Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle

this game is for me a true worthy successor to Heroes of Might and Magic 3, it contains the ability to have set items, specializing the hero and multiple new creatures. The rebel forces are a nice addition. I always seem to return to HoMaM 3 and 5 - it does not require better graphics, but longer and more deep stories.

HOMMV demo was first game I ever played, as I bought it incidentally with some magazinge. After about 20 minutes I was in love and even not being a gamer I was willing to buy this game just after lunching. I played HOMMV two times and I'm a big fan of it. In my opinion dragons in this part are most beautiful and there is interesting plot with heart catching romance. Still one of my favorite games of all times.

I have to admit from the beginning that I am completely biased. I have played every single title in the storied Heroes series (including Chronicles and the poorly executed VII). Never finished I, II, or VII. I have completed III, IV, V, and VI. While III is generally considered the quentissential volume, I argue that V is better for the reason that it has an actual story line that is carried through all the scenarios. Whereas with III, the end of each scenario is the end of that story line. That's why they were able to take III and make Chronicles. 10 scenarios with the same characters that have nothing to do with each other. You still get the goodness of the building (added to), and the battles...and in the latter stages, they can become epic. If you've never played (hard to imagine) one of these titles, I'd say this is the one to begin with. If you like it, then try III. I'd say steer clear of VI. The story is kind of trite. The battles and building are still good, however.

This game automatically gains a number of points because it brings back HoMM - so its awesome for just doing that. The game translates the HoMM style game play into a pretty 3d format wonderfully well, and you can really tell that the Devs put a lot of effort into capturing the magic of the old HoMM games because it remains as fun and addictive as it always was. The only fly in the ointment is the storyline is fairly box standard fantasy fare, and the characters are fairly forgettable. It isn't really a negative but it is something you should be aware of when purchasing, if you are expecting an "epic, amazing storyline" with "deep, well written and involved characters" you are going to be disappointed. The storyline is decent, and the characters play the parts they are all supposed to. But the story and characters are definately not where this game shines. Perhaps this is an artifact of the dev team not being English speakers and thus the English translation and voice acting being laughable in places (the in game "romance" is juvenile and stupid as an example). Don't get me wrong the storyline and characters can certainly be enjoyed for what they are (and what they arent); but it's definately the gameplay all the way for this one.

I started off playing this series back with number 2, was hooked from then. Loved 3 but never did play 4. But this game, its good on some levels, alot better. But the neutral creatures killed it for me. I always was slow to build up at the start, normally have nothing defending my base. I saw some neutral mob pop up right outside my castle, too strong for me. Though "whatever I get build up and smash it down". A month later my army was nice, that neutral mob was massive, I dont even remember if there was a cap. Got through it fine to see about another 50 neutral guys had spawned, all had 1000s within their armies. In the third one it used to take neutral mobs years to get into the 1000s, yet a month and they were everywhere and very powerful. I couldnt even get anywhere close to anything. One simple thing destroyed the game completely. Simply, if you are a die hard fan, you will probably love it. If you dont like to grind out neutral mobs all night then you will probably hate it.