King’s Bounty: The Conqueror’s Quest
System: Genesis
Release Date: July 1991
Developer: New World Computing
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Strategy
Save the kingdom from evil domination by setting off on the King’s Bounty: The Conqueror’s Quest! King Maximus ruled the four continents and kept his citizens safe from evil with his Scepter of Order. But Arech Dragonbreath wanted things to be his, especially the riches of the land. Together with other vagabonds, they hatched a plan to defeat the king and steal the Scepter. Expecting retribution, Dragonbreath and his crew prepared their armies, but the King never came. In fact, his health and the country he ruled began to deteriorate without the Scepter. The last chance at saving the kingdom comes down to you, but seeing your imminent arrival, Dragonbreath buried the Scepter, drew a map of its location, and handed 16 pieces to his generals, eight with powerful artifacts, and kept the center piece for himself. It is up to you to find the Scepter and do it quickly, else the world will come to an end.
You begin by choosing your main character from Sir Crimsaun the Knight, Lord Palmer the Paladin, the Sorceress Tynnestra, and Mad Moham the Barbarian. These characters all vary in their leadership skill, initial spell capacity, spell power, and initial weekly commission. Your Leadership ability dictates how many troops you can take into battle. Each unit can not have more hit points than you have leadership points. Spells aren’t something most characters can cast right away, but are split into field spells and battle spells. Unless you’re the sorceress, you need to buy spell access. I didn’t find a lot of use for spells in my play time, but I can see how using some of them may help keep the amount of time spent down. Before starting, you set the time limit before the game is over. The less time, the more bonus multiplier you receive to your points.
When making it onto the map, you are directly by the castle where you can buy some soldiers with your money. You start with access to militia, archers, and pikemen. I fill my ranks before setting off. There are towns dotted across the landscape where you can get a contract on the evil generals, get information on a nearby castle where a general may be hiding, or buy a spell. If you take a castle while holding a contract for the general, you gain a piece of the map and a big gold reward. Once you’re done in town, you can walk around the countryside and find treasure chests. These are filled with gold that you can keep or distribute to increase your leadership, things that increase your maximum spells, or spell power, and minerals that increase your weekly wage. There are also maps of the continent you’re on and artifacts that bestow upon you some extra powers.
Most movement around the world is done on a boat that costs you 500 gold a week. Every five days the week ends and you have to pay your bills. The king pays you based on your commission and the minerals you’ve collected. Then you have to pay your army and your boat fee. You’ll either add to your cashflow or subtract from it. The seas are safe, but there are enemies walking around that will thrust you into battle. Sometimes they’ll run away from you or even offer to join. If you let roaming creatures join your army, you may accidentally go over your leadership threshold, causing them to rage and attack anyone near them on the battlefield.
Up to five troops can be in your army or the attacking army at any time. Turn order defaults with your top troop and moves down the line. You can move, attack, and/or wait when it’s your turn. Archer units and magic units can shoot a limited number of times across the 6 by 5 battlefield. Though they can’t shoot when an enemy unit is next to them. Some units can fly across the battlefield, useful for jamming up archers, but the faeries that you first face die pretty quickly when trying this tactic. Other units can move a certain number of squares and can attack if they still have moves left. When engaging with an enemy, if no one else has attacked them, they get a free counter attack, but every other attack that turn is free against them. This is where you may try to attack first with your high defense units and then try to clean up with your squishier high attack troops. These fights can turn into a real slugfest when the number of troops in a unit gets low, with neither side being able to take the other out. Once I got the hang of the battles, my enjoyment skyrocketed. Winning any battle rewards you with the spoils of war, which is gold. Useful for replenishing your troops.
Outside of the opening castle which also grants access to cavalry and knights as you kill enemy generals, there are places across the map where you can find other units to recruit. There are wagons, hills, tombs, and trees that house all sorts of unit types. The strength of available units increases as you move through the four continents. While you may be able to get peasants and wolves on the first continent, you can get dragons, and archmages, and vampires on the last one. You want to keep the strongest troops you can afford to lay siege to castles, which put you into battle on a four by four grid with a couple extra squares at the bottom. You can check the map pieces you have and try to find the scepter at any time, which is the goal of this journey. As I collected more pieces, I realized that the spot on the map had to be on the first continent. I rowed around looking for the geography that was revealed and found the scepter without killing all of the evil generals. The faster you do it, the more points you earn, so go for it if you think you’ve found it.
Graphics: 3.0
I think the graphics are charming, even if they aren’t state of the art.
Sound: 2.5
The overworld and battle themes loop over and over again, but at least they aren’t bad.
Gameplay: 3.5
There’s a lot of strategy that you can use to succeed in battle and uncover the scepter.
Difficulty: 3.0
You can get some bad breaks early on that can mess up a playthrough, but learning the rules gives you a big advantage.
Fun Factor: 4.0
I had a blast playing this. I wish I would have done so when I was younger.
Overall Rating: 3.2
King’s Bounty: The Conqueror’s Quest earns a B+. I really like this game and totally recommend it to anyone who likes strategy/RPG hybrids that aren’t too dense.