Because of its inferior technology (compared to the Super Nintendo), the Sega Genesis often gets overlooked. King's Bounty is such a game. Its technical aspect leaves to be desired, but it certainly deserves some attention

Graphics: 7/10

This game certainly suffers for Sega' color limitations and graphical inferiority. When exploring by boat, landing your ship will prove to be difficult and will require some mastery. Indeed, streches of land that look suitable aren't, and you sometimes land where you don't want (yet), putting you in harm's way of monster armies. The rest of the world map is simplistic and doesn't offer much appeal, although walking in sand is realistically slower.

Inside battles, magic merely consists of flashes, just like attacks. Variety comes from time to time with random obstacles blocking your progression toward the enemy. It makes strategizing all the more important since not all characters can move easily, especially when trying to capture castles, where you are MUCH closer to the enemy.

Speaking of which, their constant move got annoying in the end. However, the sheer variety of them is one of the game's strongest suits. From cavaliers to knights, from faeries to dragons, you will need to find a balance between strength and budgeting - if you can't pay your soldiers, they will desert you.

Finally, while distracting too, the animation for the villains was interesting.

Music: 5/10

One does not play this game for its memorable soundtrack. There are only five tracks in the entire game: overworld, battle, intro/victory, defeat and village. The overworld theme can be interesting, although each "world" should have had its own track, and some of the characters seem to be synched to the music. But it gets annoying pretty quickly, especially the heavily synthesized village music

Sound effects are about as primitive. Magic and physical attacks are indistinguishable, and the only other effect that you can notice is when you find a treasure chest or an element of the mystery puzzle

Addictiveness: 8/10

This game can be addictive because it distinguishes itself from other games - in that it's not save-the-world-from-impeding-doom as usual. Like Diablo, the scepter is never hidden twice at the same place, nor are the villains occupying the same castles (except maybe in Saharia) or the chests and bonus objects located at the same place.

Also, with four distinct characters and difficulty levels, you have 16 possibilities to finish the game. I can't think of any other RPG (up to the 16 bits era) that offered such a vast array of possibilities for gaming.

Story: 6/10

A game that offers so much could have had so much more storyline to offer...

Playing as either a barbarian, a paladin, a knight of a sorceress, your goal is to find the scepter of power stolen by Arech Dragonbreath and his army of minions.

Sadly, the story is just that. No plot twists, no sidequest (unless you include looking for the bonus objects).

Depth: 4/10

In other words, you can easily complete the game withing an hour, especially if you use savestates - it shouldn't take more than hours if you play "honestly". The only thing keeping depth from getting a one is the randomness of the world map and the puzzle. I played all 16 levels, and never found the scepter at the exact same spot.

Difficulty: 5/10

The game can be fairly easy if you use the boat and have good reflexes (or abuse savestates). Indeed, you can easily reach Saharia and therefore have access to the strongest soldiers like Vampires and Dragons - providing that you gained enough honor to host them and that you have enough money to pay them. Of course, you will need to navigate tightly around strong enemies and pray that the chests you get will contain the right items and salary increases...

In other words, you could easily capture the first castle and already have dragons which no ordinary enemy can defeat.

But whether you play "honestly" or quickly, strategy is vital in the higher difficulty levels. On the expert mode, you only have 200 days to complete your mission. The sorceress definitely has an edge since she can use spells from the get go, and therefore cast time stop to freeze the day counter. She can also carry more spells at a time, so despite having a terrible army at first, her magic can save the day.

Also, finding the scepter can be frustrating at times since some areas are very similar. However, the scepter map is shown in real time; this means that it can at times have a treasure chest on it! Also, if you use a world map on the side, you can try to guess the area based on the elements you see - sandy areas are usually easy to distinguish. Besides, before making your search (which uses 10 days; beware), you can always "save" (get a password) or use savestates if your search fails.

Finally, as I said above, determining who is in your army is very important. You don't want to overspend and have them desert you, or have them so weak they easily get defeated. Who is your main character makes all the difference in how your army grows. The knight may start with the best soldiers, but his level increase (and therefore his honor, which attracts soldiers) is the slowest.


In short, King's Bounty is a game that, despite its originality, could have done so much more. A later development could have significantly improved the graphics, put some plot twists and maybe even improve the music. Nevertheless, it us worth trying the 16 different gameplays the game has to offer to see if you can make it on the expert level.