Flash's Bounty

[Jubal]

FLASH'S BOUNTY

Game Type: Free Online Play
Genre: RPG/Strategy

Link: http://www.zyby.com/play/145/flashs-bounty

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Flash's Bounty is an extremely neat game, providing a great deal of depth and indeed strategy for its style. It's a tactical RPG that bears a lot of resemblance to things like Heroes of Might and Magic, but with real-time battles where it's only the initial positioning that you pick (though with the ability to use magical spells to influence things). Apparently it's most based on the 1990s King's Bounty games, hence the title, but I haven't played those for the comparison.

Anyway, to give a basic description - the game places you as Sir Bedivere, a fairly generic goodly best knight in the kingdom; you have to complete various quests. There's a main map and then zoomed in battle-maps, both of which function in real time. You can influence battles via casting spells and by the initial placement of your troops; there are specific maps for different castles etc, and maps in different areas both look different and can have varying terrain types. Many standard fantasy races are available for hire at points across the map, and different villages and castles will lead to various quests, magical artefacts, and so on. It's a neatly done system, with reasonably aesthetically pleasing 2d graphics and decent sound assets. There's some decision making involved as your character progresses, too. You have a range of stats and can work on being a great tactician or a great magician, or on giving bigger stat bonuses to your troops; there's also a balance to be had between distributing chests booty to your men and taking it for yourself (the former boosts your capacity to hire more people, the latter gives you income directly). The text is frequently in slightly misspelt or grammatically incorrect English, but is always understandable and something one gets used to easily.

I don't have much bad to say about Flash's Bounty. The main tragedy of the game really is that more wasn't done with it, especially in the "unlimited" mode available after you finish the campaign - unlimited would have been better without multiple regions, but with more depth in the towns, castles, etc available. Villages/towns in particular felt like they could have had far more depth in the game. Having more different heroes available could have given a fresher aspect to the game, too. There were a few specific places where things could have been improved as well. The mechanical/generic annoyances:

• The game needed more fun little locations that didn't link into the main plot in places. At times the world felt quite interesting around you, particularly in the first area, but at others it felt like the whole thing was set up on a plot railroad which was less effective for the game style.
• There are more centres where archmages and unicorns are produced in story mode than generic human soldiers. This does not make a great deal of sense.
• Don't play unlimited mode, it's really not worth it. The areas evolve very slowly, you evolve much faster, such that the challenge of it is minimal. Also it all feels bland; there are literally two quest types from towns, and castles just give you a generic leadership bonus, after which (in each case) you can't interact with them further. There are too few underground levels, as well, all of which are generally rather tiny.

And the plot issues (spoilers!):

Spoiler

• The King's instructions at the beginning are a little confusing, mostly because it's none too obvious that the underground sea is underground until someone tells you so.
• Why on earth is the alternate/backup place for getting soldiers after the royal castle gets destroyed a castle inhabited by elves? It would make far more sense (and would have been great) to have a sidequest to rebuild your original kingdom's training facilities.
• The Lich. This was the most annoying thing in the whole damn game for me, and I literally knocked a point off the immersion rating for it. Bedivere's only character trait is "the good knight who does what he's told and goes to save the princess and stuff". And then they ruin it by forcing you to murder a hundred peasants in cold blood to progress through the game. Really annoying plot point - I'd have been fine if it was that or face another large and powerful enemy army, but having that as the only option feels wrong.
• The Princess section at the end feels a bit weak. It doesn't do half badly compared to many games, managing to circumvent the damsel in distress trope surprisingly well as, having been rescued, the princess then needs to fight her way back out of the barbarian homeland as a general in her own right whilst Bedivere heads on to fight Radagaisus. The trouble is that the difficulty level drops hugely and the whole thing ends up feeling anticlimatic for the last sections of gameplay, which is a pity. The princess' attire choice is perhaps questionable for a fantasy setting as well in immersion terms.

All in all, though, I'd certainly recommend this game. The unit diversity works and is commendable; the plot is generally reasonably worked through, and the different areas work well in a fairly generic fantasy sort of way. The battles manage not to get too stale in story mode, where your enemies change and evolve at a fairly good pace. The main thing that makes the story mode work is the fairly light-hearted plot that keeps just enough interest to keep the game moving. There are plenty of minor quests, artefacts, etc that come up at just about the right frequency for this sort of game - you're never inundated with sidequests, and you're also rarely if ever just randomly wandering around wondering what you're meant to do. The many one-line bit characters actually do make the game a lot more interesting, whether they're complaining about pirates or telling you to go and find the entrance to their lost mine. My favourite was definitely the troll whose castle you besiege, who it turns out upon capturing it is actually very grateful - the defending troops had effectively come for a party and then refused to leave and occupied his home ever since. Little things like that about the game, the careful detail and good use of motivations/variety, make what could have been a rather dull game (as evidenced by the slow grind of the unlimited version) actually very charming indeed to play.