Heroes of Might and Magic® 4: Complete

It is not a classic Heroes game, but from my perspective, the experiment to break free from the classic Heroes shackle was succesfull. It is a very good game, not deserving the hate it gets. I am a fan, a huge one.

I like this game very much. the language of the game is very profound. I hope to launch a simplified Chinese patch. There will be a large number of Chinese players

Heroes of might and magic 4 is, in my humble opinion, a rough diamond. I love: - Unique and superb style. Heroes 4 features some of the most beautiful creature graphics, surroundings, music and storytelling you will find in a video game; All in perfect harmony with each other. There's no stereotypical division between good and evil or cartoony warcraft 3 graphics here. - Heroes. Hero skills are interesting, varied and all hero classes are useful in their own way. With great innovations, creature design, surroundings, music, hero choice, hero progression and story, what could possibly go wrong? Many things go horribly wrong, and heroes 4 is one of the biggest disappointments in gaming. What I truly hate about heroes 4 is: - Braindead ai. When you approach the enemy with even the tiniest of armies, he will run back to his castle and stay there until the end of times. The ai will never attack you, even when his army dwarfs yours. - Sieges. Winning a siege without an order mage is impossible, and seeing your powerstack of archangels die to a pack of orcs on a turret is infuriating. Cyclops on turret = gg. - Neutral creatures. Because the ai is so dumb you will mostly be fighting neutral creatures, which is boring.

I've been a fan of the HOMM series since HOMM2. Reading through the reviews I noted that HOMM4 got a lot of criticism for changing many things from HOMM3, which is probably regarded (deservedly so) as the best one of the series (I've played HOMM2 through to HOMM5, can't comment about HOMM6). They made some pretty big changes such as having the actual heroes participate in the battlefield as a unit, and changing the combat screen to top-down isometric (both of these they changed back in HOMM5 to more like how things were in HOMM3). The inclusion of heroes as an army stack can be a little unbalancing but I didn't mind the change. The main campaigns from the original HOMM4 (pre-expansions) are all decent, though I recall a couple of them being somewhat buggy, requiring me to restart the map (triggers not working properly). The expansions feel really rushed and limited in production value. Sure there are a couple of new monsters and special hero units (eg with advanced class based on opposing magic schools such that you normally can't create them naturally), but the stories are thin, and the combat repetitive. If not for the expansions I'd have given this a higher score. Highlights of this include the stunning soundtrack (it's even better than that in HOMM3), and some beautifully created maps. The fan-base for custom-made maps/campaigns is a far cry from those you can get for HOMM3. I never got into multiplayer so I can't comment on that one either (would be surprised if there's much of a multiplayer base still left all these years later!). I still think this entry as being superior to HOMM5, and at least on par with HOMM2. Hardcore fans of the series will probably stick with the third instalment but this game is worth a look, especially if you are getting the whole series bundle.

It deviates a lot from the much-loved formula set by HoMM3, but it still manages to be fun in its own way. The music especially is really nice.