Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle

It still has some minor bugs (nothing game breaking) but it's very addictive and fun. I thought that Disciples 2 is the king of turn based heroes strategy but it seems I've been wrong.

OK, time to own up to something - I played through a lot of HOMM 4 and enjoyed it. It wasn't great but at least it was *trying* something and had an identity; it was reasonably intuitive to pick up and the factions played very differently to each other. This, on the other hand, feels like a reskin of HOMM 3 if you had to play it with a bag on your head and your hands dipped in hot treacle. I have played up to mission four of the first campaign. I really tried. The aesthetic is pretty terrible, fine, and the story of the first campaign is generic, weedy and hamstrung by directionless voice acting and terrible in-engine cut scenes using whatever animations they happen to have inappropriately. Look at those resources that all look pretty much the same but in different colours. Ick. Look at those graceless Kessen hero attack animations. Look at that gloopy initiative order thing that confuses me and doesn't tell me what's going on. Look at the need to double right click on a combat unit to find its current status effects then have no easy way to work out WHAT THEY DO. Look at the town building interface with its tech web of options concealed behind other options and the messy nonsense involved. OK, a hero can use this training ground to upgrade units only if they're stationed in the town but they can't buy siege equipment unless they're visiting but not in the town and GODDAMMIT WHY. Oh, you can only upgrade 7 men per week... fiiine... but unless your units are already in groups of 7 FOR SOME INEXPLICABLE REASON. Is the only statement this game has about HOMM3's gameplay that there wasn't enough boring unsatisfying micromanagement? This really does just feel like HOMM 3 but I have the added challenge of attempting to work out what in god's name that yellow thing on the map is and oh god I hate grimdark elves and basically, after three scenarios, I wondered why I wasn't playing HOMM 3 instead and I couldn't think of a good answer so I went and did that.

Heroes of might and magic V is a joy to play. I recommend it if you enjoy turn based, relaxing and colorful games with fantastic art and great music. Not as good as HOMM 3 but what games is? 9.5/10.

BEAR CAVALRY

If you are a big fan of HOMM34, as I am, you'll get disappointed. That said, I'll start my review talking about the heroes gameplay: 1.Heroes: in this installment you'll not be able to gather an army with more than one hero, you also will not be able to have an army with only a hero without units or an army with only units. Your army must have one hero and at least one unit. And there are some limitations for controling your hero during the battle, you cannot strike the enemy's hero, for example. Those points were a huge improvement in the previous installment. 2.Buildings and Units: it's very cheap to build your castle and recruit units, you don't have to gather a lot of resources and you don't have to choose between building a structure, that allows you to recruit a particular unit, or another. 3.Campaigns: you have to play the campaigns in a particular order, you cannot choose which campaign to play. 4.Other observations: there are no caravans and artifacts do not have a significant contribution to your hero skills. Also, the game music is terrible. Despite that it's a fun game to play. But, I still prefer HOMM34.