Best Heroes of Might & Magic game

[Malakal]

I was always very fond of IV but it was obviously very unfinished game with little content other than the great hero customization. Needed some balance too.

I own a legal copy of Crusaders of MM and it also was a fun little game, other than that the usual III and II are my favorites with a shout out to I for the vancian magic system and V for being a decent copy of III.

 

[Valky]

True, but I think HOTA, 5.5 and Succession Wars make changes that would have been made by NWC.

HOTA is as much of an expansion pack to the original game as WOG is. They removed heroes, artifacts, starting with removing skills now, and sculpted the entire game balance to be based around russian multiplayer tournaments. It's a fanfiction HoMM game that they want to make their own unique thing. They even encrypted their files and put DRM in the HD launcher to prevent every method there is of modding their mod.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

They even encrypted their files and put DRM in the HD launcher to prevent every method there is of modding their mod

Lmao whaaat

 

[Valky]

They even encrypted their files and put DRM in the HD launcher to prevent every method there is of modding their mod

Lmao whaaat

They also went after an ERA modder who was going to port HotA to the openly moddable platform for HoMM3 and got him to cease and desist his work in progress. VCMI has a supported HotA port that didn't get bullied into being halted but it is very out of date now, sounded like its existence pissed off the russian faggots.

 

[Olinser]

I think we can all agree at least that ALL Heroes games after 4 are dogshit (albeit different KINDS of dogshit), and that the likelihood of us ever getting a good Heroes game are effectively nonexistent.

Chalk it up to another series bought, used and thrown away like a discarded condom by shit companies like Ubisoft and EA.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

I think we can all agree at least that ALL Heroes games after 4 are dogshit (albeit different KINDS of dogshit), and that the likelihood of us ever getting a good Heroes game are effectively nonexistent.

Chalk it up to another series bought, used and thrown away like a discarded condom by shit companies like Ubisoft and EA.

I never got this argument. What's wrong with Tribes of the East?

 

[Malakal]

I think we can all agree at least that ALL Heroes games after 4 are dogshit (albeit different KINDS of dogshit), and that the likelihood of us ever getting a good Heroes game are effectively nonexistent.

Chalk it up to another series bought, used and thrown away like a discarded condom by shit companies like Ubisoft and EA.

As I previously posted V is ok, it is graphics improved III with some minor changes. It is not as good as II or III but not bad enough to excommunicate from the series.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

I think we can all agree at least that ALL Heroes games after 4 are dogshit (albeit different KINDS of dogshit), and that the likelihood of us ever getting a good Heroes game are effectively nonexistent.

Chalk it up to another series bought, used and thrown away like a discarded condom by shit companies like Ubisoft and EA.

As I previously posted V is ok, it is graphics improved III with some minor changes. It is not as good as II or III but not bad enough to excommunicate from the series.

I think it's definitely better than 4, 6 and 7.

 

[Alpan]

Heroes 3 is the best. Heroes 4 is different, and it's good, but it's not the best.

 

[Malakal]

Heroes 3 is the best. Heroes 4 is different, and it's good, but it's not the best.

4 could be great but its really really unfinished, if you have time read up on their development disaster. For what it was it is good.

 

[luj1]

I think Heroes is a special case where a game is not necessarily better or worse than the others.

You can compare the ones which use the same formula, such as H1-H3. Among them, H3 is the best.

H4 has its own approach and (like you said) may not necessarily be better or worse than the others, just different. I treat it as a fairly decent standalone.

I never played H5-H7 and don't know which was the best. They are all full-3D games I find disgusting.

 

[Farewell into the night]

I love the fact that in Homm1 and IV orcs are pigmens. Just like in old Dungeon and Dragons.

 

[AMG]

They're pigmen in all NWC HoMMs. It's kinda hard to see in 3 because of sprite resolution, but you can spot the snout if you enlarge it.
M&M 3 lemur orcs are cool in my book as well.

Orcs in M&M

 

[Farewell into the night]

They're pigmen in all NWC HoMMs. It's kinda hard to see in 3 because of sprite resolution, but you can spot the snout if you enlarge it.
M&M 3 lemur orcs are cool in my book as well.

Orcs in M&M

I need to replay Homm2, because I might be having some memory issues. Maybe that's why I don't like it, because I played it like 20+ years ago, haha.

 

[octavius]

They're pigmen in all NWC HoMMs. It's kinda hard to see in 3 because of sprite resolution, but you can spot the snout if you enlarge it.
M&M 3 lemur orcs are cool in my book as well.

