Heroes of Might and Magic® 4: Complete

This game is broken, plain and simple. Sure this title has a few more additions like giving certain monsters the ability to cast specific spells from an actual list. And the graphics are nicer. And there are a few issues that I could overlook like having no more creature upgrades and, in general, having less individual army units then Heroes 2. But there are two problems that take out any resemblance of strategy or tactics out of this game. The first one being that heroes are now playable units during the fights. This may seem awesome, but this means that whoever goes first and whoever has the most archers can and will kill the other player's hero in the first or second turn (even the computer does it). And when your hero dies you can no longer cast magic as well as give your units those awesome stat bonuses. There is no realistic way to protect yourself from it and in all likelihood your hero will die in any serious fight. Try strategizing around that! The second game breaking mechanic is that neutral enemy units now have an ability to move around on the map after the player's turn. This is easily countered by making sure to stop your army just outside of their range. But what that also means is that you can now use small armies made up of literally 1 soldier to lure out a horde of dragons guarding a gold mine or an artifact and capture the mine/collect resources/pick up the artifacts without ever having to fight an enemy. This completely throws the game's resource management out of whack.

This was the very first computer game that I returned for a full refund. I can not say sufficient negative things about it. HOMM3 remains the reference and due to IV I abandoned HOMM until many years later, attempting to delve back in with HOMMV, VI, etc. All ended in disappointment. Incredible that even with the stunning template that is 3, not only was it never equalled, but all joy was crushed out of it. Who knows, though. Maybe I'll give it another try some day. Regardless: New World Computing is missed. Sure wish I could find a copy of King's Bounty (the DOS original) to round out my nostalgia machine...

The most amazing part about the AI, is that there is none. Rather than having any intelligence they just used bigger and bigger groups of mobs as roadblocks. This was so acutely obvious right out of the gate, I threw the lot of it, box, disc and all into the rubbish and moved along straight away..I have never been so sorely disappointed by a game than I was by this one.....

Extremely lagging like several fps. Sadly iImpossible to play.

Bad art direction. Ugly and bland to look at when compared to its predecessors (HoMM2, HoMM3), its contemporaries (Age of Wonders, Disciples), and definitely its successors (King's Bounty). I didn't try HoMM4 for very long, but it struck me as profoundly unsatisifying. The reviews were universally negative when it came out, and I can understand why.