Heroes of Might and Magic - In-depth Written DOS Review With Pics
Heroes of Might and MagicA Strategic Quest
MS-DOS, 1995
New World Computing
$69.95
*Alphabetical list of writings
*Game played/shown on DOS/CRT hardware, original 4:3 aspect ratio
*Game played/shown on DOS/CRT hardware, original 4:3 aspect ratio
Sometimes it takes but a name change. At times I've wondered why certain European games received rehashed titles in America. Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix became World Circuit here, Another World adjusted to Out of this World. In the case of World Circuit, this meant adjustments to all 168 pages of the manual, though often the biggest changes were just in the games title screen. Successful in both territories, how is one to judge if these minor alterations held any impact?
On the other hand, it's easier to discern when something fails. 1990 saw the release of a unique strategy and role playing hybrid from New World Computing called King's Bounty. Reviewers of the era appeared befuddled by the game, some unable to place the genre in which it belonged to. While few seemed to outright dislike it, the nicest of praise turned out to be rather lackluster. With the passing of five years much of that titles essence would come together again, winning multiple game of the year awards, placement on a best games of all time list, and even a few praising (in retrospect) King's Bounty, which it had been based on.
Award winning role playing games since 1986, the Might and Magic series appeared to be at a standstill after the 1993 release of the fifth game Darkside of Xeen concluded the main characters story arcs. While New World had success with titles beyond Might and Magic, perhaps the relative failure of King's Bounty prompted them to associate this new product featuring similar mechanics with their more acclaimed works. Had the features fundamentally upgraded to such heights as to stand on its own, leaving King's Bounty in the dust? Could there there have been a backlash to the flood of your typical real-time strategy and role playing games of the mid 90's which caused this title to receive a more serious look compared to an early time? Perhaps that entire time it was simply all in the name. Regardless of the reasons, Heroes of Might and Magic would become a critical and commercial success which continues to spawn new sequels.
^Starting the first scenario
Other than sharing a namesake, this installment of Heroes of Might and Magic frankly has nothing to do with the Might and Magic series. Clearly the name was attached to receive attention, and unfortunately it would continue to be done for many other games which had nothing to do with its original franchise (Crusaders of Might and Magic, Legends of Might and Magic/etc). Not to say fans of the Might and Magic games won't enjoy their time here, they certainly can. Like Might and Magic, Heroes takes place in a medieval fantasy setting and sets you on a series of quests. While largely a game of strategy, it nevertheless features various role playing elements such as gaining experience through combat, while the creatures you face are common to the Might and Magic series as well as most fantasy games.
But if you're looking for plot connections to Might and Magic, you're not going to find them in Heroes, at least not until later installments. While there are several character names and portraits which may ring a bell, such as Crodo, Maximus, and Alamar, as far as I'm concerned these are mere easter-eggs to fans, as none of these characters have any story attached to them. Future titles in the Might and Magic saga would incorporate characters and settings from the Heroes games, bringing a wonderful connection for fans of both lines, though the Heroes titles themselves would largely continue to ignore the Might and Magic saga.
I imagine my father originally bought Heroes 2 because of his appreciation for the first two Might and Magic games. I can recall being excited to peer in on him playing, a big fan of Might and Magic Book Two myself. I was not disappointed in what I found in the Heroes titles. Neither was my father, who bought the third Heroes game when it came out, then the expansions, and even the strategy guide. Still I wonder if our acceptance had more to do with how much the sequels expanded upon this games role playing and story elements, which have not been incorporated as well in this first installment.
^Gold, experience, combat
The story is the only element I genuinely do not like in Heroes. In-game it's practically non existent, save for a paragraph of text at the beginning and end of a given scenario. I can summarize most of the campaigns scenarios by saying that you've established a foothold in the lands, but you must topple the lords in the surrounding area. Upon achieving that goal those lords will be said to have scattered and fled their castles, though the next scenario will conveniently have them finding more. You're to set forth and accomplish the exact same task the next time around!
The campaign mode is poorly implemented, being mostly a series of individual maps that you just happen to play one after another. In addition to the eight maps in the campaign, there are numerous stand-alone scenarios you can start from the main menu. The manual provides around fifteen pages of story, though largely told as an in-universe way to explain gameplay mechanics. You'll read along as Lord Ironfist finds his way through a new land and encounters a town of barbarians, where he finds the mighty cyclops. Take forth the lesson that while a paladin is a mighty warrior, he becomes burnt toast when facing a dragon from the warlock town. The mechanics talk is quite cringe, but any actual story arc is almost soul crushing as a fan of later titles.
Why is this Lord Ironfist finding his way through this strange land in the first place? Well, he's on the run after a would be plot to murder his lands king failed. The assassin he hired was captured, his arms torn off, and Ironfist named as the one who paid him! Fleeing like a coward, a portal took him to this strange land, and these letters he writes is meant as an apology to get back in the good graces of the king he tried to usurp. Once he becomes powerful in this land his tone changes, and he becomes mad with rage, admitting he was responsible for the attack on the kings life and hoping someday to come back and finish the job. The next game would start with you choosing which of Lord Ironfist's children to side with, either the "good, kind, and honorable" Roland, or the "not so good" Archibald. Perhaps Archibald was indeed not so good, but it turns out he's far more like his father than Roland was. This was not a story element I was fond of realizing myself.
