Hero of the Kingdom III

Review copy provided by developer via Curator Connect

I really don't understand how things like this happen. I don't understand how a series can establish itself, improve on its core elements, and then abandon them in such dramatic fashion. It's not something I see often, thankfully, and it's something I never expected to see in this series. But I've given Hero of the Kingdom III nearly four hours to rise out of the slog it's made of the classic trading and adventuring, and if anything it's gotten worse. I've gotten to the point where I'm not even sure I want to finish it, knowing how much hacking and slashing and potion-chugging is in my future, and if that sounds strange to you then you might be as clueless about this series as its developers.

You begin your tale as a simple youth, living in the simple woods with his simple uncle. You're hunters by necessity, and your first steps on the hero's path are errands to catch rabbits and perform odd jobs for the nearby (like five steps away) village. All that changes when a freak earthquake buries your home in unyielding stone, and the ground splits to unleash hell hounds and undead. Visions of a princess and a dark force beneath the earth fill your head and lead you out of your besieged valley, across the kingdom to uncover the truth behind the chaos.

Hero of the Kingdom III starts off with plenty of promise, introducing you to a slightly new twist on the classic "hero is born" story from the previous games. You'll also notice a few immediate mechanical differences right away, including skill levels and camping. Now when you perform common tasks like fighting or hunting, you have a skill level that can rise and is checked against more imposing tasks. Additionally, you no longer have to backtrack to camps to rest and regain strength for tasks, as you can camp anywhere and spend a generic food resource to get those precious heart points. You'll even learn crafting skills like cooking and potion-making that can be used at camp to supplement your resources.

Learning these new systems is pretty exciting, given how mechanically similar the first two HotK games were. And you'll put them to good use as you strike out from the village to battle back the beasts that threaten it. The paths forward, whether they be through pastoral fields or grim forests or dank caves, are lined with monsters to hack your way through. Just as you saw in HotK II these monsters require a combination of weapons, potions, and strength to overcome, but now they also call for specific combat skill levels to topple. The further into the game you get the more these beasts will become roadblocks, either because of the increasing potion quantities to tackle them or the sudden jumps in combat skill needed.

This wouldn't be a huge deal, except that for some reason Hero of the Kingdom III is almost entirely built around this combat. To get from one valley to the next is usually a journey of four or five screens, each with a handful of monsters to beat. Then in the new valley you'll need to clear the roads of monsters, clear the caves of monsters, save villagers from monsters, kill monsters for lost items, and so on. Shockingly few tasks require the trading or constructing that were such a staple of the first two games, leaving this one feeling like a pale attempt at a dungeon crawler. And churning your way through these hordes will require constant pauses to stock up on potions or replace broken equipment, since you're essentially doing the same thing dozens of times over. It's so bad that the map now has icons for the shops you've found, allowing you to buy and sell without having to leave the dungeon specifically because you need so many potions all the time.

I wasn't even halfway through the game when I got the achievement for killing 150 monsters, and that's 100% not what I signed up for here. The Hero of the Kingdom series is known for relaxing trading and adventuring, fixing bridges and baking bread to overcome the obstacles in your path. Hero of the Kingdom III swerves hard away from this in an effort to make you more of a conventional fantasy hero. But we don't need that, especially when the combat that fills that sort of game is just a matter of checking your numbers and clicking on things. It's not even well-designed progression, forcing you to always be scraping together more money for potions, scour maps you've already been over for respawning resources, and fight things you don't even need to fight in the hopes of getting the skill-up you need. I really hope the developers can find their way back to what made the first two games work, because Hero of the Kingdom III is an incredibly disappointing departure.



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The third game of the series and was my least favorite before I decided to finish it. The game is too grindy compared to the previous ones since some of the mechanics have changed and they also introduced the 'camp' section, you don't have to search for an inn to recharge your energy, simply you click on the camp symbol, located on the bottom right corner of the screen and you'll be in your tent, but before sleeping, you must have food to eat.. and cook.

The story about a young man who's parents passed away 10 years ago, his uncle, a very well known hunter took care of him from that day and taught him the art of hunting. One day while he was wandering, he found Orcs close to the village but before being able to report to the mayor, an earthquake started and the orcs were buried under the rocks, unfortunately not only that but your own home which you shared which your uncle was destroyed. You are now alone and homeless, but your new adventure as a hero has begun.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301077897

Recourses are very difficult to get, very grindy and the energy drops down fast, this is why this game was my least favorite of the whole series, there are many battles and the monsters respawn, the same going for the mushrooms and eggs, and all the other resources, they all respawn so getting the achievement of them is easy- sadly. Later in the game, you'll get used to all of this and start to enjoy it a little. In the camp, you can cook, mix potions, and also craft your own weapons. You have 9 skills to master!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301080674

The soundtracks are nice, doesn't feel repetitive and the map is pretty huge, there is fast traveling and you can even access all the shops without being there, just click on the icon that indicates the type of shop you want, and you can make all of your transactions from the map.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301078898

Pros:
+Good and different story.
+Good soundtracks.
+Mixture of Hidden objects, Point&Click, and management game.
+Huge map, you can access shops from it which means less backtracking.
+Quick access to the camp to recover energy.
+Steam achievements.

