Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

I am unable to review this as it won't start. I am a return devotee to Might and Magic and have been encouraged to download in this format. I am continuously downloading the game of which I have purchased the key and i click on Hereos 2 and now i am here at Reviews, yet again. How do you get to actually play the game? There is nothing that says start or play etc. HELP! So 1 star at this point.

The game has nice stylized graphic and a great soundtrack. Unfortunately, the campaign seems to be unwinnable and I regret hours spent trying to figure out the right strategy. But for this game, you do not need strategy, it simply do not let you win.

The 2 stars are only for the pretty graphics. This game was apparently designed only for players with high tactical/strategic skill. Because I am not one, this game is hands-down unplayable. Even the weaker-type enemy mobs are too overpowered. It's all sparkly-colorful fun & good until I encounter an enemy Hero, at which point Game Over. Granted, I could read up on all the strategy guides and learn over time how to get better... but there needs to be a learning curve. And when I get my [posterior] handed to me on a platter partway through the first level of a basic campaign, well that's no curve. I might be able to overcome this roadblock by cheating, except that the few cheat codes out there don't work in campaign mode (if they work at all). I want my $10 back.

NOT RECOMMENDED unless you are one of those cheeto-dust-smelling OG D&D'ers or / and cannot get over the 1990s consumerism. Also, no point in buying this when the turbo-modded Heroes III exists. In short, it's boring AF. H2 is practically a mere content expansion to H1, with most of its short-comings and the lack of gameplay variety. The manual pdf claims that there should be more maps with objectives other than "Kill Em All." (" Many scenarios will now have different victory or loss conditions instead of the standard ‘Kill ‘em all.’ ") Here are the mission objective stats: OG campies: Roland: 9 Kill, 1 Dig objectives Good: 10 Kill Expansion campies: Price of Loyalty: 7 Kill objectives Descendants: 5 Kill Voyage Home: 3 Kill Wizard's Isle: 4 Kill, 1 Dig For comparison, H1 had 9 Kills and 1 Dig. H2's 95 % kill-em-all vs H1's 90%. Lies. In other words, expect the same castle-conquering and Hero-murdering gameplay content repeated over almost every single mission. To be successful in the game, you need 1) tons of time because the game is soooo slooow and micro-ing intensive, 2) tons of number tables and formulas to check if your numbers are high enough for what you want to do (e.g. "can I attack / recruit these monsters yet") and 3) principles of AI manipulation. E.g. the AI won't usually attack your city if it has a big-enough number of total garbage garrisoned in it. -The all-seeing AI is intact and it will B-line to your town from the other side of the map if needed. -The killed enemy Heroes WILL respawn on the following turn with slightly less troops, ready to Armageddon your army to pieces again. This cycle never ends... well for the player, at least. Even if you can deal with that, you still need to contain that enemy because otherwise it will B-line to your other non-defended towns, taking over your resource mines on the way there. -The campaign content is lame bad-DM-tier stuff and the voice acting outright cringy. Think of what you buy this for.

hardest game I ever played. I rememebr having an entire army of dragons and still getting beat... and it wasn;t even the final level.