^First scenario complete, buying and transferring troops
While abandoning story elements from the Might and Magic series itself, you'd still imagine the designers could have done that which they did so well in those games here; Crafting a truly enjoyable story, both in-game as well as in the manual. Unfortunately that's not the case in this original incarnation. However, the story is rarely an essential ingredient to a strategy game, and the strategy is where Heroes shines.
The main gameplay screen consists of an overland map view where friendly and enemy heroes travel via horseback in a turn based system. Only your immediate surroundings can be seen, and you fill in the map as you explore. Resource gathering along with town building are perhaps the biggest improvements to Heroes compared to King's Bounty. Various resources can be found sprinkled all over the map, while mines will provide a set amount of an individual resource per turn. They include gold, wood, ore, crystals, sulfur, gems, and mercury. Anything you buy requires gold, while most town structures are constructed with wood and ore. Specific structures or creatures may call for other resources as well, while the mage guild tends to consume a bit of everything.
Figuring out how you will prioritize is a hallmark of great strategy. When you find a chest in the overworld you're given a choice to put that money in the general fund, or to redistribute it to the people, thus increasing your experience. As a knight I recall usually choosing the experience, while as a warlock I almost always picked the gold. This is because the warlock town requires tons of gold quickly to keep relative pace with the others. They have the games mightiest creature, the dragon, who consequently features the steepest price in its construction. Wait too long to build up your resources as a warlock, and you'll be destroyed by the other heroes who long ago maxed out their strongholds. On the other hand the knight has the cheapest route to its top tiered creature, the paladin, who is also the weakest of those at that level. Thus a good strategy for the knight would be to forgo extra gold and have your heroes level up. Take as many of those cheaper creatures as you can, and head straight into the enemy before they can procure their best units. While I've heard others describe the playthrough of certain lords as an "easy" or "hard" mode, they are aptly for a strategy game, "different" mode.
^New scenario brings changes to the scenery
Things could have been even more different if certain scenarios had us starting with different lords, as future games would allow for. Through your eventual conquering of the land you'll gain access to other town types, but starting every single scenario with the same one does tend to get on the tedious side. As discussed earlier, the in-game story is practically non existent, so there's little reason to tie us down to a given lord, except to give the false impression of extra replayability. All of the challenge a particular hero offers could have been given to us in one single playthrough, and I would have preferred the game choosing that route.
Alleviating much of the pain with starting scenarios in the same manor are the maps themselves. Most of them feel lovingly crafted and unique. The second map was my favorite, where we find ourselves on an island and must take to the seas against a flock of enemies doing the same. Traveling via boat is much faster than on land, creating situations where the fog of war has an enemy hero appearing on the shore, while taking anchor upon your undefended lands. Another map has us attempting to ascertain the location of a buried artifact, a treasure hunt against our opponents. Later maps have us storming the homelands of the other lords, with each location fitted well for that lords personality.
Heroes is turn based, practically a relic for a game of any type in 1995, but relics sure do bode well against the backdrop of a fantasy realm! Take your time, soak it in, study, and micromanage. Spot a powerful enemy emerging from the blackness? Right click and gauge his armies strength. Decide if it's best to attack head on, or meet up with another hero to get reinforcements. Perhaps you'll flee from town, surrendering it just so they'll split their troops for a little divide and conquer! Careful though, once they gain access to a town of yours they'll be able to recruit any armies you failed to buy for themselves, and even upgrade the town to its top tiered creatures. But maybe that's what you wanted them to do the whole time? Turn based is for the thinker, and it was a travesty that so few games used it during this era. Real-time can also be wonderful, but it is not defacto "better", and I'm sure the success of this series going forward had a good deal to do with its choice of returning to a turns system.
^Searching for treasure, town siege
Combat takes place on a separate screen with an elevated look of your troops from the side. This is tactical in nature, and each stack have their own set of defense, strength, and movement ratings. Occupying your local ore mine may be a series of projectile slinging archers. Unless you have some fast troops, slogging your way toward the pelting arrows may incur heavy casualties on your end. Flying creatures will aid profoundly, as they soar and land where the archers are forced to engage in melee. Reversing the situation in the early game, hammer those peasants from afar with your own arrow users, skipping the turns of others to keep them out of the fray.
Delve into your arsenal of magic and cast slow or paralyze on enemies which fly. This will provide you time to surround your ranged fighters in order to protect them, as they are often the first choice of flight based creatures. Even weak monsters can be powerful in numbers, would it be best to lightning bolt a single stack? Or would you rather use an area of attack spell like fireball to spread the damage around? Maybe you'll teleport your tough but unbearably slow hydras so all of their heads can feast on the surrounding enemy. Enemy heroes complicate matters, blinding your best troops while blessing theirs. Siege attacks against castles add a wall for the defenders protection, as well as a special ranged attack once per round. Flying creatures can ignore the wall, unless all spaces are occupied by the enemy troops behind it. Eventually catapults will have the stone crumbling to the ground. Even regular battles may have obstacles like trees or large stones in the battle field, blocking in some and forcing others to circumvent these areas.
