Heroes of Might and Magic®

I expected this to be clunky or crash a bunch. DosBox does its job, the port is wonderful and I think it looks great.

It's alright; there are better games in the series. (But hey; they HAD to start somewhere!)

This heroes game is the one that actually taught me how the game works. I've played homm3, kings bounty and the demo for the new old age coming and I just didn't get how the combat was supposed to be interesting. Because this one is so much simpler, and not as expansive with all the units and the board with the spells artifacts heroes and stats it boils it down so I can tell how the positioning matters, why I should prioritize different spells, the benefits of trading through the fact this game doesn't allow you to sell resources. 80 stone later with anywhere of 1-5 of everything else and 200 gold really makes you wish it was there. All that beng said, now that I did the first campaign mission and a skirmish, I think I'm good to move on after this next mission. I've got homm2-5 sitting in my library and after starting up 2 it's literally everything I wanted to have added upon this title. Because while this is somewhat charming although stylistically not for me compared to 2 and 3 (its spritework leaves a fair bit more to be desired). It is definitely lacking. There's the already missing trade system, but then there's also a rather wonky ui that can be a little awkward to utilize, the lack of a grid visual for unit movement, the numbers of units being covered up if units are too close together, not nearly enough clarity on what stats specifically do although that might be in the manual, unclear turn order which forces you to keep in mind what the speed value of each unit is to allow you to prepare better for upcoming units turns or whether they're able to counterattack sometimes twice and you'll be unaware of that fact, certain buildings might require previous ones that are unstated, and its not really clear what status effects such as morale and battle luck are active on heroes. In fact you're unable to gauge that factor in any specific unit. As it is though? Great game, just lacking in qol and things like a proper interesting narrative.

Its nice, but will feel seriously outdated, if you have played Heroes 5 and onwards.

na