Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

Times have changed. Now times are dark, greedy and mad. And such are the Games of our Times. But even in the middle of Chaos one can find the Fountain of True Life. A diamond. A Sun. A portal to the distant World filled with Beauty and Magic. Might and Magic. Games like this one have no age. It is like an ancient Book that you can read over and over and never read through to the end. The very existence of computer gaming industry itself is justified with existence of this Masterpiece. Buy it. In this case the money is worthless. The true Art is priceless.

I have played all of the Heroes of Might and Magic games and I love them all. They have the perfect recipe for strategy games and they continually tweak them with each iteration and have only gotten better (5 is amazing). However, HoMM2 holds a special place in my heart as my favorite of the series. First, it was the first game in the series I was introduced to and was my first turn-based strategy love. Second, I think I enjoy it most because it has more complexity than the first game yet not as much as later titles. I felt something was lost by adding too many new things to the game and I enjoyed the simplicity of the second one. I also like the graphics for their simplicity, they are beautiful and very expressive but don't try for more realism like later games in the series did. I think something was lost in that artistic process and those games look more drab for it (except for 5 which went to a more cartoonish look which brought back the colors and such). I highly recommend this entry in the series to anyone who is a fan of turn-based strategy games.

Okay I got my first PC on 1 Jan 1997 and near about that time, I got a pirated games CD that had original DOS version of this game. Sorry for being bad at that time, scarcely any legal game CDs were available in India and those cost a bomb back then. Anyway I had a black and white monitor back then. Still this game had me hooked so much that at first time I played it for three days with only the essential breaks. I remember one day I was playing at around 10 PM. My father was there reading something. After a while he left for sleep, telling me to do the same. I kept playing till 5 AM. He got up at time and asked me what was so special in that game that I had woken up so early to play it? I kept quiet else he would have blown his fuse. Over the last 26 years I have purchased many new desktops and laptops and first thing I did was check if this game worked on it or not. Same with the operating systems. Eventually I even played on virtual machine when OS didn't support the game. Thanks to GOG, now I have a legal copy which works even on Windows 11. I am still playing it. My advice is don't play this game if you want to have social life.

The TBS genre grew immensley since 1996 and there are so many more complex and varied games than HOMM2 (I highly recommend Endless Legend), so forget about strategy - the main reason why H2 is such a great game is, that it has a soul. The story-book like graphics, the tiny details (elaborate portraits of each hero, the hand-drawn animation of each unit on the battlefield, etc.), the unique town themes, the amazing soundtrack - they all make it such a memorable game. I've been playing it since I was a 12 year old kid in 1996, and it's still my favorite game ever. ----------------- Technical comparison to H3 for veteran players: Yes, Heroes 3 is bigger and has more of everything. But upon closer examination, there are things which H2 does better than H3: Towns are less self-sufficient (lower income, lower marketplace ratios) - encouraging the player to explore more and to take chances. Low tier units are not as disposable as in H3, making you to appreciate them more instead of treating them like cannon fodder. Ultimate artifacts effecting heroes instead of towns, again encouraging player to take action against stronger opponents instead of camping for longer periods of time. Factions are less balanced - encouraging the player to take different approaches instead of sticking to the same game plan in each playthrough. All in all, H2 is less formulaic, making it a better game in the long run imo. But all of that is just "nice to have" - again, as subjective as it sounds, H2 has a soul unlike any other.

I've played the Might and Magic series since my youth and this one by far is the best of them all. It has the best ai and the best difficulty selection of the entire series. It's the only one where you can specifically select the type of ai you want to use from expert to dunce. In other words they don't all have to be all alike and one can be more powerful than the others. You can mix and match. The selection of maps is excellent. So, you can play a quick game on a small map or a week long one on a largest map. This is by far my favorite one and I couldn't recommend anything else more except Master of Magic which is of course the best fantasy wargame ever made.