Heroes of Might and Magic® 3: Complete

I have a Dell Windows 7 64 bit, 6 G RAM bought Nov. 2010. I downloaded GOG's Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete today and installed it as instructed. It plays great. No glitches, clean install, game graphics look great, great sound, the game runs smoothly -- and no CD disk or copy protection needed to run. Thanks.

A must have! That's all! I already have it in 3 or 4 CD/DVD copies including the "Might & Magic Heroes collection" but I'll buy it nonetheless. It's very long and has high replay value. When it was released I had no idea of what turned based strategy was. I bought the 2000 edition, I think, with its first extension "Shadow of Death" included and loved it from the start. I already was familiar with the M&M universe having played Might & Magic 6-8 at the time and I liked the idea of prolonging the experience with a strategy game that would add content to the whole story and give me the opportunity to linger a little longer in Enroth. The graphics are nice, the story is good and Paul Anthony Romero's enchanting music only adds the final touch to this truly beautifully crafted game. Regarding the story, one has to know that from Might&Magic 6 on, the original M&M RPG series derives from the Heroes universe, which marks a real turn from previous releases. After this game, I wanted more and played Heroes 4, 5. I also tried the previous ones but this opus is clearly my favourite. In fact, turned based is, I think, the best way of playing strategy since it fully gives the opportunity of building, well...a strategy both in and out of combat. You can think and carefully plan every move. It can really be challenging at times. This game shaped my conception of turned based strategy in the same way as Might & Magic 6 shaped my conception of RPG. Which means I always compare any new tbs game with this one. I can forget it for long periods of time but I always go back to it even today.

I'm terrible at this game, could lose a match to normal level AI, yet I still love playing it ever since I first played it at my friend's house when I was 12. It's complex, there's a lot of broken strategies and the game wants you to use them, that's why its fun! Unlike the remaster, this has all the expansions and if you take the few extra steps to mod the game, it's basically a better remaster than the actual remaster. It has a charming aesthetic that still looks good today! Download the HD and HoTA mods here and you're good to go: https://www.gog.com/forum/heroes_of_might_and_magic_series/heroes_iii_multiplayer_online The HoTA mod is like an unofficial expansion pack and makes minor balancing changes, but don't worry all the broken stuff that makes the game fun is still in the game. Alternatively you can use Tunngle or something and play using local multiplayer, but 2000+ people still play it online using the HoTA mod, despite being a 20+ year old game. Latency is not an issue, it's turn-based anyways. Plus, you can create save files for multiplayer games too! I never played online multiplayer back in the day because I'm bad, I just used the random map generator and played against AI, which gives this game it a ridiculous amount of replayablility, kinda like a CiV game.

After the older Heroes of Might and Magic 2, this is my next favorite turn-based fantasy strategy game. Like the previous game, this game has fantastic music and aesthetics, and incorporates a variety of magical creatures from different myths and religions of the world such as Greek Titans and Minotaurs, to Genies and other creatures from middle eastern cultures, as well as other magical and medieval creatures like wizards, druids, crusaders, etc. This game also seems to bring in creatures from the Christian religion like Angels and Devils as well. I would recommend playing Heroes of Might and Magic 2 first if you are new to the series because it's the best and will familiarize yourself with the game world before moving on to the newer game, particularly if you're playing the single player campaign (which isn't that great imo). The way I most enjoy playing this are the single player skirmish scenarios vs the AI. This is old, but it's a classic. This is the sort of game I still play with friends who used to play this with me in decades past because it's still quite fun even decades later. People will argue over which is the best in the series, but I think the general consensus in my experience is that Heroes 2 and Heroes 3 are the best (by far). If you like medieval fantasy and turn-based strategy games like Civilization 5 or something like that, don't hesitate to buy this! I strongly recommend it.

I'm astounded by how much enjoyment this game still brings me. I've sunk so many hours and will probably sink a ton more as time goes on. This review is with the expectation that you're already familiar with the game or the series as a whole. With that being said, I greatly insist on installing the HD Mod and Horn of the Abyss fan expansion. The HD Mod is a necessity in order to play on modern resolutions, while Horn of the Abyss offers tons of improvements, reasonable balance adjustments, new items, units, tons of new map objectives and a brand new faction with its own story mode. A lot of people struggle with HoMM or the genre in general, because you have to control multiple heroes. However, there is now a very well refined single hero map template, called Duel, which brings all the fun of the series and compacts it into a very replayable, 1-2hour long session, based on how loosely you follow the rules.