of making it a ladder-based system. Just a suggestion!

Mishtram via gamebanshee.com »