Hero of the Kingdom III Reviews

[b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b] is the biggest and most ambitious entry in this casual adventure series. It introduces a lot of new features that make the game feel more like a full-fledged RPG than the earlier titles. This time, the story casts you as a young hunter raised by your uncle, and an ancient evil has awoken to threaten the kingdom. You must journey through four vast valleys to save the land from darkness. The scale of the adventure is noticeably larger, instead of one region or a few islands, you’re traveling across multiple distinct areas in the kingdom. Along the way, the game focuses on new gameplay mechanics like cooking, crafting, skill progression, and even monster respawning. I really enjoyed these additions. For example, you can set up a camp anywhere in the world to cook food, brew potions, or smith weapons and armor as you learn recipes. This made me feel more involved in the world, gathering ingredients and improving my gear, which is a nice RPG-like touch. Combat is also a bigger element now, there are lots of monsters "roaming" around (giant spiders, ogres, undead, etc.), and defeating them is often tied to your skills. The more you fight or perform an activity, the more your character’s skill in that area increases over time. There’s no traditional XP bar, but skills level up in the background as you use them, which was a bit confusing at first, yet it was satisfying to see new abilities unlock after I did enough of an activity. With monster respawning in areas you’ve cleared, you can also grind or farm resources if you need to, which is a big change from the previous games’ one-and-done encounters. Overall, [b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b] made a great first impression on me by expanding the gameplay and making the world feel more alive. It felt like the series evolved from a tiny casual game into a light RPG – something many fans, including myself, appreciated. That being said, the experience in [b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b] wasn’t perfect. The story took a more mystical, high-fantasy turn, and at times I found it a bit strange or disjointed compared to the straightforward plots of the first two games. Your hero starts having prophetic visions of a princess and magical stones guiding him, which is a new narrative element that some players found intriguing but I personally found a little confusing. The main quest of stopping an “ancient evil” is pretty generic fantasy, but the way it’s presented with these dream-like slideshows was different from before. I did stay curious about how it would all wrap up, even if the storytelling felt a bit all over the place. In terms of gameplay flow, the beginning of [b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b] is slower and more challenging than the earlier games. Early on, I often felt money was very scarce and I had to work hard to afford supplies. Tasks like buying enough food, tools, or potions to survive felt grindy at first, because you’re not yet strong enough to craft everything yourself. You have to be thrifty and do a lot of side jobs (like selling fish or trading wheat for profit) just to progress in the early stages. Fortunately, as you advance, you unlock the ability to craft your own items and the economy opens up. By the mid-game, I had set up my camp and could cook meals, brew healing potions, and forge weapons, which made my life much easier. Also, because monsters and resources respawn, I could farm gold and materials by revisiting areas, so eventually I went from feeling poor to having more money and items than I needed. This balance, tough at first, plentiful later, seems to be by design, to encourage you to explore all the new features and not rush ahead. It’s a more complex game than its predecessors, which is both a strength and a potential turn-off if you preferred the ultra-simple nature of [b]Hero of the Kingdom I and II[/b]. My biggest gripe with [b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b] is the amount of grinding required, especially if you’re aiming for full completion. This third installment has 57 achievements to earn (the most in the series so far), and many of them are tied to performing large quantities of actions. For example, there are achievements for cooking dozens of meals, slaying lots of each monster type, maxing out all your skills, and so on. I consider myself a patient player, but going for 100% pushed that patience to the limit. The game’s casual pacing, which is usually relaxing, became frustrating when I had to repeat certain tasks over and over. Every action, like crafting a potion or catching a fish, triggers a slow progress bar or animation of about 5–10 seconds. When you need to do it ten or twenty times, that’s fine, but when you need to do it 100+ times, it really drags. Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut or batch crafting feature to speed this up. The game doesn’t let you “make 20 of these” automatically, so grinding everything manually becomes very grindy and time-consuming. I distinctly remember spending what felt like ages just clicking the same spot to brew potions one by one for tough fights, wishing I could queue them up. By the end of the journey, after defeating the final boss, I still had to roam the map hunting down extra monsters and crafting more items to clean up the last achievements, which got tedious. In hindsight, this game is probably best enjoyed casually, in smaller sessions, if you take your time over days and don’t focus on the grind, it might not bother you as much. The underlying gameplay is still addictive and satisfying in that familiar Hero of the Kingdom way, so I don’t want to sound too negative. In fact, I did enjoy the majority of the adventure and I recognize that the developers gave us a lot more content here. It took me significantly longer to finish [b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b] than the first two games combined, so you’re definitely getting a meatier experience for your money. The trade-off is that the game costs a bit more (its base price is higher than the earlier titles), but I’d say the extra content justifies it. Still, if you’re on a budget or unsure, I’d recommend picking it up during a sale. Overall, Hero of the Kingdom III is a rich and engaging casual RPG if you’re willing to embrace a bit of grind. It wraps up the trilogy by expanding the formula to its fullest, with a larger world, more skills, and more to do, even if it loses a bit of the simplicity and breezy pace that made the original so charming. Despite some frustrating grind in the late game, I really enjoyed my time with [b]Hero of the Kingdom III[/b]. It’s a satisfying conclusion to the series and shows how far the concept has come. Just remember to bring your patience (and maybe a cup of tea) for those long crafting sessions, and you’ll find a lot to love in this final chapter of the Hero of the Kingdom saga. 8/10