King's Bounty

Overview

King's Bounty is a turn-based strategy game released by New World Computing for home computers in 1990. The following year it saw an enhanced Sega Genesis port, King's Bounty: The Conqueror's Quest, that as well as other changes also made the game's units move around the map in real-time which increased the difficulty.

The game is considered the precursor of the Heroes of Might and Magic series, also originally developed by New World Computing, and saw a number of reboots from publisher 1C Company.

Story

Playing as either a knight, paladin, barbarian, or sorceress the player must amass an army during the course of their adventures in order to free the lands from the evil Arech Dragonbreath. The player must recover the 25 pieces of a map locating the position of the Scepter of Order, the only known artifact capable of defeating Arech.

Gameplay

King's Bounty is a turn based strategy game much in the same vein as Heroes of Might and Magic. The player must explore the game in order to find non-playable characters (NPCs) that they can recruit and then prepare these NPCs for battle. Also when the player is in combat they have to deal with a game clock which decreases on varying rates depending on the character's level. There are several ways the player can meet Arech Dragonbreath, some of which don't require finding map pieces.

Remake

A remake with updated graphics was released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2, redubbed "Heroes of Might and Magic: Quest for the Dragonbone Staff"

The game remained basically intact, with only a couple of the units replaced. The map designs remained the same.