Like many others who've reviewed this, I bought this over 20 years ago and i'm still playing it. Hands down Heroes of Might and magic 3 is a gem of a turn based strategy and in my view the best of the series. I love it but not everyone will like the look of the art and yes...compaired to modern games, it does look rather out of date in places. However if you give it a chance, you'll see there's a whole load of game play behind this, that will grab you hook line and sinker. Even though the battles look simple you can involve a lot more tactics to win a fight than it first may seem. E.g. Wait your turn so the enemy has to move first, but can't move far enough to attack you Then you can move afterwards and hit the first blow. Use magic to stop archers shooting, so they have the disadvantage to attack hand to hand. Cast a blind spell on the most dangerous unit, to give to the upperhand. And use artifacts to improve your skills or hinder his. The computer A.I. is pretty good so battles arn't always a sure thing, plus some magical items can ruin your planned tactics against them so you can be suprised as you don't know what they are holding. The musical score is original and sets the mood for the game and there's plenty of different Heroes, types of towns, monsters and little sub quests to keep the game interesting for about.. well, lets say 20 years.
Some think this game is too hard... well it can be, but the more you play, the more you should see the way to captain your crew, use the right equipment and get the best out your ship in battle. A lot of winning it goes down to timing... (For e.g.) 1: Recharge the all the weapons. 2: Fire the lasers. 3: Then when the shields are down for a few seconds, use a energy beam across the ship. Or... Open a few of the air locks if you see the other ship is prepairing to board you and force the attacker to either suffocate or fight you in the sick bay so your crew will get the advantage of being healed during the battle. There are lots of different things you can do and many will all work well in different ways.
You are the ruler of the land and you have the chance to spend gold on constructing different buildings, hire people from the buildings or purchase upgrades. The aim of the most levels in the game is to normally clear the map of monsters and their bases using the people you have hired.... However most of your subjects can't be directly controlled, so main way you get most of them to do your bidding, is to place bounties on the enemies heads or the camps and also aid them with magic spells, upgrades and items to buy. Some subjects recact differently... Warroirs will attack most enemies with out much or any of a bounty, Rogues tent to be more heavily swayed by money and other classes like Rangers will explore the map. The reason i'm giving 3 stars is the way you control your troops, or maybe I should say the way you can't control your troops very well... There are tactics you can use to place your buildings and which things you should buy, but there still a lot of luck with winning the levels. Quite often have to replay harder levels due to the way the map has placed your starting points and also the monsters. The A.I. on both sides some times tends to be a little less than 'good' and sometimes you win or lose a fight depending on where the encounter happens. I've played Majesty when it came out and also when it was re-released. The look of the game, sound and style are still pretty great and the graphics still hold up pretty well. Overall, it's still fun and I do play it from time to time.... but it's not a game I would go back to as much as other in the fantasy stratagy range.
I quite a fan of management builders game, however I found prison architect a bit clunky... It does have a fair amount of options to do various things from building, power management and controling guard etc... however the scenarios are fairly fixed and lack much space to do anytihng by just follow the number and little room for your own creation, it also takes an overly long time to do even small objectives. After playing it for a few days, i've found it quite dull and don't really see any point continuing to play it when there are other more exciting builder managment games out there.
