This is quite the change. If you didn’t know, King’s Bounty 2 has gone 3D, in the sense that the camera is now over the shoulder of your hero rather than high up in the sky looking down on them, and the world around them. And that really changes things. It brings you into the world in a way the games previously didn’t. You’re in the world rather than observing it. You’re up in the faces of the people who live there, talking to them, deciding things, buying things from them. You’re inside their houses and their castles, and you’re looking up at the rooftops of caverns or crumbling ruins.
Glance at King’s Bounty 2 and it could be any number of other third-person role-playing games that you’ve played, and that’s a huge step forwards for the series. It’s never looked this accomplished before. And perhaps this is the beginning of a whole new era for King’s Bounty. But there are growing pains that come with it.
Being so close in appearance to other RPGs means King’s Bounty 2 invites comparison to them, and in these, it suffers. It’s a bit rough around the edges, and that’s fine, but it tends to mean you’ve always seen better somewhere else. Those snowy environments and castles aren’t quite as nice as you’ve seen in other games. That character moves a bit woodenly, and that horse is annoyingly hard to turn around. And while it’s great that there’s an attempt at a cinematic story and performed dialogue, it tries a bit hard and feels overwrought, and it wasn’t long before I ignored it almost entirely.
