Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

This game is freakin' awesome and I still remember playing this hours apon hours back in the day! This is one of those games where hard difficulty is acctually hard! Love it! Nostalgia trip. Highly reccomended!

I love Might & Magic and Heroes of Might & Magic franchise. I grew up with these, so there's definite nostalgia there.. but they are just plain great games too, no matter what perspective you look them at. Heroes 2 is just up to par there with Heroes 3 as the best game of the franchise in my opinion. What's different about them? Well HOMM 3 has more different alignments with more units, more bonuses, generally more everything -- and it's at least as well balanced as HOMM 2. Both have good music, but HOMM 2 takes the win in my opinion slightly. Music in the series is just plain great, as is in Might & Magic VI - VIII. Steve Baca, Rob King and Paul Romero (correct?) were heck of a composer team for the music, that really cranks up the atmosphere. On the other hand, HOMM 3 graphics fail slightly. Themes are good as in part two, but they look bit too bland and oiled up (sprites, menus). While in HOMM 2 lower detail graphics look more colorful and alive. There's some cool little things in HOMM 2 balance that I do prefer over the third. For example, in HOMM 2 you cannot swap artifacts between heroes thus preventing you to create overly powered superheroes (which will be born anyway in XL maps, just not in so great extent on HOMM2). You also cannot drop artifacts, which makes you think more wisely, which artifacts to pick up so you're not loading crappy ones to the max and then not be able to pick up the best ones later in the game. There's also some negative artifacts giving downsides, and if you pick one up you cannot drop it off. It's sort of a cool feature, though adds some random element to the balance, but also makes you memorize which artifacts did what (when you see them laying on the world map). On the other hand, HOMM 2 expansion's Ghosts boiled the game balance a bit being overly powered. I give both HOMM 2 and 3 thumbs up through the roof and call it even! Feel free to visit my blog at www.thegamersdungeon.com

If you look for the best HOMM-game: that is HOMM 3. This is a bit simpler - but still very much fun. The GOG-version works like a charm :-) And the game has a MUCH better soundtrack than HOMM3 ... these opera-style music in some castles is really a highlight - and makes you feal heroic... enjoy!

Try the fheroes2 open source version for smoother gameplay and QoL features akin to the Heroes 3 HD mod.

I love the cartoonish style in this one and together with the orchestra score, gives it a certain charm. It's probably the hardest game in the series but a little simpler. Not as good as homm3 but not far off either.