"King's Bounty" is more strategy than RPG, more a game about tactics, money management, and combat maneuvering than epic role-playing and exploration. In theory, "King's Bounty 2" seeks to change that. It wants to create a story where the protagonist's choices affect the world, and "King's Bounty 2" does just that, but sucks the fun right out of it. While there is occasional fun in the hex-based tactical combat, too much time is wasted just wandering around an unappealing world filled with boring people.

In "King's Bounty 2," you choose one of three characters to follow in the main storyline. Released from prison, your character takes a job for the king, the king forgives you for some reason, and you wander around trying to prevent a fantasy magical apocalypse because a wizard told you you were his chosen savior. It's an utterly banal, never-before-seen story.

You then wander the world, doing lots of side quests and fighting battles. You don't fight battles, but rather you stand on the sidelines like a commander/cheerleader/magical artilleryman and give orders to your troops. Those troops fight in tactical battles where five units dance around a narrow hex-based arena.

While usable as combat, the UI is nothing to write home about, and the system is predictable in its details: skeletons take less damage from arrows, fire attacks burn enemies over time, and spirit creatures are resistant to non-magical attacks. Interesting mechanics required in modern tactics games, such as forced movement and battlefield manipulation, are largely absent.

So, while there are systems that can be played in the game, there are none that are very fun. This is because for every five minutes of excellent tactics, there are ten minutes of wandering through a humble RPG world.

Commanders gain experience over time, gaining stats that strengthen their troops and magical powers to blast away enemies. The troops themselves also gain experience and choose from a customizable roster divided into four factions: Order, Anarchy, Power, and Finesse. These are also the four tenets that characters follow in the game, which divide power and serve as the branching points for quests. These are the King's Bounty alignments, the equivalent of Mass Effect's Paragon and Renegade, and coincide with possible story endings. It's nice, but may be chilling for those who want to be, say, a polite, non-anarchic chaos necromancer.

Role-playing is not the main feature, and the dialogue does not branch, but the choice is made by choosing one of two options during the quest. In fact, the dialogue is fixed, so the character may say something you don't really like. This would be fine if the characters were more interesting: for example, the mage Catherine is a jerk, the paladin Eris is irritatingly naive, and the warrior Ivar has no personality at all.

Not to mention the terrible writing and even worse voice acting. I switched the game to Russian after 10 hours. I don't speak Russian, but I'm glad I was able to stop the flood of hammy acting.

In fact, the game as a whole doesn't have much personality. That is a major drawback. The realistic art style is detailed, but it looks like top-end graphics from 2012. The game has fun and a bit of humor, but like Tactical Battle, the tedium outweighs it.

The world itself is lovingly designed, though, and is one of the real strengths of the game as a whole. Small details such as benches, gardens, and crumbling statues are scattered about, with people wandering back and forth and engaging in small conversations. There is also a naturalistic atmosphere, with workshops and markets. Have you ever wondered where golems are made or where the assassins' guild hangs out in between jobs? While the day/night cycle and NPC dynamic may not be as flashy as in other RPGs, there is a real sense of life in the larger environment.

The static world is there for a reason: encounters are fixed. As you approach an enemy, a golden ring appears, and that tactical combat foe spills out of the bushes and such and swings his sword menacingly at you. This is hilarious and charming and fits the game mechanics very well. When a battle is initiated, the camera zooms out and the space around you becomes a battlefield.

However, the great environmental design is wasted too much on walking around, talking to people, and collecting trash to sell at the vendor. Characters move at a half-hearted jog, too slow and awkward to cover ground or overcome obstacles. On the other hand, he can jump on a horse. Horses are much faster, but in tight spaces they treat you like a stick of butter. They are slow and boring to go on. Environments appear larger simply because of their size. As with the overall aesthetic of the game, I'm not sure why it looks the way it does.