by Hang on… am I playing American Fire Emblem? Oh wait, it’s Heroes of Might & Magic.
As I said in an earlier review, I hadn’t played a single Might & magic game until about a year ago, when I marathoned Might & Magic VI. That didn’t stop me from hearing this mysterious Might & Magic franchise over and over again when I was a kid. I never could quite figure out what the games were about based on snippets of what I heard other people say. The only thing I could tell is that they had monsters and magic or something. I think I understand why–the MM series encompasses so many different kinds of games that I there doesn’t seem to be a single genre that’s outside this franchise’s reach. First-Person RPGs, First-Person Party-Based RPGs, First-Person Grid-Based RPGs, Puzzle-Matching Tactics games–and now, a Warcraft, Civilization, Fire Emblem-esque RPG adventure hybrid called “Heroes of Might & Magic III.”
HoMM III is a fantastically detailed micro-world of mythical creatures, powerful treasures and vast landscapes. The goal, as far as I can tell, is to move your heroes around the map gathering treasure and recruiting an army until you clash with the opposing kingdom that waits for you on the other side. Heck, I can’t even say that the Kingdom waits for you–I clearly saw some strange demonic creature riding around the map, investigating treasures and capturing buildings the same as me, so I guess the enemy has the same tools as you do to fight against you. I say “as far as I can tell” though, since in spite of playing the game for 2 hours I’m about halfway finished with the first level of one of the 5 campaigns. It’s clear that this game is long, and would require a pretty heavy time investment to figure out what else goes in within the game.
The game may seem confusing at first, but every single thing you can left-click on can also be right-clicked to get a description of what it does mechanically, meaning that with a bit of reading you’ll be adventuring into the unknown in no time at all. I’m impressed that a game so detailed was built so clearly that I actually could learn this quickly in spite of the myriad of facets to the game play. On the one hand, it’s like Civilization in that you build up your city, building various structures within its walls. It’s also a resource management game, as you’ll need to find or capture a variety of materials in order to produce useful buildings. On the other hand, it’s a fog-of-war exploration game, with the need to venture out into the unknown and discover spells, upgrades and artifacts. Further still, it’s a hexagonal army-based take-turn combat game, requiring tactical use of spells and, of course, the army. It’s also a party-generated RPG in that you recruit heroes from a random pool at the tavern, each with a different class and set of skills who in turn level up with each victory to acquire more talent. In spite of all these pieces, they fit together seamlessly and create a rather pleasant experience.
The game is not without faults though. It’s a bit sluggish at times so you’ll need to be patient. For example–some battles are very interesting. Other battles, you know you’ve won, but it takes another minute for the fight to play itself out. Another instance is troop recruiting; you need to wait a week before getting more soldiers in a town, which can lead to a hero just waiting around in a city for the week to end. Mechanically, these choices are sound–you’ll just need to take it slow. Another point of conention I have against the game are the powerups. While technically it would be my choice to do so, I can’t help but feel annoyed that I must have each hero visit all of the non-expendable treasures in order to get their permanent bonus. Once again, this is a mechanically sound point of the game. Maybe it’s just my own obsession, but I’m constantly worried that I forgot to have a hero visit one the powerups and I’ll have permanently missed a stat boost. Lastly, the game feels a bit like walking into a dark room at times. Since I have no knowledge of what my units do, what the map looks like or how strong an opponent may be that, to a degree, I simply just move around and click on things until something happens. I don’t really deserve to win, nor do I deserve the treasures I keep picking up–I don’t know enough about what’s going on to actually claim these victories entirely as my own. It’s possible that with time and familiarity of the game I would begin to develop a strategy or a technique but even after 2 hours I was just hoarding treasures and powerups because the game was nice enough to give them to me, not because I had earned them.
Oh. And there are boats. They’re a lot of fun.
HoMM III really shows me why I kept hearing about the MM series. For a game this old to have received a 2014 HD remake and for it to be this fun even today makes me feel like this must have been the Zenith of the MM series. I’m placing it in Tier 2 but only because it is my preference to play a game with a bit more challenge and a bit less of a time investment. HoMM is a fantastic game and I strongly recommend trying it out. It would be a perfect fit if I have a sleepy day off in the future and nothing else to do.
