Heroes of Might and Magic

Despite being aware only very specific groups of people actually consider the games in this series popular, I am nonetheless surprised we don't have a thread regarding it yet.

Oh well, here's your place to talk about the most culturally-significant turn-based strategy game in Eastern Europe.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 11:31:17 AM

I think everyone considers the third entry to be popular. It's just that in most places, people moved on, and that wasn't helped by the, erm, direction the series took under Ubi.

For what it's worth I think HOMM 3 is still one of the best strategy games ever created and that with a few graphic tweaks it is absolutely still playable and enjoyable today.

Edited by Bexlerfu on May 3rd 2022 at 9:06:31 PM

My first game in the series was the fifth, a long long time ago. I stopped playing because the game wouldn't progress past a certain point in the expansion, glitching out at the halfway point of a mission. I never tried just restarting the mission for some reason. >_>

After watching a Spiffing Brit video, I got in the mood to try the series again, and since I had bought it on Go G, I decided to start from game 1.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well even the first game held up, despite the... Aged graphics and visual design. Solid gameplay, incredibly charming game feel (the art direction reminds me of old European comic books), lovely music... Outside of a few problems in combat, some bullshit hard missions, and some questionable menu choices (who had the bright idea to make faction selection random for the single map scenarios?) I have to say that it absolutely stands the test of time.

Edited by Resileafs on May 3rd 2022 at 3:23:49 PM

I agree that the 3rd game aged really well (despite being quite buggy), and I play it from time to time. So yeah, despite neither being an 80s or 90s European kid, I can say that it is one of my defining games.

Though, I believe the 3rd game elitism is a bit too rampant, and I happen to be one of those complete weirdos who unironically like the 4th game better.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 12:14:53 PM

I am a Necropolis fan through and through, and I can't forgive 4 for merging Necropolis and Inferno. It's a cardinal sin for me. I also think the artistic direction was a bit all over the place while 3 and especially 5 (with artworks from Olivier Ledroit!) were much more consistent in that regard.

But it's still a very decent game. I just think it has the worst balance between all factions, and the "pick one creature OR the other" was a very frustrating mechanic. 5's expacs had the right idea with the alternate improvements for all units.

Edited by Bexlerfu on May 3rd 2022 at 9:21:41 PM

What I would like to note about 4 is that there seem to be TONS of parallels to Magic: The Gathering, which the creators probably didn't intend.

I mean, just look at all the magic types and TRY not to compare them to the Color Wheel.

HOMM 3 is among my top-three favourite fantasy games from growing up, along with Warcraft II and Icewind Dale. These three games had such an impact on me that they pretty much define what type of aesthetics I associate with fantasy as a genre. Before seeing the Lord of the Rings in cinemas, whenever I read the books I had a picture in my head reminiscent of all three games.

Though, I'm still wondering how on earth is this such a popular game in Poland, Russia, and the like, and practically nowhere else, at least from what I know.

1. You can make it run on basically everything without issue.

2. Turn by turn means you can play it (even online) without having to worry about internet performance or PC performance.

3. It has a super easy map creation tool, meaning that you get an almost infinite number of hours with that game only.

I wasn't questioning its popularity, moreso its populartity in very specific places.

Well, those specific places probably had difficulties getting state of the art computers at the time the third HOMM was released, and people had on average more limited monetary resources than in the West.

So a game that works easily, without requiring powerful setups, and that you can easily play for hundreds or thousands of hours without getting bored (with your friends too) was bound to be more popular in the East. In the West, it was easier to replace it with shinier toys.

Which is a shame. The entire Heroes series aged mostly very well.

Yes and no. All games after 3 had one or several rather glaring flaws that explains why they did not succeed as much.

4 had questionable design, and huge balance issues, plus its battlefield was hard to understand - way more than the hexagons of 3, it was hard to actually see how far a unit could go. Also, 5 units in an army because of the choices. And only 6 factions.

5 was very much inspired by 3, but the writing in the campaign was sometimes very much on the "not good" side (one of the heroines was incredibly dumb - Isabel I think?). The 3D, while pretty, did not bring much. The maps were often more confusing than it was back in 3 because of this. And the battlefield was still smaller, especially with the four-tile units. Plus, the abilities of the various heroes led to other balancing issues, as some became ungodly powerful later on (while others didn't...).

6 was just so slooooooooooow. I remember spending several hours for every single map of the campaign. The writing was interesting, and I loved that for once we could play the Necropolis without being an utter bastard (Anastasia & her auntie were the best), but it felt like everything took forever. Also, a gigantic issue: 5 factions at release. It became obvious the devs were planning to sell the extra ones in DLC.

I haven't tried 7, so I won't comment, but it's quite understandable why to this day, 3 is the most loved entry in the series. It is a very generous game, it is very easy to get into, but also quite deep, the writing is fantastic - all campaigns involving Sandro and/or Crag Hack are hilarious - and it runs on a calculator. What's not to love?

Edited by Bexlerfu on May 3rd 2022 at 12:57:43 PM

Currently, I'm waiting to see when the HOTA team will drop Factory, and how it will shake things up. We've no ETA on it, unfortunately, but I highly recommend the current HOTA to smooth out the HOMM 3 experience.

I honestly see the additon of Factory as questionable, but not for the reasons most might think. I like when fantasy isn't conventional. I like to see things when they are different from the basic format which most HOMM fans revere in, and that is one of the reasons why I kinda like the 4th game.

The problem I have with Factory is that it kinda ruins my perception of the factions in the game. I always thought of the Tower as the technological faction, with all the alchemist heroes, gargoyles, golems (which in 4 are essentially machines), the Skyship, and other forms of Magitek, and Factory takes that flavor-adding element and makes it a bit pointless.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 5:44:32 AM

Just think of it as an actual mechanical faction with cogs and all. Tower is basically "build something, and breathe magic in it to make it move".

So, basically Tower is to become discount Dalaran? Count me out, no offense.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 9:05:11 AM

Oooohhh nooo. If the Forge Town is really based on Might and Magic Ancient technology, it's so much more than clockwork.

We're talking full on high science fiction here. Energy blaster weapons, supercomputers, superpowered androids including the Angels from HOMM I~IV — they are actually hunter-killer androids built by the Ancients to destroy the Kreegans., etc.

Ancient technology is seriously heavy stuff. They literally built the worlds upon which most of the games take place.

Edited by M84 on May 3rd 2022 at 11:55:27 PM

We are talking about the addition of Factory in HOTA, not Forge that has been cut from AB.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 9:00:28 AM

Oh that one.

Factory seems less clockwork tech despite the name and the fact that one of the units is apparently a robot.

Rather, it represents a balance between nature and industry. That's why you've got several units that are humanoids who use advanced weaponry like grenades and rifles and a heat beam, and other units that are fierce wasteland monsters like sandworms.

Edited by M84 on May 4th 2022 at 12:10:02 AM

Still, I don't know how to feel about dethroning Tower from its "Magitek faction" status.

Plus, as one of those weirdos who likes the 4th game, I like that they expanded upon that concept in the Academy faction, by combining Tower's creatures with impressive machinery, like the Dragon Golem.

see my elaboration several posts above.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 9:19:12 AM

Factory is less Magitek and more Fallout.

The point is that while the Tower / Academy represents magical technology and innovation at its peak, the Factory represents people eking out a living in the wastelands with cobbled together weapons and by taming the fierce local wildlife.

The schizo-tech of this setting is always wild to hear about.

I don't see why there can't be multiple magitek factions...