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If they make too many more of these games, they’re going to be contenders with Enix for “Fantasy RPG with too many Roman numerals.” I am of course, talking about…
The Might & Magic Series is certainly a mixed bag. Wrapped in this somewhat underrepresented franchise are first-person RPGs, take-turn fantasy army raising simulators, puzzle-strategy army simulators, grid-based RPGs and party-based open world RPGs. Say what you will, the franchise has brought many-a-title to the gaming world and have tried many different things. Until…
HEROES OF MIGHT & MAGIC V – Tier 3
No… no… the return of they tyrant! The terrible! The horrible! Its–!
Ubisoft. You Ubisoft-ed it. Hard. You Ubisoftballed the safest, round corner lowest common denominator game you could didn’t you? This is Ubisoft-served. So mushy that it’s formless. Can’t say I’m that surprised. Ubisoft’s got an ubersoft-spot for doing this. They could have at least Ubisoftend the blow for us by putting “For ages 3 and up” on the game’s cover. All I have to say is that they better tread Ubisoftly after this, because I think I’m with Lepcis, I’m not sure that I’ll be buying anything from them again anytime soon. Ubisoft.
This game shares many bad traits in common with Might & Magic X – Legacy. Whatever B-team Ubisoft has running the newer MM games (Dark Messiah notwithstanding) clearly does not give a crap. This game is just boring. Don’t ask me how you do that when you’ve got a world filled with magic and monsters–but it is straight up dull. If you know anything about the Heroes of MM games, it’s all about building up an army, exploring the map and souping up your hero-units with some lightweight other-screen sim-city mechanics thrown in for good measure. In spite of the game being originally released in 1999, I was felt like Heroes of MM III was a genuinely strong title–far too time-consuming, but I could see why it saw an HD remake. This game though…? Just, why?
The opening cinematic starts off with a plodding tale about the marriage of two characters we don’t know, we don’t empathize with and who we don’t care if they exist or not. The blonde meat-head fights a giant demon who turns invisible because the animation department didn’t know how to make him move. Immediately after this demon appears, the “King” I guess or whatever he is, decides to fight this thing off single-handedly in a slow and dull combat while the ENTIRE ROOM THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY FULL OF GUARDS vanishes. I mean, literally there one moment, then after about 2 seconds of panic and screams, this place is a ghost-town. It just feels stupid. This guy basically has “MARTYR” “SACRIFICE” and “DO YOU GET IT, I’M GOING TO DIE” all stapled to his face at the same time and we’re supposed to care about it for some reason. Admittedly, III also had quite a lengthy cinematic–but it featured exciting flashbacks to battles that you would soon be able to recreate when you began playing the game. V just drags on and its only purpose is to say, “Hey look. That queen’s husband just died. You’re playing as her.”
If you didn’t get enough action to start it all off with though, don’t worry–there’s more! Who could say no to another equally grueling cut scene, but this time using in-game low-res models at a pace that makes the cutscenes in Xenosaga feel brief. What’s worse is that it’s clearly just the game-engine running through some scripted moves–the two armies that are “fighting” simply take turns swatting back and forth at each other. I think the designers were trying to say, “Hey, look at these cool monsters and units! You’ll get to use these at some point!” but the whole thing just feels dull. Similar to Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, there’s just way too many story cutscenes about stuff we just don’t care about and not enough hands-off that let’s the player actually play.
Here’s a kicker as well. I’m not convinced that I’m the good guy in this game. Adopting the avatar of some queen trying to raise an army, she visits peasants to get them to join here side. See those peasants above? They didn’t want to join her for a couple reasons. 1. We were on their land. 2. They thought joining the army was suicide (and they were probably right given that they had no military training). 3. They didn’t want to hand over their gold for no reason. Do you know what our grand and noble queen does? Kills them. Literally, kills them in cold blood. And then naturally, you’re going to take the gold afterwards. Just–what!?!? How are we not the villain? This is the tutorial battle! I hate to see what horrors await further down the campaign.
Combat isn’t any different either–there’s just more squares on the grid of war to play around with. Click your things into their things to do the things. If you had enough things to do the things then you get the thing. Otherwise, just load your save file and don’t do that again. This is the kind of game that tricks 5-year-olds into thinking that they’re doing something grand when really the strategy is either “have more stuff” or “abuse the fact that the AI is dumb by fighting all of their units one at a time with your entire army.” I think I would be okay with this (after all, the third game was like this) but the game is so damn hand-holdy.
Everything has to be told through cinematic. Cinematics are nothing more than floating heads talking. Everything on the map has to be explained through popup windows. You are always kept on a leash. This is the biggest reason for putting it in Tier 3 for me. HoMM III was essentially the same game, but it just dropped you into the middle of everything right from the get-go because they trusted that you were a human being with the brain power to at least breath and move a mouse at the same time. Anything you needed more info about could be right-clicked. Other than that, it was up to you to hire your heroes from a random pool, build your armies the way you saw fit and explore and discover the map at your own pace. That was where the fun came from–discovery of the new. This game just feels like shuffling along from one scripted encounter to the next with little impression of player influence. Both games are a waste of time to some extend, but if I’m going to waste my time I’d rather choose the title that doesn’t make me feel like I’m a kid at the babysitter’s again.
Morality is relative!
HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC V: HAMMERS OF FATE – Tier 3
You are now entering the VALLEY of FIRE. BLUE WIZARD has obtained the THUNDER HAMMER. Pfft. I wish. No, we’re just playing…
More missions, more units. Another story strenuously focused on a female warrior whose armor painfully cups her buttocks. If you liked the crushing mind-numbing nature of V, you’ll love the expansion. If not, just move along. You’ve probably got better things to do.
HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC V: TRIBES OF THE EAST – Tier 3
Ubisoft has that one note and they hit it on every single one of their games, don’t they?
Yeah, I’m just… done here. It’s just more of the same and I’m convinced at this point that this game is all about tricking its players into thinking that what’s going on is cool rather than actually being cool. That and I’m getting a very “cartoony World-of-Warcraftian” look to things… and I don’t have to many nice things to say about that franchise either.