.

[sigard]

.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I think 4 is at least worth trying for the novelty factor. If you don't like it, drop it. It has numerous flaws but ultimately I enjoyed it.

5 otoh I just can't recommend any way I look at it, each time I tried it, it bored me to tears. I also still get nightmares when I think of the rampart doomstacks of druids and rangers.

Some people may tell you to skip the H5 OC and go straight to Tribes of the East, but having tried that as well, it was just as boring as the OC to me.

 

[bionicman]

Play king's bounty instead!

 

[Darth Roxor]

Play king's bounty instead!

speaking of 'bored me to tears'...

 

[luj1]

Heroes 4 is better than 5

 

[luj1]

Heroes 3 > Heroes 2 >>> Heroes 4 >>>>>>>>>> any other 3D Heroes game

 

[Darth Canoli]

I found HoMM V quite good, particularly the necro campaign, knight campaign was good, elven one quite dull and I didn't complete it.

If you want to play a necromancer, it might be just the game, Necro mechanism from previous titles were improved and you can now summon higher level creatures depending on the creatures you killed, there's also a resurrection energy pool which replenishes every week.

 

[Hobo Elf]

HoMM5 is just so very slow. I'm not even talking about the turn timers, just the pacing of the game itself. Neutral armies have bloated unit stacks right from the get go so each fight is just you turtling in a corner with your ranged unit while you have small stacks of mook surround them, or you can just pass on a few turns until you unlock higher tier units and finally get to conquering the map. I think the game refines on HoMM3's mechanics quite some bit and it does have a good game buried underneath it, it's just that there are many little things that harm the pacing and combined together it just feels like the game plays slower than it should given its tactical and strategic depth not being super high.

 

[jackofshadows]

Homm 5 isn't bad per se, especially that 5.5 mod which speeds up stuff among other things but the OC is just awfully boring. Tho I'm not a fan of most campains in heroes games to be honest.

When people say homm 3 is the king you need to be aware that there're many versions, including tournament one (not that anyone plays it around here I think), 3.5 thing and also horn of the abyss mod, over which some people just cannot stop jizzing (haven't tried it myself yet but even the fact Romero himself wrote something for it iirc tells a lot).

Shame you didn't like homm 4 initially tho art style does suck there but what I love about that game is stuff you can do unlike in any other installment with solo heroes especially stealthy ones.

 

[catfood]

Don't be a HoMMo. Play Age of Wonders instead.

 

[luj1]

To give you a better idea I'll list some of the features of 4 from the top of ma head:
- daily growth of creatures
- some buildings can't be build if you build something instead
- no unit upgrades
- heroes now fight on the battlefield like a creature
- new hero skill system, over 40 hero classes
- it's kind of Magic of the Gathering way
- you can have movable creatures on map
- you can make armies without heroes
- you can make hero only armies
- you can appoint heroes to give city a bonus
- 6 towns
- towns are mixed now, for example inferno and necropolis are now one city
- sieges play different now
- isometric view
- maps look less readable
- not so smart AI
- cool soundtrack

It's pretty fun game, especially hero leveling

let me add,

- 3D perspective on the adventure map and battlefield
- heroes now take part in battles
- six towns with standardised graphic layout
- no more creature upgrades
- requirement to select between creature dwellings
- potions
- heroes of the same type are identical
- different primary and secondary skills system
- more spellcasters among creatures
- schools of magic aligned with towns
- creatures can walk on the map without heroes


a little dumbed down but still fun and reasonably innovative

 

[luj1]

So far huge decline from homm3, will try again tommorow but so far i think i will skip this game.

after the initial disappointment in 2004, I began to view it as standalone... its fun in its own way

Sometimes I feel an itch to play H4,
its a different itch from wanting to play H3

also there is 1 thing H4 does better than H3 and that is terrain music (town music is stil better in H3)

And hero multiclassing is super cool and gives special powers.Havent seen a similar system used anywhere else

 

[smaug]

HoMM2 has the best music, 3 is right afterward with a nice change of style. 4’s music is like a more uninspired version of 2’s but still good.

 

[Darkozric]

H4 it's not a huge decline, and if you compare it with today's garbage it feels Godly. I especially enjoy the fact that you could transfer armies without a hero but I didn't like the merge between inferno and necropolis.
Also I agree with luj1, H4 has the best terrain themes.

 

[Jaedar]

I like 5, but the AI is slow as hell, so I don't think I'd like to play it now. Never really liked 4.

 

[spectre]

The battlefield view in H4 pretty much killed all enjoyment of the game. It's both fugly and hard to read and the units look like ass.
Though it did try to innovate (perhaps too much) and iirc had way better campaigns straight off the bat.
So, if you're a storyfag, you may look past its flaws.

Mechanically speaking, H5 was an attempt to make a H3+, curbing some of the cheese (magic, necromancy), not trying to reinvent the wheel entirely,
but trying to catch a middle ground between innovation and feeling right at home. So, theoretically, if you liked H3, this should feel right at home.
However, the game lost the smoothness. The 3D view is at least partially to blame for this.
Sadly, the style also seems to have caught the warcraft cancer.

I remember the original campaign was meh. It's worth giving it a go with community mods and expansions.

A bit of context is important to understand why these games were received the way they were.
After two really, really solid offerings in the series, H4 felt like a slap to the face for a lot of fans, because it simply felt like a knock-off.
I remember myself thinking: ok what the fuck is this shit?

So yeah, nobody had any hope for Nival, especially that NWC and 3DO were no more, but they really tried to bounce back on track with V.

 

[Utfärd]

They're shit.

 

[octavius]

I recently completed all campaigns in homm3 + ab + sod and now i thinking about trying next homm games.

You should try some of the user made maps for HoMM 3. The best of them are far better than any of the official maps and campaigns.

 

[Thac0]

Throwing another vote in for Homm4 = very weird but kinda interesting and Homm5 = extremely good with Tribes of the East expac

 

[Darkozric]

H3 is still the best, but you can't reproduce the same game every 2-3 years, milking the cow because you had a hit is retarded and boring. In H4 they had the balls and tried to innovate things. I respect that.

And yes, with innovation also comes disappointment, some things worked some not. Also I don't get the butthurt about the isometric camera. Sure it looked weird at first but you get used to it pretty easily.

Personally my brain is trained to accept any kind of isometric perspective. As for H5, I never gave a fuck and never will.

For me the Heroes series died after H4.

 

[Carceri]

 

[JarlFrank]

I find H4 extremely beautiful, both visually and musically. Except for the town screens, those look like shit compared to earlier games.

H5, while mechanically pretty good, is aesthetically pretty bad. Everything is too bright to the point of hurting my eyes, and way too cartoony, makes it feel more like Warcraft 3 than HoMM.

 

[Darkozric]

 

[gruntar]

I recommend playing H4 OC campaigns, especially "Half-Dead". It has great story and missions are well designed and challenging. Best campaign experience I had in Heroes series.

 

[Brancaleone]

I find H4 extremely beautiful, both visually and musically. Except for the town screens, those look like shit compared to earlier games.

H5, while mechanically pretty good, is aesthetically pretty bad. Everything is too bright to the point of hurting my eyes, and way too cartoony, makes it feel more like Warcraft 3 than HoMM.

H5 is a strange mix: they went overtly cartoonish with the aesthetics, but far too serious thematically (especially with the elements ripped off Warhammer). Neither the overboard WoW style, nor the loss of the campy quality is appropriate to a HoMM game, and needless to say the combination of these two elements clashes incredibly, it really has an uncanny effect. To take it to the extreme, it's a clownish makeover applied to grimdark units.

In H4 everything seems sculpted in Play-Doh though.