Orcs in M&M

I like the MM1 and HoMM 1-2 versions best myself.

 

[Naraya]

I forgot how great the music is in HoM&M series:

Spoiler

 

[Silly Germans]

HoMM 5.5-TotE is good gameplay wise and has some decent mechanics like initiative, skill trees and faction specific skills. My only problem with it are the graphics and that they started the trend to homogenize factions. I really dislike the design around races. Like the dwarf town, the orc town, the dark elves town etc. That is really bland. I enjoyed the broader themed towns of the older titles a lot more. The new lore is also shit and designing factions around it sucks.

Rating wise i'd also go with HoMM3≈HoMM2 > HoMM5 > HoMM1 > HoMM4 >> the rest.

What happened to HoMM4 is a shame, since it shows a lot of potential but taking it as it is, i can't place it higher. With more polish and development time it might have been great. They really improved the character building part of the heroes and the skill system, that was great. But in the campaigns all you had to do was to level up your heroes for a bunch of maps and then steamroll everything with them. The towns were also lacking content. I didn't mind that you had to pick one creature building, but removing upgrades and lowering the overall creature levels to 4 sucked.

Has someone played HoMM 7 and can give a evaluation ?

 

[Lagi]

My only problem with it are the graphics and that they started the trend to homogenize factions. I really dislike the design around races. Like the dwarf town, the orc town, the dark elves town etc. That is really bland. I enjoyed the broader themed towns of the older titles a lot more. The new lore is also shit and designing factions around it sucks.

I like the bland races in 5. I find them more coherent. Creatures selection in 5 are the one most sensible (&generic) to me with some exceptions;

f.ex. dwarf instead lava dragon should have some machine - you know to be more bland as a race; also Thane as giant dwarf is like walking [rather teleporting] contradiction. ; if I were in charge of visual design I would give Berserkers 2h weapons - man I must hate innovations .

or Dungeon has 2x similar half naked chicks as unit, could add other fast monster as 2nd lvl - "Werewolf" ?; hydra is 5th level should be last instead of yet another "generic" dragon.

On the other hand inferno with all red colors and flame on every single units is boring, same is with green or violet hue of Necropolis.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I was tinkering with HoMM1 on Dosbox with nice SVGA graphics (I think) a while back and was surprised at how slick & polished it felt, and that was just the first entry. Things only got better from there. However, I'm just no good at this genre. There comes a point, usually around mid-game, where I just can't seem to keep up and end up hitting that wall.

 

[octavius]

I've found myself changing tactics a bit in HoMM 3 lately. I no longer upgrade Red and Green Dragons, 'cause that means I can no longer Resurrect them.

I'm also leaning more and more towards Expert Berserk as the go-to spell, since it makes otherwise impossible battles possible. Too bad Sacrifice is kind of incompatible with Resurrect. And even more bad that the AI seem to use Berserk only very rarely.

I think it would have been interesting to try the campaigns and my favourite maps with Fire Magic as the favoured magic skill and avoid Earth Magic like it was Eagle Eye. I think the maps would play quite differently.

 

[Citizen]

There comes a point, usually around mid-game, where I just can't seem to keep up and end up hitting that wall.

Just always expand agressively and never turtle, earlygame abuse hero chaining. Your goal is to smash people as early as possible most of the time, comes lategame you should be abusing your logistics specialists heroes and town portal (or dimension door if versus AI), or else it becomes a game of "catch that one last enemy stack running around the map"

 

[Silly Germans]

I just played a few rounds of HoMM3 and HoMM5.5 again and another aspect that puts the old titles ahead of the new ones is how fast they are to play. The 3d overland map slows down exploration by a large margin since everything is harder to recognize and it is difficult to judge how much movement points will be used. Combat also takes too long in the new titles. The animations are to slow and often have pointlessly long transitions. The original titles just feel a lot "smoother" to play overall.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I never understood why they dropped the I-III map point of view just like that. And it was done by the original devs before the 3d cancer hit. It was one of the most characteristic features of the series and a huge part of its charm.

 

[Naraya]

I never understood why they dropped the I-III map point of view just like that. And it was done by the original devs before the 3d cancer hit. It was one of the most characteristic features of the series and a huge part of its charm.

Fully agree with your point of view. Still, I really liked the art style in IV but couldn't stand it in V and beyond. I hated it so much that it was the main reason I never played anything above IV even though I'm a big fan of the series since HoM&M I (and King's Bounty before that).

 

[Thac0]

ITT: Graphicwhores complaining about Heroes V purely on a visual or aesthetical level without ever having played the game. A tad ironic isnt it?