Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 Bundle includes Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 and its two expansions: Tribes of the East and Hammers of Fate.
Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 is a turn-based strategy game in which you can build cities and besiege them, train troops and slaughter them, and explore new lands...
Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 Bundle includes Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 and its two expansions: Tribes of the East and Hammers of Fate.
Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 is a turn-based strategy game in which you can build cities and besiege them, train troops and slaughter them, and explore new lands – and crush them under your iron heel. You directly command your armies on the battlefield and aid them with your character’s abilities as well as your own strategy skills. With six unique factions to choose from, each with its own set of buildings and creatures, Heroes of Might and Magic® 5 provides gamers with the strategy and detailed graphics that the series has been known for. As you progress through the game your character gains levels of experience that allow him to learn new spells and abilities. All this is set in the magical and enchanting setting of the legendary Might and Magic® universe.
The game is the last decent position in the series. It's based on the Heroes 3, but has vastly improved hero development and more unique creature abilities. Otherwise it is worse than the famous predecessor:
1) 3D graphics is less readable and also less attractive
2) there is much less content available (maps!)
3) the music is ok, but it's disappointing when compared to previous games
4) gameplay is artificially slowed down compared to the previous games.
5) it lost the might and magic feeling
Being a long-time fan of the series and having played all of the previous HOMM games, often over and over again (I think I've had HOMM3 installed on all the computers I ever owned), I grabbed this game shortly after it was released. As others have mentioned, after the disappointment that HOMM4 was, playing HOMM5 felt like getting back to the good old gameplay we saw developing through HOMM1 and 2 and perfected in HOMM3. I'm not saying that HOMM5 is flawless, but as far as game mechanics go, it feels very much like HOMM3 that we learnt to know and love, with some minor changes on the sides - for some those might be improvements, for some they may not be such a great idea, but most of the time they don't affect your gameplay very much and I felt the new and the old was fairly well balanced and put together.
The only thing HOMM5 is really lacking is good storytelling - I used to enjoy the stories behind campaigns and different factions with their respective agendas almost as much as I enjoyed the actual game. This is hardly the case with HOMM5. The story is fairly linear and not very captivating, you don't get much of an insight into the history/mythology of the world, and the cutscenes you are presented with are just butt-ugly.
So with all that said, if you are looking for a captivating story and characters you can identify with, go and find a good book to read. If you are looking for a clone of HOMM3, you may end up annoyed and/or disappointed by HOMM5 like other reviewers here seem to be. But if you are looking for a good successor to the HOMM series which can give you almost as many hours as gameplay as the HOMM3 did, and you are willing to accept a few changes, HOMM5 should be on the top of your list.
Actually, having seen it here, I think I'm going to install it now and have a rerun of the whole game...
I never understood all the bad reviews for this game. I've played them all and this one is my fav of the bunch, mostly. HOMM3 has a much better random map generator, along with a decent map editor, which I do appreciate. But I must say that I also appreciate the updated graphics in 3D that HOMM5 has to offer. It is actually quite good looking for a 3D game of its era, and holds up quite well today. The game play is very similar to HOMM3, with some improvements. I might also add that this is a strategy game, not a RPG, and this nonsense of critiquing the story line is just silly. I personally prefer strategy games, where I can knock out a skirmish in a couple of hours, when I have the time. I don't worry too much about the story, its kill or get killed. I've bought and played just about every strategy game I could get my hands on, both RTS and turn based, and the HOMM series is tops in my book. I like them all, even HOMM4, but it is not my favorite of the bunch.
First, I'm a strategy lover. I'm good at playing chess and I played a lot on all of HOMM 1-5 and reasearched a lot on the strategy of these 5 versions. If you talk about strategic and game balance, HOMM5 is the best among 1 to 5.
A lot of people insist that 3 is their childhood memory and so it's the best. I'll say 3 is vary classical, indeed, but it have too many defects on the rules of the game. For example, the Dimention Door spell in 3 can make your heroes move wherever you want on the map as long as you have enough mana, or other unballanced things like this makes it unfair when you play against other human players. However, in 5, all these defects have been fixed in a reasonablly way. 5 is good.
