Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle

First off, this is just about HoMM 5 as I haven't played the expansions yet. Overall I did enjoy the game and had many late nights because of that "just one more turn..." feeling. Enjoyment is (arguably) the most important thing, so maybe 3 stars is a bit harsh. But... I couldn't help thinking about Civ 4 when playing this game. That won a number of game of the year awards. Why? Because it brought 3D graphics to an isometric turn-based strategy game. That in itself is a rather pointless thing to do, but it was made worse by the fact there was an insignificant (if any) improvement in AI over previous games. Graphics more important than AI in an isometric turn-based strategy game? Well, the same thing was done with HoMM5. THE GOOD - The devs (Nival?) stuck pretty much faithfully to the HoMM formula, so it's fundamentally a good game with enjoyable gameplay. - Sets the scene for Arkane's Dark Messiah Might & Magic. Let's see that on GOG.com, without the SecuRom crap, please. - Quite stable. I had a few random crashes and one corrupt save game following a crash, but nothing serious. THE BAD (in my opinion) - The devs stuck pretty much faithfully to the HoMM formula. This isn't all bad, but for me HoMM gameplay was eclipsed by the Age of Wonders 2 games. - Warcraft, anyone? From the opening screen you could be forgiven for thinking you'd actually downloaded Warcraft 4. The devs already had a set game formula to use/copy. Instead of using their un-taxed imaginations on the graphics, they just copied Warcraft's style. To me the character graphics look pretty ridiculous. Fortunately most of the game is played with the camera well away from them. But those cutscenes....(see below.) - More Warcraft, anyone? I enjoyed Warcraft 3's plot twist with the goody (Arthas?) turning baddie. Still no originality from the HoMM 5 devs here. You can see the same plot twist coming a mile off. - Cutscenes. I think "muahahahaha" sums up the style. Or immature. With no facial expressions on the characters, the dialogue is punctuated by combat animations instead. The constant spell-casting, horse-rearing etc. gets annoying fast. Many times I was tempted to skip them and just read the objectives at the start of the map. "Griffin eternal!" - AI. Was there any? The only challenge came from scripting and being outnumbered. Careful choice of hero skills does seem important though and sometimes it's worth skipping a new skill and taking a sub-skill instead, in the hope that a better main skill will appear at later levels. - 3D graphics again - why? There's a lot of mouse-clicking in the game and you'll frequently find the mouse pointer is 'blocked' by landscape or units. Underground tunnels are the worst. I didn't want to rotate the camera to see the cartoon graphics from different angles, but was forced to rotate it just to be able to play the game. It's made worse by the fact that the mouse cursor's 'click position' sometimes changed in a new battle, so you think you're clicking on one square but are actually clicking on an adjacent one. - If you play with a live internet connection, Ubisoft will be poking your PC. I've no idea why, maybe it's related to multi-player and nothing sinister. Overall, if you think strategy is more important in a strategy game than graphics and haven't played Age of Wonders 2: the Wizard's Throne and Shadow Magic, play those instead. It can't be all bad though, as I did at least complete the game and, I have to admit, it was kinda fun.

I've played heroes 3 myself for like 10 years, then I found this gem, and never looked back. There is so much complexity here, but at the same time, it doesn't feel overwhelming. Pros: - better skills. Every skill is useful, unlike in HoMM3 where half, if not more of the skills are completely useless - abilities for each skill, with some interesting combos to go for - no more wait turn abuse in combats (except for the very rare case of fighting a really low initiative unit with a very high initiative one) - no more TP/DD abuse. Thank god. This was the worst. TP only works for closest friendly town and consumes all movement. DD is very limited range and costs a lot of movement points. - no more kiting in combats infinitely with 1-stacks. AI knows to ignore them if it can't reach them, so at the very least, you have to sacrifice units. Cons: - worse AI than in heroes 3. It's not the worst like in HoMM7, but it's not great either. Makes some questionable retreats at times, even at the highest difficulty. - only one class per faction and less heroes overall. - cringe story, but that's all heroes games tbh - warcraft copy-paste of art, but you get used to it eventually For me, the positives in this game far outweigh the negatives, so it became my favourite HoMM game. Sure, I still play some HoMM3 at times, but not nearly as much as HoMM5. And as always: hey, hey people. Watch SSeth's review if you haven't.

HoMM3 is widely considered by most to be the best game in the series, but I would say that, so far, HoMM5 takes the crown for me. A list of summarized reasons: 1. The game plays like HoMM3 (which is admittedly awesome) 2. Leveling up in HoMM5 is far deeper and more interesting than it was in any other game in the series. There are faction specific skills and powers. 3. The game makes town management more interesting looking 4. The best monster design in the series, no cheesiness 5. The game is in 3D, which isn't itself a plus or minus, but it's done so well and the graphics still don't look dated 6. An AI that thinks and has to explore 7. Best multiplayer in series! Simultaneous turns and ghost mode make this an easy win Here are common arguments against HoMM5 1. The 3D means objects get in the way or aren't revealed... NOTE: To fix this all you need to do is go to the Options and tick "Classic Heroes of Might and Magic View". 2. Waiting for your turn is slow... NOTE: I think this may either be true only on very very old machines or very old versions of the game. I played a game with max number of computers last night and I did have to wait a solid 15-20 seconds between turns but that's hardly unreasonable. I've heard reports of turns going longer than a minute, and that hasn't been my experience. In summary, if you liked Heroes 1-3 or even 4, you'll probably enjoy 5. I think nostalgia goggles keeps many people saying Heroes 3 is the best in series. It was easily the best of the first three. Then 4 came out which made too many changes for most people's liking (but it really isn't a bad game). 4 was too far separated from some of the traditions in the series so it's out of the running. 5 is the true successor to 3: superior in virtually every way, it adds just enough to keep things fresh without rewriting history and making the game feel detached from 3. If you haven't played Heroes 5 yet but liked Heroes 2 and 3, you're in for a very pleasant surprise.

There is a problem with the general vision of the game. If you come expecting a successor to HOMM 3 you might be disappointed. Since nobody from the original team worked on this title, it somehow lacks something i can't put my finger on. It just doesn't feel like a Heroes game. The fact it is 3D bears a lot of problems with items not being very visible due to poorly selected colors generating little to no contrast between them and the environment. But take my opinion with a grain of salt. This game just didn't impress me at a personal level. You might enjoy it. Try a "demo" first.

Just wanted to applaud GOG for actually including the fan made Skillwheel in the default installation. That's true love for games! Homm5 TotE together with HoMM3 and HoMM2 are the best of the series. Played HoMM since I was a kid and always love to come back to it!