Game Reviews

The King’s Bounty series has been around since before Sega made, and stopped making, consoles. In fact, the originals were playable on DOS. Since then, the series has undergone a variety of upgrades to make today’s demanding gaming audience happy. The latest installment in the series is King’s Bounty: Crossworlds, which isn’t so much a sequel as it is a large and comprehensive expansion. It features the original King’s Bounty: Armored Princess and then adds three additional “campaigns” on top, one of which is the original with some extra updates.

It is important to note that there are three versions of Crossworlds. The full version is a standalone game that contains the original Armored Princess plus all the new content. The second version contains just the new content but is still a standalone game. Finally, the third is more along the lines of a traditional expansion pack, therefore requiring you already have Armored Princess installed on your computer. Providing the varying options is great because for someone like me, a newcomer to the series, the full version feels right, whereas veterans who already own Armored Princess won’t be forced to purchase it all over again.

Crossworlds is a mix between RPG and turn-based strategy. In each campaign, you control a main character and guide him or her through a real-time world talking to NPCs, accepting quests, using gold to acquire troops to fight in your army, and upgrading your weapons, skills, and spells. But, once the battles begin, the RPG, point-and-click movement is replaced with a turn-based, hexagon-style strategy game.