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The game was awarded in 1991 the 166th place in “The Role of Computers” column by Jager McConnell. The Maximum Spells attribute determines the maximum number of spells the hero may know at any time. The Spell Power is the number used to determine the quality of any spell cast. The second one is the amount of the income awarded to the character by the end of each week. The first one determines the maximum stack size of armies. The main attributes are Leadership, Commission, Spell Power and Maximum Spells. The player can choose from four hero classes: Barbarian, Knight, Paladin and Sorceress, with each of the classes having their own set of skills, strength and weaknesses. The artifacts provide a piece of the map themselves and allow the player to acquire all the 25 map pieces faster. Some of them can increase the player’s inherent abilities, such as magical strength or weekly income, while others may contain artifacts. There are several treasure chests all over the place. By defeating each one of them he will progress to another level and another piece of the map will be revealed. He had to track down 17 villains across the continents. The game begins with the King giving the hero a mission. Depending on the difficulty level, King Maximus can die faster or slower, but once he does, the game is lost if the player didn’t find the sceptre. His only goal is to spot the Sceptre of Order before King Maximus dies. There are a total of 25 map pieces in the game, but the player can win the game even if he doesn’t acquire all the pieces. The gameplay is very flexible thanks to the plot offering the player control over many actions and decision.
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The player controls a hero and his army across four continents. The game was also followed up by some versions developed by other companies, but the respective games were only launched in few countries. 18 years later, in 2009, a spiritual sequel called King’s Bounty: The Legend was released for the fans. The game was launched in 1990 for PC and was one year later ported for Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in the United States.
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King’s Bounty is a fantasy game for PC designed by Jon Van Caneghem of New World Computing.
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