King’s Bounty II Review – Clumsy Return

It was 2014 when I very belatedly sat down for the successful King’s Bounty: The Legend, at the time still unaware that in fact it was a big and long-term affair, the predecessor of which once helped give birth to another one of my favorite brands. which is Heroes of Might and Magic. As the years went by, I tried another sequel subtitled The Armored Princess and The Dark Side, which was not much different from Legend, which made me sad on the one hand and not so much on the other.

However, years passed and a new full-fledged part number two was announced, in which it was decided that many systems would undergo huge changes that should take the series one step further. But the game has been available on store shelves and digital stores for a few days now, and you can check out this review, which will show you how the developers managed to fulfill these plans.

• Platform: PC, PlayStation 4 (Tested), Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: 08/24/2021
• Producer: 1C Entertainment
• Genre: Tactical RPG
• Czech location: Yes (subtitles)
• Multiplayer: Not
• Data to download: 12 GB (PS4)
• Game time: About 45 hours
• Availability: 16+
• Sales version: box and digital
• Price: CZK 1,299 – 1,699 (Xzone)

I run back and forth

As you may have read from various articles (eg our first impressions), the authors have indeed made some big changes. In practice, this means that we are moving into even deeper waters of the RPG, i.e. we control the character directly from a third person, thanks to which we are even closer to the local world. It is either beautifully painted and detailed (despite its graphical age), and due to the fact that it is not large, it is thickened with various important locations in which you will perform a bunch of larger or smaller tasks assigned to you by the locals. As you explore the map, you’ll find various equipment vendors, treasure stashes, stat-boosting altars, and really, really banal puzzles.

The role-playing part brings the game to its knees.

However, this part of the game brings him to his knees the most. Although the world is aesthetically beautiful, it will have a very static effect on you. This is expressed in the fact that you will constantly listen to the same phrases of passers-by who do not have a daily shift, which would create at least a slight illusion of the habitat (and even day and night do not change here). In addition, the creators very often force you to return to already explored locations, which, thanks to the tediously slow movement of your character, can incredibly poison you in the second half of the game. While you have your trusty steed at your disposal, using it is unfortunately very unintuitive and I find the design decision to not trot around town very unfortunate.

Attack always carefully

In any case, during your wanderings around the local kingdom, in a few moments you will inevitably stumble upon a group of enemies with whom you will have to go to the cross. At this point, from the perspective of a third person, we will move the camera up and a battlefield consisting of hexagonal squares will open in front of us (the arenas are installed right on the map, which allows for tactics and finding the best starting position) and turn-based battle awaits you. Definitely the funniest and best part of the game. In these battles, your army, consisting of five platoons of different units (or several reinforcements), will fight against an enemy army, which can also be commanded by an important character. The next fight is relatively classic, where units have points for movement and action, and various active abilities can be used for this. In addition, various passive bonuses, terrain or hero spells will play their role.

Fights act as a driving force.

And although the authors do not do anything special, except for the competition, it’s just a very memorable fun that will act as the biggest driving force. In addition, each duel works like a separate puzzle. This means that you will often try different tactics and often not, which brings a nice challenge (although it would be appropriate to work on the balance). The game sometimes has a so-called. grind (money is everything), but if you gradually perform secondary tasks with balance, then there should not be any special problems with rare exceptions. Helping the whole situation is a relatively rich supply of different units, which are divided into one of four denominations (Order, Strength, Wisdom and Anarchy), where mixing fighters of different faiths affects morale, which in turn affects the chance of additional moves, so you need review the composition of their charges (or invest points in special properties).

They want to destroy our empire again

These confessions are related to the choices you make during each task. The more points you have in each belief, the more skills you can gain from it. These choices are usually binary, with some of them only affecting your character’s morality, while others directly affect the main story (changes revolve mostly around who you want to dig). Having scored a high number of points in one religion, it may eventually happen that the character will reject the second decision of the task, because he is against his beliefs. The system may be transparent and simple, but definitely better than nothing. It also guarantees a relatively pleasant dose of replay value (as well as hero choice).

The choice and different heroes provide a good dose of replay value.

Unfortunately, most of the choices will no longer be relevant to you, since the story here is a purely universal fantasy toy with little to no gradation and narrative. You’ll feel like the whole game isn’t really all that great, and it’s a little idle as most of the side quests tell more interesting personal stories than the main storylines. After all, you, too, go to idle dubbing of characters who seem extremely annoyed most of the time, while uttering senselessly blinded and unintentionally funny dialogues that often make you bang your forehead on your forehead. I wouldn’t even talk about the “end”. Do not cause much sympathy and local main characters. As long as there is too much blood in the witch Katarina (sorry, but you can’t say it more diplomatically), Elise the paladin will surely kill you with her exaggerated “administrativity” and naivety. The only male protagonist, Ivar, was then dubbed Doug Cockle, Geralt’s English voice, but he’s not exactly emotional and gets annoyed all the time (actually a little Geralt-esque, but without a hint of any personality).

Confusing and awkward

I can’t praise the user interface, which I already had problems with in the preview. This can be very heavy, and it will take you some time to rummage through your local to-do list or inventory. In addition, apparently, there is a real feeling of controlling the gamepad, which I definitely recommend using. Among other things, local animations, lip-synching or almost absent facial expressions are also distinguished by clumsiness.

The user interface is heavy.

I played the game primarily on the PlayStation 5, which is backwards compatible with the PlayStation 4 version, but I didn’t see any significant performance benefits. This means that this version offers not very sharp visuals at 30 FPS, the stability of which sometimes rubs off. So if you have the opportunity, from this point of view I definitely recommend the PC version or wait for some next generation update. We shouldn’t forget the Czech localization in the form of subtitles, when I’m glad we managed to eradicate most of the nonsense explained in the pre-release. There is still some kind of scandal or inaccuracy sometimes, but I did not notice anything that would clearly tear the veins.

Eurojank as embroidered

So, as you probably already understood from the text, King’s Bounty II will basically remind you at every turn that it belongs to the category of so-called Eurojank games. The RPG part of the game is a little clunky, the world is quite colorful but a bit static, and the story offers the usual premise with sometimes downright silly dialogue. We can thank God for successful skirmishes, which are the driving force and source of the greatest entertainment in the game. But if this series is a matter of the heart for you, you might do well to ignore the existence of this work.