I'm the type of person who love Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron. I really wanted to like this game but it just lacks personality... If I am to spend hours on a steep learning curve, I really want personality to help me get immersed. A for effort, C for execution.
The Longest Journey is one of my favourite series out there. This addition to the series is a good start to what will probably be another lovely and brilliant story. Here's a summary of my experience: Pros: Brilliantly written characters & story Excellent voice-acting Great music Lovely aesthetic Complex choices Good replayability Cons: Several minor glitches & bugs upon release (Nothing game-breaking, just annoying) Bad animation quality Questionable pacing Poorly contextualized (I.E. you really should play the previous games to understand the story) Graphics look a bit dated In short, this chapter could've used a few more weeks/months of polishing before release, but they stayed true to their promise of release. I'd recommend people to hold off for a few patches and then DEFINITELY GET IT!
The HoMM series reached its peak with HoMM3, in my eyes. I played both HoMM1 and HoMM2, which steadily developed the concept into the many-faceted gem that is HoMM3. The gameplay is, like all great games, easy to learn yet hard to master. With the addition of skills, magic specializations, tons of new spells and artifacts as well as hero specialities, this game took the whole genre to a new level which is unmatched even today. It is a remnant of the great times of PC-gaming where almost every new game would hold something that was actually new and revolutionary, beyond flashy graphics (Which btw this game has, for the time). This is a must buy game for anyone who enjoy strategy and fantasy. With near infinite replayability and a wonderful but time-consuming multiplayer mode, it's a real catch even when not on sale. If you haven't played HoMM3, what are you waiting for?
The singleplayer of this title was impressive when it came out but nowadays, the strength lies in the multiplayer. You will not find a more unique 3rd person melee combat simulation out there where incredible precision and coordination is the key between victory or defeat. I spent a good four-five years in the multiplayer of this game and still await a sequel.
