Interesting timing that while I'm approaching the end of King's Bounty The Legend, Warriors of the North comes out.

I'm not really interested in picking up any of the sequels, as I got bored halfway through The Legend and am now just chugging along just to finish it. It was fun at first, but I feel like it's padded so much that it's overstayed its welcome.

Nevertheless, I am interested in gaming in general, so I'm interested to hear how the developers evolved the game in subsequent entries.

What things did:

* Armored Princess
* Warriors of the North
* Darkside

add? Were there new systems that changed things up? Or did they play it safe and just "remix" the original with slightly different scenarios?

I watched the GOG trailer for Warriors of the North, and... well... it looks exactly the same as The Legend. Sure it's got a couple of new/different spells here and there, but it didn't even look like there were different units.

I've only just started on WotN, but from what little I've seen of it so far, and from Armored Princess/Orcs on the March...


The systems are refined in each new version, which helps to deal with some of the rough edges of the first one. For the most part this is mechanical tweaks across the board, although you also deal with thematic changes that can improve the utility of a feature - as one example, Bill Guilbert is the only with with a Box o' Rage, but the protagonists of the other games also access Rage-fuelled powers by various means, and both the utility and ease of use were improved into the bargain.

Creatures have been given a greater number of traits and abilities that make the different unit types more distinct and creates synergies that you wouldn't find in The Legend, so the old units don't play the same way in Armored Princess and beyond, and there are new units in each new game as well.

I also found that The Legend had a bit of a grindy feel as time went on (to the point that I gave up on it somewhere in the elf lands); Armored Princess improved the flow of gameplay (so I did complete it without creeping tedium), and so far WotN seems to be better still.

While the overall style and approach to gameplay remains similar, there are new mechanics added each time; even if they aren't huge things on their own, they have to be taken in combination with the other changes; I've found the second and third installments to be a huge improvement over the first.

They all are pretty much alike. With different rage abilities, new magic for Warriors of the North and lots and lots of bugs in a "dark" story with the "evil" heroes for Darkside.

Ah, that's interesting to hear. I'll take a look at some some Armored Princess FAQs and do some comparisons.

That's just the kind of info that I find intriguing.

Each game after "The Legend" introduces new characters, new enemies, new spells and items, and obviously, a new story. The problem is, all the games also reuse assets like crazy (graphics, music, etc.), so it feels less like a new game, and more like an expansion pack. Each game also increasingly introduces a plethora of bugs, some of which cause the game to crash (especially in "Warriors Of The North" and "Dark Side"), chug framerate-wise for no apparent reason, and be littered with typos. Granted, "Armored Princess" is probably the best of the sequels as it feel the best put together over all, but even it was a little step down from the original game in ways.

While it's true that the sequels each tweak the original game's formula, in the end, it really does come down to "more of the same." The battles, the scenery, the sounds, the magic... it puts on a different guise at times, but it still plays much the same from "The Legend," to "Dark Side." The games are enjoyable, don't get me wrong. But the franchise needs to be given a shot in the arm visually, aurally, technically (the engine is past its prime), and with quality control.