But rage will not win battles, troops and your ability to use them correctly will. Apart from a few interesting additions to the already existing races, like royal griffins, paladins or assassins, King’s Bounty: Armored Princess introduces a brand new race: Lizardmen. This race seems to be especially designed for the warrior class since most of lizards are focused on direct, melee damage. Yet, since two of the race members are equipped with summoning skills, allowing them to call an unlimited amount of allies onto the battlefield, and their pseudo-archers are decent enough, both a paladin and a clever mage could use them equality effective. This only comes to demonstrate that with a few minor exceptions there is no right or wrong way of building an army in King’s Bounty.

Unfortunately, the bosses in King’s Bounty give a much too greater value to that statement. Previously, these monstrosities were not mobile, could only do melee attacks and if no target was available they would summon normal allied troops to fight against the player. As the fight continued, the summons became stronger and stronger having the chance of overrunning the army of a slow attacker. In this game installment, something changed and not in the good way. Probably trying to offer a new challenge to players focusing on ranged attacks and spells, the developers introduced a battlefield wide AOE attack for each and every one of the game’s bosses. So once every two turns, no matter what you do, the boss will reduce your army by a fraction. The change, instead of making the game more interesting, has turned the challenging boss fight into a frustrating do or die timed fight. This was the most disappointing element from King’s Bounty: Armored Princess and it was still not enough to make us quit the game. That says a lot about the quality of all its other elements.

What else is new? Traveling between one continent/island to another has now been simplified and the player has full control over his traveling routes. You can use your own boat now to move around the world and the only element you need to consider is the traveling time. In the same “getting from point A to point B” category, half way through the game Amelie will gain the ability to fly. Well actually not Amelie, but her horse and this is important because in Armored Princess all the underground map sections are explored on foot, so the above mentioned ability only functions above ground. Achievements have quickly become a feature every decent game must have so Katauri Interactive developers followed the trend and introduced them in King’s Bounty also under the name “Awards”. But unlike many other games, these are not just for show and they actually enhance your character’s abilities or stats. So we recommend you to focus on obtaining them as early in the game as possible since they will make your life a whole lot easier latter on. The spell book has also been enriched with a few incantations and spells, but from which none can be considered a breakthrough in the magical arts. In the end it’s still the same good old spells that carry you through the fight. Finally, the armor sets stock has been seriously polished in this sequel, yet finding a full set in one play-through can be looked upon as a stroke of luck. So considering the items’ rarity, we’re quite disappointed by the stats bonuses these sets offer.

Now imagine all the above dressed up nicely in a graphic package following a brilliant art direction (or just click on the pictures) and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you can find inside King’s Bounty: Armored Princess. Same as its predecessor, the game is not for everyone, but if you find yourself among that handful of special people that like testing their brain beyond eye-hand coordination, then we strongly recommend this game. On high enough difficulty level it will keep you hooked for weeks on end and you will eventually treat every single battle as a unique challenging puzzle with solutions originating only from your own ingenuity and tenacity. We’ve enjoyed the ride and we’re looking forward to next King’s Bounty signed by Katauri Interactive.