Dated combination of RPG with strategy elements, HoMM style
King's Bounty was the first to bring together the kind of gameplay that Heroes of Might and magic will later on take and create a staple genre with. However, even from this incipit state, King's Bounty shows the signs of promise. It offers you a real time strategic map, onto which you move freely. You can build, you can ransack, you can order around, when a castle belongs to you, you have a lot of options you can play around with. However, when you encounter an enemy unit, the game changes into a turn based tactical fighter. There you pit yourself, and your followers (not shown on the real time map) in a tactical turn based match. You have to choose which of your units to use first, you have to make sure you don't get hit, and you can win or lose depending on your options in the fight or depending on the overall strength of your units vs. the enemy. Then you get back o the real time map and you keep the fight going. Graphically, the game shows its age but it does not pose any playability issues. So, if you want to see this style of gameplay in action, in its prototypical form, King's Bounty will pay the bill well enough.
