King’s Bounty: Crossworlds Impressions

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has posted a brief impressions piece for King’s Bounty: Crossworlds, and despite a few reservations, they recommend it as the go-to entry for anyone new to Katauri’s excellent strategy/RPG series.

I wish Crossworlds did more, especially given the melodramatic title. It’s showing us the same core stuff, the same core places and the same core fights, and I really need it to move on after three years. But this is as far as it could sensibly push what it is capable of, and it goes much further than Armoured Princess, the staid and unambitious middle-child of this vital series, ever did.

As such, it’s the title I’m going to nod to whenever anyone asks me which KB game to pick up. It mightn’t have the anecdotal power of the first, but that surprise delight was also hamstrung by a dreary, grindy second half. Crossworlds is a game you can tackle in peppy chunks, enjoying a series of fresh experiences rather than one over-long one. This is the status quo-perverting wonder that made King’s Bounty sing, now extended to its strategy rather than just its setting. It might cling to safety in the broadest sense, but it’s impossibly clever and cartoonish where it matters.