Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle

Yes, it beats HOMM3 in my book. Worth every penny. Great mechanics, beautiful graphics, great music, cool plot, awesome gameplay. All the best the series has to offer in one bundle. You'd be silly not to buy this if you enjoy turn-based strategy games.

This is overall a good game, but the problem is the artstyle is so out of character for these games, they made the previous dark fantasy vibe become more of a light hearted fairy tale vibe. I liked the game but It just doesn´t feel right.

Being a fan of HoMM3, I was convinced by a few great reviews of this game to give it a try. So I'll be blunt on my experience. If you've come to look for a decent fresh turn based RPG/strategy game. You could do worse, but you could do better as well. Now if you are aware of how awesome HoMM 3 was(and will always be) and how terrible HoMM4 was, you could still do better. While a great improvement over the 4th, I found this game(possibly because it was taken over by another company) tedious, and obnoxious. It takes the basic game mechanics, gave it a cheesy 3D makeover ala Warcraft 3 and....really that's it. It plays very slow(due to ridiculous neutral monster pop ups),the game world feels small and exploration is weak, the artistry and descriptive dialogue from the 3rd is gone, and replaced with cheap 3D and absolutely terrible dialogue cut scenes. I won't lie, I gave the campaign a good 4 quest run and never played it again. The game just seemed dumbed down in looks, game play, and over all feel. If your a fan of HoMM3, this latest installment won't feel right. If your not, you might enjoy it for a little bit... Maybe. As a game stand alone, it's decent, but not spectacular. It's hard to give this game love because of bias. So upon that recognition, It will be awarded 3 meek stars.

There is few franchise, where the hardcore fans don't see quality anywhere else, just what they think the best is. Heroes franchise is the best example. Seeing other reviews, it can be found the most of the negative critics like "Heroes 3 the best, this is not as good...so i give 1-2-maybe 3 stars." If anyone knows the franchise, its me. I played almost all from Heroes 1-Heroes 6 (Heroes 7 was something which was not supposed to be released at that state). I liked almost all, even the Heroes 4. Heroes 5 brought back almost everything we loved at Heroes 3 plus we got +nice graphics and animations (town screens are awesome) +unique race abilities +better combat system +logical hero upgrade system +better AI +etc. However i should give right about who's complaining about the story, it's little bit generic and lack of interesting characters. However a gameplay experience is so good, it compensates you all.

Heroes of M&M 5 had a lot going for it, but ended up being an incoherent, sluggish and irritiating mess. It feels like Nival really wanted to make a great HoMM game, but the final result was and still is disappointing. The game had a rough production process. I remember seeing multiple different pre-gold versions that are drastically different from the final version that hit the shelves. And every single one of them seemed to be better than what we've finally got. The most glaring issue with this game is its engine. It's very slow. AI turns can take up to few minutes! Due to transition into full 3D, strategic maps are really small, narrowing the strategic gameplay to rushing the enemy's castle before it gets out of control. The city screens are awful. Nival decided to change them in the last moment and for some reason most customers liked impractical screens. After the first visit, nobody will use the actual screen to use the castle, everyone will click through bottom panel. They might me pretty on youtube videos, but they're absolutely pointless in the game. The 2nd problem with this game is the creativity bankruptcy. The new art direction might be alright if we're talking only about the color palette, but everything else is generic and lacks any kind of uniqueness. I remember the dev talking they want to "make factions more uniform", but the ending result is that almost all units are just so awfully generic and after 10 years I still have problems to tell their power difference based only on their appearance. It's even more glaring with add-ons' factions. Not to mention the overall setting and awful, cringe-inducing campaign. And lastly we have the bonkers AI. It's one thing to have the AI see a whole map (2) or to have it handicapped (4), but to let the AI cheat with 10k income and artifically winning vs creeps with no looses vs horde of devils in the first week is another thing. It's worse than Heroes 6's campaigns. You're better with 2nd, 3rd, 4th.