Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

That's right! This was my first game to test as a beta tester working for New World Computing/3DO. I was a freshman in the industry and was thrown in the project of HOMM2 Gold and had no regrets! Truth be told before playing this, I had never played a turn-based video game before and was not a fan of the genre. RTS was more my speed. Then I started playing. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the amazing music. One I got the feel for the game I was immediately hooked. One more turn. Now I have to do this to get that then plan to buy creatures to attach the other castle yadda yadda yadda.... I was having a great time but kept losing! No matter what I kept dying. I hated the game! One more turn. One more turn. Then it clicked. This game is one of the best ever. Look at me here. I am absolutely pissed off that this game got inside my head that badly. Ever since that moment this has been on of my all time faves! Now my kids love it too! This is truly a game for the ages. Play it. Then play HOMM3! Everything you love about 2 is 10 times better in 3!

Way back when this game was still new, a good friend introduced me to Heroes of Might and Magic 2. I'm very glad he did. I'm not saying that number Two is THE BEST in the series necessarily. The graphics in this version are very dated but the game mechanics don't change through the whole series. This is still a very good game. Even though I still have the disks, I'm going to buy the digital copy too. One aspect of this particular version does make it the best - it's in the music category. The music is just amazing in version two. The music changes on the adventure map depending on what type of terrain your Hero is standing on. Some of my favorites are the music from the Menue screen, Snow, Desert and probably my favorite of all is the Water terrain. Of course, all the castles have different music too. You can even select an "opera" version for the castles or turn that function off. If you are not familiar with this game, it is "turn based", so it's not a fast paced game, but it's filled with suspense. This is a very good intro to the series. I've played all of them and would recommend versions two, three and five. If I had only one game to play for the rest of my life, the Heroes of Might and Magic series (minus versions 4 and 6) would be the one I would pick. In my opinion, this is one of the best game series ever made.

Great strategy game, beautiful graphics for its time, very entertaining. Depending on what difficulty settings you choose it can be quite challenging. On Windows 7 runs with a few minor glitches, like occasional jerky movement and some audio synchronization errors. Not enough to spoil the experience, but noticeable for someone who played the game before on DOS-based systems.

For me, this is the best part of HOMM. Not very beautiful graphics. Probably not a perfect balance for multiplayer. But the playing process is energetic and swift. It keeps your attention, and you dont have time to feel tired. And more important - it is really variable. While in HOMM3 the effective way of development and war changes just a little from one type of castle to another, in HOMM2 you really have to change the way of thought.

At the price of 2€49 , even just for the soundtrack it is a complete bargain. And the game is cool, hard but cool (no nostlagia biased because I never played the heroes series as a child). I prefer the gameplay and the mechanics of episode 3, but I prefer the art style, the music, and the tone of the voice acting of this episode.(has french voices which sounds great) Just for any game of that era it is recommended to use a filter, and this game has the tools provided called graphic mode setup. It is in the advanced section "scaling engine" Choose 2xsai filter. It is the best way to enjoy those game that were played on screen between 14" to 17". Back in the days, these were not pixelated as people imagine. The way LCD screens display the image, and the fact that these are way bigger screens, therefore you have the same amount of pixel for a way bigger size and that's why it appeared "pixelated" 2xsai work like some anti aliasing, I always use this filter including for emulation of old consoles. It's a good way for the image to appear as detailed and smooth as it was intended back in the day.