Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

Okay I got my first PC on 1 Jan 1997 and near about that time, I got a pirated games CD that had original DOS version of this game. Sorry for being bad at that time, scarcely any legal game CDs were available in India and those cost a bomb back then. Anyway I had a black and white monitor back then. Still this game had me hooked so much that at first time I played it for three days with only the essential breaks. I remember one day I was playing at around 10 PM. My father was there reading something. After a while he left for sleep, telling me to do the same. I kept playing till 5 AM. He got up at time and asked me what was so special in that game that I had woken up so early to play it? I kept quiet else he would have blown his fuse. Over the last 26 years I have purchased many new desktops and laptops and first thing I did was check if this game worked on it or not. Same with the operating systems. Eventually I even played on virtual machine when OS didn't support the game. Thanks to GOG, now I have a legal copy which works even on Windows 11. I am still playing it. My advice is don't play this game if you want to have social life.

The TBS genre grew immensley since 1996 and there are so many more complex and varied games than HOMM2 (I highly recommend Endless Legend), so forget about strategy - the main reason why H2 is such a great game is, that it has a soul. The story-book like graphics, the tiny details (elaborate portraits of each hero, the hand-drawn animation of each unit on the battlefield, etc.), the unique town themes, the amazing soundtrack - they all make it such a memorable game. I've been playing it since I was a 12 year old kid in 1996, and it's still my favorite game ever. ----------------- Technical comparison to H3 for veteran players: Yes, Heroes 3 is bigger and has more of everything. But upon closer examination, there are things which H2 does better than H3: Towns are less self-sufficient (lower income, lower marketplace ratios) - encouraging the player to explore more and to take chances. Low tier units are not as disposable as in H3, making you to appreciate them more instead of treating them like cannon fodder. Ultimate artifacts effecting heroes instead of towns, again encouraging player to take action against stronger opponents instead of camping for longer periods of time. Factions are less balanced - encouraging the player to take different approaches instead of sticking to the same game plan in each playthrough. All in all, H2 is less formulaic, making it a better game in the long run imo. But all of that is just "nice to have" - again, as subjective as it sounds, H2 has a soul unlike any other.

I've played the Might and Magic series since my youth and this one by far is the best of them all. It has the best ai and the best difficulty selection of the entire series. It's the only one where you can specifically select the type of ai you want to use from expert to dunce. In other words they don't all have to be all alike and one can be more powerful than the others. You can mix and match. The selection of maps is excellent. So, you can play a quick game on a small map or a week long one on a largest map. This is by far my favorite one and I couldn't recommend anything else more except Master of Magic which is of course the best fantasy wargame ever made.

Homm 2 feels like playing in a fairy tale world. I much prefer homm2 over 3 when it comes to the single-player experience. It just feels like pure magic! The game isn't balanced, but who really cares when it comes to single player? The soundtrack is amazing and i find myself listening to it while studying, reading, playing other games - I even had it as a ring tone on my phone at some point.

One of the most addicting strategy games ever. I remember playing HOMM ever since I was a kid, it still holds it's charm and I still rank it as one of my all time favorite games and I'm sure that almost anyone who has played it feels the same. Don't let the first impression of the grainy and cartoonish map screen fool you, this game is a lot more than seems in the first sight. Very addicting and entertaining game play which takes a while to get into, but is easy to learn. Still, it the campaigns offer enough challenge and do not get old after years of playing. Building your town and armies, collecting treasures and most importantly, conquering enemy castles and watching their heroes' troops get on the wrong end of a horde of black dragons... or die trying. THAT is what this game is all about. The idea is simple, yet brilliant. There are only have a handful of hero unit types (each having their own type of town and troops) but that is a lot more than it may sound like. You will control multiple heroes and multiple towns and you will be battling for the mines and resources on the map. Your supply of units will be limited by your gold income, structures and most importantly, the rate on which your town inhabitants multiply. You can only buy a limited amount of each unit every 7 turns, thus making it slower to build an army in hurry and preventing you from buying only the troops you most want. The situation can chance easily. Move too far away from your castle and be unable to return before your enemy attacks it, lose your hero and army by fighting a too strong opponent... Make a mistake and you might suddenly find yourself without a castle and with only a half a dozen skeletons and mutant zombies. Even these days, this game classic will cause you to spent sleepless nights in front of you monitor and saying "just one more turn". If you tumble across it and decide to boot it up, beware, you will be stuck with it for a long, long time.