Baldur's Gate 1 is to Baldur's Gate 2,
what Heroes of Might and Magic 2 is to Heroes 3,
what Fallout 1 is to Fallout 2,
what Disciples 1 is to Disciples 2,
what Spellforce 1 is Spellforce 2,
what King's Bounty Legend is to Armored Princess and Warriors of the North.

Which is to say they are the true geniuses of their series. The first is a concentrated experience that you can finish in 10-20h, while the follow-ups just took the original and added content... so much more content that they end up getting boring by the end(60-100h), since you party is an un-godly force of destruction that nothing can even challenge.

Now there's nothing wrong with enjoying the follow-ups, but if you actually play both, you end up coming to the conclusion that the originals were the true gamechangers.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
Your claim is little dubious considering you are mentioning HoMM2, but not HoMM1 which was original game after all. And personally, I like additional content of HoMM3 and Baldur's Gate 2 - I like how overpowered arcane magic is in the sequel, I love the party banter better, I love lich and dragon fights and I adore how you can slaughter everything with Fighter/Mage. Also the game actually resembles Black Isle RPG more than the prequel.
And for Heroes 3, while I love Heroes 2, I do appreciate the fact there is more than 3 viable towns and more than 1 viable hero class. Also, I like androids and Fortress, as well as additional creatures.

I don't know where that came from, I am not trying to trick you. If you don't know why I said something, just ask.

Heroes 1 is an evolution from King's Bounty 1 and Hammer of the Gods. And while Heroes 2 is also an evolution from Heroes 1, what sets it apart, is that it actually introduced all the elements that are hallmarks of the series(the worldbuilding, campaigns, artifact sets, skills, skirmish missions that tie into the campaigns).

As I said, there's nothing wrong if you enjoy the followups, but all the gameplay elements are from the originals, while the sequels added bloated content. That's why the originals are underrated masterpieces, while the mentioned sequels are polished gems of their genres.

Well, now I understand your reasons for considering it, but I disagree with you regarding Heroes series. While I didn't play Heroes 1, I have checked the gameplay a little, and I think that it wasn't that different from Heroes 2, the game I have just recently finished. If any Heroes game deserve to be underrated masterpiece, than it's the first one considering Heroes 2 is almost as beloved as the legendary third game. And if I may say, difference between Heroes 2 and Heroes 3 is significantly larger, even if Heroes 3 built on top of Price of Loyalty expansion. Factions have had their lineup considerably changed, it added two hero types per faction and hero specialization while also making power difference between creatures of the same level much smaller.

But as I have said, values such as "good game" and "underrated masterpiece" is completely subjective; and while some people find additional things to be unnecessary bloat, others like there games thicc.

Looks like a true classic RPG! ^_^

Very good pick GOG, I was looking forward this game.

"Kusoge" is actually short for "kuso geemu", which directly translates to "shitty game". So yeah, it's a term, but it's not much different from English speakers calling shitty games "shitty".

The first game I ever played on PC was Wolfenstein 3D, followed by Prince of Persia, Dangerous Dave, Doom 1, Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and Transport Tycoon. So if anything I should be nostalgic about Heroes 1, but the problem with it is that it doesn't really have a story. You have a campaign, but it's the same campaign for all of the four heroes, and it's made up from several skirmish maps. And the skirmish maps have only 2-3 lines of description and nothing more to further the worldbuilding. Maybe there's more to it in the manual, but what's in the game isn't enough to make it feel less repetitive, which happens because the gameplay is unfortunately too simple. Over the years I came back to Heroes 1, multiple times and once I've played 1-2 skirmish maps I've experienced everything about it. There just isn't enough variance in the gameplay to make playthroughs of other skirmish maps feel different enough. Heroes 1 ends up feeling like a demo/prototype of a game.

Wishlisted for the future. Looks awesome.