Heroes Chronicles: All Chapters

There is so much to say about these games. First of all, value for money - it's quite reasonable to say each game will average you at least 5 hours to complete, and there's eight of them. Even if you only play through it once, 40+ hours of gameplay is well worth the price tag. The gameplay is fantastic and involves many different elements. To start with you need to carefully manage what you build in your starting town(s), rushing the Capitol for increased gold won't get you anywhere if you don't have any troops to buy with it. Choices become especially important on day 7, do you get your powerful unit or more of all your other units? Do you utilise the marketplace (at massive loss) for the few extra Crystals you need? Then there's weighing when you can take on mobs on the map, you start with a very small army which is usually not enough but clever tactics and some sacrifices might get you that Gold Mine a bit earlier. Then there's the heroes themselves, one or two of your allies will persist through the campaign so it's important to pick which ones will follow you, spread out experience and ensure they get the right abilities. It's not without its faults. There are Witches Huts that teach your heroes a specific ability but it doesn't tell you which until you visit it, and it just forces it onto the hero. As you can only have a limited number of skills, you'll find yourself save scumming to get the desired traits. Parts can be a chore without Town Portal and the Earth Magic skill on each hero. Magic is also a bit overpowered in the later missions. The early game "can I take that mob" dilemma becomes pointless when you can Chain Lightning away 3/4 of them on the first move. There's also a bug in one mission that allows the enemy heroes to pick up a horde of powerful monsters very early and confront you with an unstoppable force - you'll probably need cheats or memory hacks to overcome it. These are minor issues however, overall these are still fantastic games.

There is one way to have a total blast with Heroes Chronicles. Just ignore and don't apply during your gameplay everything you learned with your hundreds or thousands of hours-long journey with Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Try to focus on recreating the fun we all had when we were starting the game for the first time. Select "noob" abilities, don't rush things, or don't use spells at all. There are many ways to make things spicier if you want a challenge. But if you, despite playing the franchise for long, still are not quite "pro" (hey, that's me!), then it's even better for you. Even on higher difficulty levels, these are frankly easier than the main campaigns in HoMM 3, so it might be good preparation for a "real" thing. If you want more of the official Heroes 3 stuff, these spin-offs are really fun to play and are definitely worth the money. If you are not if you want to buy the game at full price, wait for a sale - you can easily snatch these much cheaper, up to 75%, during bigger sales. Just let's not forget there are actually 8 different chapters, and most of them can be finished within 5-6 hours each. That's quite a lot of playtime in total, wouldn't you say?

I am soooooooooo excited. This is the very best Heroes has to offer. These were the absolute the games ever did at story telling, and they combine elements from all the games giving a more cohesive storyline to the series. The games start way too easy, which was a turn off for fans when they first came out, but the later chapters get back to form. The game leads right into Heroes IV and the barbarian campaign from that is really just the last chapter of this :-) I suggest finding out the order all the Heroes games take place in. And playing the campaigns from them, this, and Might and Magic all where they go.

For those of you who are familiar with Heroes of Might & Magic 3, think of this game as a mission pack. It is a standalone series of games that does not offer access to single player, multiplayer, the map editor, or the vanilla HoMM3. The campaigns in this bundle follow their own story, and their own challenge. At the time of release, these individual packs were rather pricey for something that couldn't offer the entire HoMM3 experience, but GOG has the whole bundle here for a decent price. And if you haven't played Heroes of Might & Magic 3, you should buy that instead. If you enjoyed that and want more campaigns, this is a logical next step.

Dlaczego nie ma wersji PL skoro kiedyś w wersji pudełkowej była? Wiem, bo sam miałem, ale gdzieś zapodziałem.