I remember the game when it came out. After playing HOMM3 for so long, this game was a shock! Everything was different, the graphics was too colorful/plastic. The soundtrack wasn't as good. The neutral armies on the map moved? What the heck?! I forgot about the game for a few months at least and then picked it up after a long while, gave it a shot again and I finally got how the new gameplay systems work. After playing some of the campaigns I really fell in love with the story-telling and the soundtrack too. The hero leveling and skill system was a hell of a lot of fun. Ocasionally I return to this game and play a few maps, while I don't ever play HOMM3 anymore. The visuals of the 4th game have stood the test of time actually, in my opinion it looks good even by todays standards. Unfortunately the game has an issue with crashing in battles on windows 10 (I've seen some reviewers mention it) but that can be fixed by setting CPU affinity in the task manager (there's a guide somewhere in the forums). This game is I think less of a strategy when compared to the other games in the series. I play it like an RPG game, I mostly level up heroes until they can obliterate anything in their path, without taking any troops. It's a different breed than the other HOMM games for sure, but still highly enjoyable.
