Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

I remember begging a classmate in junior high to borrow the PC Gamer demo disk that included a free map of HOMM II. While the third game in the series had drastically improved graphics and a host of new features, there's something timeless about this game. In some ways, I actually prefer it over the third.

fheroes2 is a recreation of the Heroes of Might and Magic II game engine. This open source multiplatform project, written from scratch, is designed to reproduce the original game with significant improvements in gameplay, graphics and logic (including support for high-resolution graphics, improved AI, numerous fixes and user interface improvements), breathing new life into one of the most addictive turn-based strategy games.

It was The mid 90s and I was in seventh grade. I was having some trouble adjusting to a new school and felt like I didn’t really have any friends. This game was my friend during that time and I have so many find memories. The crazy thing is that it is still fun to this day and I’ve been a gamer my whole life. I honestly can’t recommend the steam enough and it is by far, to me, the best one in the series. Would love to see a kick starter for a spiritual successor :-)

This is my favourite Heroes game ever released. Featuring a cohesive blend of the epic and the whimsical, these games not only allowed you to explore a vibrant fantasy landscape thick with ambient sounds but also to grow continent-spanning kingdoms in competition with ruthless enemies. The game's difficulty can be punishing, but you'll definitely want to play again!

While HOMM1 picked up and greatly evolved from King's Bounty, HOMM2 completely surpassed HOMM1 in every aspect, finally turning this series a standard for decades and other games to come. So King's Bounty started it all... well, Heroes 2 started it all again. You start out with one of half a dozen factions, each with their own set of units (you can have units of other factions by conquering their towns). For example, barbarian faction has goblinoid units, warlock is focused on aberrating monsters, wizard has magical creatures and so on. Each army is commanded by a "hero", a character that you hire and will level from that point on, learn spells an skills, equip magic weapons. The graphics are very colorful and vibrant, although the combat animations might feel simplistic nowadays. Combat and probably most of gameplay feels a lot like a board game. I know this might scare some players off, but I must say it just FEELS right. Those looking for realistic combat will want to look elsewhere, but somehow having to count hexagons to maximize your spell effects or better evading your enemies is still great fun in Heroes 2, so much that the all-3D Heroes 5 still uses its tested and true formula (Heroes 4 departed from this model and was a much less successful game). Although simple, the fun factor of this game is impressive. Both the single player campaign and single/multiplayer maps work marvelously well. It's smooth and polished, and highly replayable. I think it's worth to say that all sequels after HOMM2, although great games in their own right, didn't innovate much on top of this gem. They improved graphics, added new missions, but the system was still there, most spells and heroes were still the same, skills, monsters, the map layout, the combat grid. Finally, what else is there to say? This game is pure gaming greatness history for just ten bucks.