Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

I very much love the entire Homm series, and this one is no exception, despite being quite old. The magic is a bit too broken in this game, but still, it was a lot of fun :)

Heroes of Might and Magic games are amazing. Until the fifth one, where they like many other game studios botched the 3D transition and strayed from what made the series great.

The first time i've played Heroes of Might and Magic II was in 1997 on windows95 at my cousin's place in august, oh boy have i missed it 28 years later, this game has aged so bloody good ! I eventually bought Heroes III in 1999 and played it of course much longer than II but i haven't forgotten that game at all, thanks to dedicated developpers and to GOG for the opportunity to relive my childhood and it is exactly as it was when i was a child, HOURS AND HOURS of gameplay, for those who still don't understand the principle of the game, it's a kind of strategy game, tour by tour, meaning your movements, ressources as well as building possibilities are limited so once your moving bar is as good as empty and invested into a new infrastructure in your castle then simply pass your turn and build your own armada with ressources you can find on the map, learn new spells that can be a game changer in battle, find treasures and artefacts, this game offers it all, strategy, combat, magic, several races and heroes with abilities to choose from, Heroes II-III, Age of Empire I, Warcraft II and Tzar The Burden of the Crown, a MUST try ! BUY IT DUDE !

I've been gaming for 36 years and among hundreds of games I've played this one has the best replay value, in the top 3 for algorithms, top 12 for soundtrack, and excellent balance of tachtics and strategy. I have probably logged over 2000-3000 hours total since I started playing it in 1995. User-generated maps available for download. Impressive computer intelligence for its era. Every time I feel like I have mastered the game I find some new angle to develop and explore. There is also considerable replay value in random map generation set on the hardest difficulty.

This game is for those already familiar with it. I understand why people like its graphics and music. While the game mechanics are clearly fun, the more frequent and annoying experiences make it hard to give it a good score. --- Warning: From the next paragraph onward, I have written negative reviews that destroy other people's beautiful memories. --- Many games teach you the basics through the early missions of the campaign, but this one doesn't. Even when playing the first mission for the first time, the game assumes the player is somewhat skilled. It's as if it expects you've played HoMM1. So, starting with Archibald's first mission, it's quite tough and requires significant time and save-scumming to beat, which already had me exhausted. Most missions demand some special, underhanded strategy. There's little strategic diversity—it's all about relying on luck until you can use certain magic skills or exploiting the AI's stupid flaws. Missions aren't about leisurely exploration, developing soldiers and castles, and gradually crushing enemies through snowballing. You must aggressively attack enemies quickly, and some missions require relying on luck. In the 90s, reading manuals, repeating missions until you mastered them, and checking strategy guides on forums might have been fun, but that's not the case in 2025. These things just aren't fun for me. What I hated most while playing was not being able to gauge whether my troops could easily crush a group of monsters. I have to save the game, test it, watch a forced defeat in battle, and then reload. Based on my experience, I wouldn't recommend starting the series with this game. It seems better to enjoy the game with HoMM3, which is more forgiving to beginners, and then move on to HoMM2.