Cons:
-Energy drops down fast.
-Too grindy
-No hinting system.
-No journal to track the quests (If you stop playing the games for a couple of days you wouldn't know where you've left off and what to do next.)
-Pixel hunting (You can't zoom in and out)

I love the artwork of this game although it is simple but has nice details, I just wish they make it less grindy like the previous ones. I'm looking forward to the fifth one!

Other Reviews:
Hero of the Kingdom Review
Hero of the Kingdom II Review
Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 1 Review
Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 2 Review
Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 3 Review

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒

Hero of the Kingdom III

I disliked this third game when I demoed it, but it's turned out to be my favorite. What changed my mind? Read on to find out!

Options include Language, Profiles (off by default), Full-screen, and separate gauges for SFX, Music and Environment.

Story:

The overlying story is that a great danger is threatening the kingdom, and you're going to do anything you can to stop it. Pretty generic, but it ties all of the quests together. Honestly, the quests are why I play these games, so I don't pay too much attention to the story.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2101725252
Gameplay:

Basically, gameplay is a series of harvesting resources and making money so that you can complete quests.

This is where my bias for the first two games comes into play, and the reason why I initially didn't care for this third iteration of the series.

First off, the pixel-hunting. I actually loved the challenge of finding every last egg, crate, mushroom (etc.), and that's missing from this game. It's not that you don't hunt for these items -- they're still there -- but they will eventually re-appear, removing the excitement of finally finding that last missing object to get all of your achievements.

Then there are the battles. So. Many. Battles! I think this is what threw most players off and made them not want to play HotK III. Let me address this. There are a ton of enemies to defeat, and worse yet, they re-spawn. *faints* The thing is that once you've cleared a path, it will remain open to you even if there is an army of foes on the screen. This means that any monster that re-spawns is an optional fight.

There is one more negative, and that is items -- especially weapons -- breaking. It happens way too often, in my opinion, and is just frustrating due to how expensive some of these items are. Not much of an issue once you learn how to make your own weapons, but that doesn't happen 'til pretty late in the game.

Let's get to the things that made me really enjoy the game.

Camping: Every action will cost you some stamina, and you will need to camp to regain your energy. This is done differently than in the previous games, as you can do so anywhere, anytime, via the campfire icon in the bottom right corner. You have to eat to regain energy, and the camp doubles as your home base, where you cook, make potions and create armor and weapons (once you have the requisite skills, of course). You can camp over and over again, as long as you have the food to do so. I had over 1000 health at one point!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2101723323
The Skill Tree: There are so many skills to learn, from harvesting and fishing to mining and smithing, fighting and making potions, and every new thing you learn makes for something new to collect. Every time you complete an action, there's a chance that your skill level will increase. Eventually new things will show up for you to do, letting you know that you're getting close to learning how to collect something new in that skill tree. For example, at first you can only mine salt, but you'll learn how to mine metals, etc. as you progress.

The Re-appearing Special Items (eggs, mushrooms, etc.) that initially disappointed me came to be something I liked. Every time something would re-pop was a little thrill. "Ooo, another crate, NICE!" It also gave me another reason to really look at each location, as I never knew what might have appeared since I was last there.

The Map. Traveling via the map is handled differently than the other games. There are four areas of the map, and you can only insta-transport to an area, not to each location. Although this sounds like more work, in return, you can pull up any store anywhere on the map without going there. I REALLY liked this, as it was a real time-saver! I also didn't mind "hoofing it" when I needed to, since I always seemed to have something new to do, whether it be a new quest or something to collect.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2101642499
There is a great Quest Guide HERE that is immensely helpful if you need it!

Note to devs:

The grind is what made people shy away from this game, so I'd like to suggest:

• Lower chance of tools and weapons breaking
• Give us the option to make multiple meals/potions/weapons at once. In the most recent game, HotK: The Lost Tales 1, you gave us the ability to buy things in increments of 1x, 5x or 10x, and that would be perfect!
• Give us a way to track our quests, please!

Verdict:

HotK III was a departure from the format that the devs had set in the first two games, and sadly, those changes were not well-received by many fans of the series. If you want more of the same, skip this one and go straight to HotK: The Lost Tales 1. If you're feeling adventurous, give this one a chance... I really ended up loving this one, despite the grind needed to get all 57 achievements. 15+ hours of gameplay to get them all, and no regrets!