Heroes of Might and Magic® 4: Complete

Most people dislike 4 because your Heroes can die in battle...which is the stupidest reason ever. This was the best HOMM hands down. It was very innovative while keeping true to the franchise. The art style, combat, soundtrack were all excellent.

I remember when I first played HOMM3, yes it was an awesome game and I really enjoyed it. When I started hearing about IV, I heard all the complaints about the RPG elements being added. Being an RPG fan, that intrigued me a bit. When I played the first campaign(I happened to pick the hardest one Chaos), I was very impressed, even though I had to restart the campaign a couple times. Nice graphics and the music is very good. Good music really ups the experience for me. I liked it that the heroes got involved in the fighting, made more sense and it was more fun. You felt like you had more skin in the game. Oh and since this is the complete, with the expansions included, forget about the price and just buy it. There are countless hours of gameplay here. It felt like such a long, long time before it was all finally over. Excellent value for money. Enjoy!

Interesting and sometimes very challenging campaigns , very long game play, excellent soundtrack (probably the best in the series), strong RPG elements and, for me, beautiful graphics are the pros of the game. The cons would be sometimes very unfair difficulty and lack of some mechanics introduced in Heroes 3 (eg unit upgrades). For a HoM&M veteran this game is solid 3/5, just a good TBS. To me though the game's soundtrack and grpahics create an amazing atmosphere and bring the good old "one more turn and I'm going to sleep" experience. This and the nostalgic value this game has for me makes me add an extra star to the rating. Still, I think that unless you are a true die-hard fan you can skip this instalment of the series.

If you have ever played the epochal Master of Magic, I bet you thought of something like "Ahh, the NWC guys are sooo good, I wish they took Master of Magic and brought it to life". Well, here you go! :) This is as close to MoM as you can get in HoMM: global spells actually can do something useful, heroes fight, the combat map view is essentially the same (albeit, turned right instead of left), wandering monsters! Unfortunately, by the time HoMM 4 was released most of it's core audience were HoMM3 adepts, so they just did not understand the spirit of those changes. Hence the image of "Heroes 3 with a twist". Plus the game was quite raw (use Equilibrium mod, use it!) and the graphics (after shiny and polished Heroes 3) were plain ugly (I especially love the bridge models). Still, to me HoMM IV was the pinnacle of the series, while HoMM 5 is kind of "Heroes 3 3D More of the Same for the masses". So if you want to play something that is like both Heroes and MoM combined - this is your best choice. The other would be Elemental (after it gets more patches).

This is the first HoMM game I played and which defined my look on the franchise. I am saying this with huge respect to all other reviews glorifying the HoMM 3 as the best version, but to me this one simply rocks. As most of 3 and 4-star reviews come from players which started with previous versions, the same applies to me: I tried HoMM 3 and 5 after it, but nothing could occupy me that much. As stated on HoMM website "intenion was to make unique game, not bigger or better than HoMM 3". + Overall graphics were great (although widescreen fix was never issued) they were jump ahead due decentl 3D view. +Fact that hero is actively engaged in all the combats (esp when leveled up in Scenarios and can defeat whole armies by him/herself). +Soundtrack - Orders are simply strongest class here due to: Mage Orders most diverse magic skills. (Forgetfullness, Teleport, Hypnotize). If he/she is accompanied with Genies (split in several units in hero's army, lets say 20+1+1+1+1) nothing can beat them. Lord Orders with their Advanced Nobility already speed up creatures growth significantly, and essentially you dont need to leave the town and fight but just end turns, await money and buy more Genies until you have enough to fight anyone. Cheers