Posted August 31, 2009
There’s really not much left to say, and hardly any gain from my repeating myself from my Heroes of Might and Magic I and II reviews. To sum up, though: Heroes of Might and Magic III is currently the apex of the series, and while you might have a different favourite (mine is Heroes II) it’s hard to argue the gameplay improvements from this game.
To summarize the gameplay because I feel I must, Heroes of Might and Magic is divided into two phases where in one half you build an army at various cities and in the other half you fight tactical battles between your armies and your opponents. On the main map the game is all about seizing resource nodes like Crystal Mines, and on the combat map it’s all about positioning.
This game added several crucial aspects to the motif as a whole: arrows now do more damage at short range, and all creatures have upgrades (which was the biggest balance deficiency of Heroes of Might and Magic II). On top of that, the game is largely balanced all around, though I have heard a few bad things about Fortress, which more than a few people have called only good in the midgame (an experience I’ve never seen duplicated in my own games, but I feel should be mentioned all the same). Another critical upgrade is that of dual classes, where there are two types of heroes per faction, one good for might and one for magic, which adds a good deal to the game and is missed in later instalments like Heroes V. Essentially, this game fixed everything we might not have even known was a problem with two, and then threw in new factions for the hell of it.
All in all, you can’t really go wrong with the level the franchise chose to return to when it returned with Heroes V, though who knows where they could go from there. If Heroes IV ever hopefully arrives on GOG, you will find it to be a totally different beast than the three already available and the one you can currently still find on store shelves, and this one is the fan favourite. It seems a little trite to say “If you can only buy one Heroes of Might and Magic game, buy this one”, especially since three of the games are available on GOG for only $10, but if you really, really can only buy one Heroes of Might and Magic game, then fine: buy this one.
To summarize the gameplay because I feel I must, Heroes of Might and Magic is divided into two phases where in one half you build an army at various cities and in the other half you fight tactical battles between your armies and your opponents. On the main map the game is all about seizing resource nodes like Crystal Mines, and on the combat map it’s all about positioning.
This game added several crucial aspects to the motif as a whole: arrows now do more damage at short range, and all creatures have upgrades (which was the biggest balance deficiency of Heroes of Might and Magic II). On top of that, the game is largely balanced all around, though I have heard a few bad things about Fortress, which more than a few people have called only good in the midgame (an experience I’ve never seen duplicated in my own games, but I feel should be mentioned all the same). Another critical upgrade is that of dual classes, where there are two types of heroes per faction, one good for might and one for magic, which adds a good deal to the game and is missed in later instalments like Heroes V. Essentially, this game fixed everything we might not have even known was a problem with two, and then threw in new factions for the hell of it.
All in all, you can’t really go wrong with the level the franchise chose to return to when it returned with Heroes V, though who knows where they could go from there. If Heroes IV ever hopefully arrives on GOG, you will find it to be a totally different beast than the three already available and the one you can currently still find on store shelves, and this one is the fan favourite. It seems a little trite to say “If you can only buy one Heroes of Might and Magic game, buy this one”, especially since three of the games are available on GOG for only $10, but if you really, really can only buy one Heroes of Might and Magic game, then fine: buy this one.