➤ Big trouble in Endoria 🎮

Are you passionate about strategic role-playing games and can't help but play a dozen of them every year?

Take up residence in Eastern Europe and the surrounding area where the genre is still very flourishing and the emulators of Heroes of Might and Magic are falling like snow. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied with a detour every now and then, the time has come for you to become familiar with the King's Bounty series, taken up by the Russian Katauri Interactive which with The Legend has revived a brand from the early 2008s in 90, replicating the year later with this Armored Princess that we review with a little delay in this first part of January stingy of big names. What was initially heralded as a simple expansion has turned in the course of development into a non-original product but playable without the predecessor, able to refine it and ultimately equipped with one of the most profound gameplay currently in circulation.

Return to Endoria

The plot brings the user back to the fantasy world of Endoria, and then immediately drag him to Teana, a parallel reality where the player's alter ego, Princess Amelie, will have to find the knight Bill Gilbert, the only one able to save the homeland of the beautiful crowned, currently besieged by a host of assorted demons. In short, the classic race against time but in pink sauce, a starting point more than anything else to then accompany the user along the islands that make up the Teana archipelago, a series of thematically different environments but filled by the same alternation of environments to explore - collecting items, interacting with non-player characters and engaging in missions - and battles to complete. As expected, the clashes themselves are the strength of King's Bounty: Armored Princess: the battlefields recalled from time to time provide for the strategic arrangement of the available forces, each equipped with a certain amount of possible movements that can be carried out on the hexagonal squares chessboard and therefore equipped with specific statistics and skills, so as to allow thousands of possible combinations as well as an impressive level of insight. After the first hours of the game, demanding but surmountable without too many uncertainties, the challenge rate grows exponentially and with it the need to carefully choose each unit, object or magic, a process fortunately supported by the enormous balancing work done, such as to make every fight a stimulating run-up to the right move.

If the battles are the masters, particularly successful is also the most strictly role-playing part that, whatever the initial choice between wizard, warrior or paladin, provides a triple tree of skills with as many types of resources to access individual spells or to upgrades for the same. A rather classic scheme which, however, in combination with the many objects to be collected as loot or purchased through the appropriate sellers, offers a more than discreet personalization of Amelie.

A game of substance, in short, capable of entertaining for almost thirty hours and making up for the slow-paced action typical of the genre with a generous amount of new concepts and possibilities gradually introduced. Of course, the structural innovations compared to The Legend are not very many, involving more than anything else the introduction, not very insightful to tell the truth, of a dragon as a pet with passive and active abilities, depending on the choice made at the time of its adoption. , and better management of the internal economy of Teana's world. Huge defects can not be found and, in addition to the extreme sectoriality, to keep away a higher rating was only the too rapidity with which one is inserted into the heart of the action - the short tutorial is not that great and, in a nutshell , it is almost assumed that you have some experience - in addition to the absence of any multiplayer, present only in the form of online rankings dedicated to the score obtained during the campaign.

Armored Princess has not been distributed in stores in Spain but is available for download via Steam and GamerGate at a price of just under forty euros.

Not beautiful but charming?

If the mechanics work thanks to the broad shoulders of a genre that proceeds in very small but effective steps, the whole gameplay support structure is similarly designed to be functional. The interface is all in all good despite the excessive frills and some original choices - the button for closing the windows at the bottom right is unorthodox - while the commands are appreciated for the ability not to get complicated due to the many possibilities, making themselves available even exclusively via mouse. Graphically, the style is cartoonish and often does not hide the desire to make the verse to World of Warcraft, compensating for the lack of originality with a good yield available even in the most modest configurations;

to report the presence of an option to view King's Bounty: Armored Princess in anaglyph 3D - with blue and red lens glasses - a nice addition rather than a real possibility given the annoyance of viewing with altered colors. Artificial intelligence is very good, capable of dominating the pitch by putting in difficulty just enough to stimulate the continuous use of gray matter, without giving the impression of cheating. The sound, finally, makes use of a pleasant soundtrack composed of catchy tunes while leaving the rather poor set of sounds that accompany battles and exploration less satisfied.

Comment

Resources4Gaming.com

8.2

Readers (33)

8.5

Your vote

King's Bounty: Armored Princess is one of the best strategy RPGs in a long time now and for fans this should be enough. Going into the merits, the developers have not changed almost anything compared to The Legend, limiting themselves to inserting new content and filing the defects, leaving only the novice players in suspense who will have to make a few more attempts before mastering all the dynamics offered. The longevity is remarkable, enough to partially compensate for the absence of multiplayer, while the technical realization is second-rate even if far from annoying. Unreservedly recommended for enthusiasts, to be tried at least once for everyone else.

PRO

Deep and complex gameplay
High challenge rate supported by excellent balance and continuous new dynamics to master
Excellent longevity
Technically not exciting but functional

AGAINST