Heroes of Might and Magic®

Despite being more primitive than later version, the game still keeps strategy elements. Its runs in DOSBox, so if you are looking for a HoMM to execute on non-x86 architecture (smartphone, tablet etc), this game is not demanding and runs pretty smooth. I bought this game out of historical interest, saw it, but my 486sx was too weak to run it. Well, for the times, the game was pretty nice. It still is.

I loved King's Bounty and loved HOMM 1 too. The various units (some with special abilities), the various terrains, the great number of artifacts make the game very diverse. It has great atmosphere too, I especially like the sound effects near sawmills, alchemist shops etc. What I really did not like is the development curve of castles and towns. On some levels (#1 and #8 in campaign game) you must build everything you can in your castle within a couple of weeks, else you'll be defeated very likely. (Towns are absolutely useless, their only benefit is the couple of coins they generate.) With a more balanced development curve, this game could have been even much better.

This was the first HOMM game I played. My uncle introduced me to this series and I instantly fell in love. However, just a year later HOMM II was released and improved a lot of imbalance in this first game. HOMM II is really an updated, superior-in-every-way version of this. I've actually seen people rate this above the second game, which makes absolutely no sense from a pure game design standpoint. HOMM II is not flawless by any means, but there is absolutely nothing this game does better. This game is still playable but its definitely the least polished of any HOMM game. It existed in the days before patches so you just have to take what you get, and it has the worst mod support of any of the franchise titles.

I was browsing through GoG today, as I am want to do when it is early in the morning and I'm relaxing with a copy of coffee, when it hits me - not only does GoG happen to have the very first of the Heroes series, I've never bothered picking it up for my computer! And, ladies and gentlemen? That's no good. Nostalgia filters can make older games seem better than they actually are, but that isn't the case with the very first Heroes of Might and Magic. Following in the footsteps of it's predecessor, King's Bounty - which is another excellent game, both past and present - you take control of one of your heroes, and set out to do battle! Although unrefined, without some of the features that fans of the series find compelling - such as events/story maps, and only four hero-types - Heroes I is a classic. The game is fun, the component of having a certain number of each spell makes spell management more interesting and knowledge a more useful stat, and the graphics and sounds are - to me - the most beautiful they have ever been in the series, with only Heroes II running a close second. So give it a try - I guarantee you'll find hours passing by playing just one... more... turn... :) Just don't attack ghosts without Turn Undead!

This game is timeless but simple. It's also timeless *because* it's simple. There really isn't much to it. You own your fort, you build a building, it generates units, recruit those units and go conquer until there is nothing left to conquer. Unlike the RPGs, this one doesn't have any complex mechanics that require reading the manual, or studying it online like some ancient relic. It's a perfectly playable, simple version of the HOMM franchise/genre.