King’s Bounty 2 marks the end of a 21-Year wait for a sequel to the popular 1990 title originally developed by Jon Van Canegham. All these years later, and with a much bigger team behind the project, can King’s Bounty 2 live up to expectations?
A tale as old as time, sadly
The story of King’s Bounty 2 is one that could apply to any fantasy RPG. It’s a mix of conspiracies, politics and dark magic. The kind of storyline that was incredibly popular following the debut of Game of Thrones back in 2011 and, unfortunately, such a story is simply too basic and transparent in 2021.
Side missions are often the star of King’s Bounty 2 and they can be utterly incredible at times. I had a more emotional investment in the side quests than I ever did for any of the main story missions. Some are humorous, some are thought-provoking, and some simply provide just the right about of challenge to complete.
Unfortunately, side missions are not enough to save the game overall and the main story just outright failed to grab and keep my attention for any meaningful duration.
Living in Nostria
The King’s Bounty 2 game world is one that I’ll have nightmares about for a long time. That’s not to say it was bad in any sense, but issues constantly arose leaving me frustrated far too often.
For a game that depicts itself as open-world, it has a massive issue where if you stray off the beaten path, you’re likely to get stuck on the environment and have to either reload a previous save or hope you can wriggle yourself free.
The structure and layout of the open-world also leave very little to be desired. Combat encounters close of every route meaning any hopes of some kind of passive approach to combat is impossible.
At one point I saved my game and was apparently standing too close to some guards who had blocked off a road, because of this, when I loaded my save I was stuck between the guards and unable to move. My save file was stuck in this state so I had to redo around 30 minutes of gameplay to correct it.
That being said, one aspect of the gameworld that had me fully invested and saved some truly outrageous moments from being much worse, was the music. The music of King’s Bounty 2 starts out perfect and never drops levels. Whether you're roaming the busy city streets, strolling along the open country roads or engaged in a tense battle, the music is always appropriate and a joy to listen to.
Stand and Deliver
The tactical combat system in King’s Bounty 2 is another highlight but once again, comes with a caveat. The overall difficulty of King’s Bounty 2 can be downright puzzling at times. In my entire playthrough, I was considered the stronger force in a battle probably less than 10 times.
No matter how well I arrange my troops, no matter how many forces I could own, the odds were always stacked against me and it became an issue very quickly. I made sure to upgrade my characters equipment and try to ensure my talent points were properly distributed but it never seemed to help. The balance of battle just never seemed to tip in my favour.
This doesn’t mean I lost loads of battle but instead often found myself heavily depleted after most skirmishes, needing to spend my hard-earned gold buying more units rather than on new equipment, spells and other necessary supplies. It became a vicious circle that was hard to break and cast a dark cloud over what was a well built and fun to use tactical combat system.
Character is key
You can choose from one of three characters to begin your adventure through King’s Bounty 2. Each of the characters, Katherine, Aviar and Elisa have their own class, playstyle and personality. I would say these characters are another strong point of the game but in all honesty, most of my time was spent playing exclusively as Katherine the mage.
None of the characters has the backstory, personality and characteristics to make them stand out in a line of elite video game protagonists, but within the world of King's Bounty 2, they do their job just fine and more importantly don't detract from the experience in any way.
The main issue with characters comes in the form of the NPCs. We mentioned in our preview that sometimes the voices didn't quite match up to the character models but now that I've spent more time with the game, it's much worse than that.
Some characters have facial hair that looks glued on and completely out of place and there is no unified accent to work off for all of the NPCs. This means that the accents being used by the voice actors are all over the place and really took me out of the moment overall.
Verdict
King’s Bounty 2 is a game with lofty aspirations but without the ability to achieve them all. For all the good moments I had with the game, the victories laughs and eureka moments it just wasn’t balanced outright with the more difficult and disappointing events. At times, it feels like King’s Bounty 2 is trying to keep you playing longer for no reason other than to pad its own completion time. While challenging battles are expected, being outmatched and outnumbered for almost the entire game just doesn’t sit right with me.
Overall, King’s Bounty 2 is best enjoyed in short gameplay sessions over a long time but long time fans of the original may be disappointed with the final product given the 21-year wait.
RealSport Rating 2.5 Stars (out of 5)
We played King’s Bounty 2 on PC and our code was provided by 1C Entertainment.
King's Bounty 2 will be released on Tuesday, 24 August and be available on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.