Your individual hero brings more to battles than just spells, which is where much of the game's role playing elements are found. Collecting chests gives you the option of gaining experience, as does successful combat. Eventually you gain a level, which will then increase one of that heroes attributes in a semi random nature. It feels as if a knight or barbarian is more likely to gain levels in their attack or defense skill, while a sorcerer or warlock tends to advance in knowledge or spell power, yet they will occasionally see increases in other areas as well. A knight may buy a spellbook to cast the armageddon spell in combat, but with no spell power behind them you'll only be destroying your own peasants. Get that attribute up to 9, and a meteor shower will cut deeply into the largest stacks of the game's most difficult creatures. With high attack and defense levels, you'll find yourself overcoming enemies with numbers on their side.
^Artifacts, over-world spells
I love this games combat system, and while many strategy games are wonderful in that area, role playing games rarely offered this kind of strategy (with the exception of the Gold Box titles). This was always odd to me, as combat has always featured prominent in role playing games, and is one of the features which separated the genre from adventure games. Why not give us a little more than hitting the "A" button to attack? I want multiple ways out of a situation, to use brute force if I've got it, but also impart a crafty selection of spells if I don't. Simply outsmarting the enemy even if the odds were in their favor is a fantastic element to this hybrid game. It's certainly a tad limiting here compared to the series going forward, as the overall combat area is quite small, the creatures rather large, and only so many of them allowed per side. Improved going forward, you're still going to have fun with what you've got here even if it could have been better.
The main over-world will also give you reasons to recruit certain hero types, as each has a unique ability. The sorceress travels faster in their boats, barbarians move over rough terrain as if it were grass, the warlock sees further in the blackness of the adventuring screen, and the knight gives greater morale to their troops (though morale only effects combat). Wanting a certain characters abilities on your team is an aspect of role playing. The other big role playing element are various artifacts you come across. A pair of special boots will increase your moment on land, a certain ring adds to your knowledge, etc. These are not tied down to the hero who initially discovers them, and can be transferred to someone more fitting for that ability. These items may lie in plain sight on the map, needing only to be purchased with gold, perhaps defended by a group of monsters, found amongst the possessions of an enemy hero upon a successful attack, or dug up where "X" marks the spot on a map.
As a strategy game, Heroes is greatly enhanced by the role playing elements present. Still, I find it difficult to say this is a true strategy/rpg hybrid. What's there certainly makes this game stand out, especially to fans of role playing games, but you should still come here expecting a strategy game. In some areas Heroes is less RPG than the one it's remaking, King's Bounty. A game nearly devoid of a decent story is hard to claim as role playing, and while King's Bounty's story was on the boring side, there was more of it both in-game as well as in the manual. It didn't make you cringe, and neither the game nor the manual contradict each other, unlike Heroes.
^Taking the battle to the enemies homeland
While your individual heroes do gain levels here, all of that building is immediately erased once you complete a given scenario. The slate is wiped clean for each new map, despite being called a campaign. In King's Bounty you moved between the maps (throughout the entire game), where your hero was promoted and your armies expanded. Heroes does grow the role playing in other areas though. Having multiple heroes to recruit, the enemies who show up on the world map rather than just in castles, while now casting spells on you, those are not insignificant upgrades. I'd still define it as strategy with sprinkles of role playing, but who doesn't love sprinkles? A much tighter marriage of the two genres would come together in the next installment and beyond.
I'd call the artificial intelligence fairly well done overall. While there are numerous difficulty settings to challenge the masters, I've always felt a decent balance between challenge and fun from the default level. You'll definitely notice some cheating going on in later scenarios, as enemy heroes start heading directly toward your starting castle, uninterested in their surroundings in an almost never ending cascade. Are they buying these troops? Where are they getting all this money from? Creatures only respawn once per week and yet they've got tons of them! Convenient how they just left the "fizbin of misfortune" lying on the ground, which if picked up would have given their troops minus two morale points, must have had a bad feeling about that one, huh? What cheating there is fits the challenge just fine. I figured out they were headed directly for me, so I made sure to have heroes and troops there to head them off, or sometimes giving up a town so they'll split their forces. It felt all the more rewarding to know you've beaten that bloody cheater, the computer!
The graphics have aged most gracefully, quite stunning when new, continuing to be so for me. Using SVGA 640x480 resolution at 256 colors, the artwork shows a lot more screen real estate than games in the past, while also being quite big itself, meaning more detailed. The birds eye view overworld is beautiful to look at, which is nice because you'll be seeing it a lot. The combat screens feature probably the most detailed monsters of the entire series as a matter of fact, and each separate terrain location has a well drawn background for it. The Heroes games going forward would downsize the creatures in order to have more room for not only them, but empty/obstructed spaces for strategy purposes. I actually prefer Heroes 2 in the graphical department, as I liked the more encompassing feel that brought us, while still retaining the kind of hand drawn nature this game had. Still, I like this first games graphics better than the third game, which went for a pre-rendered look to the art. I believe it all holds up to this very day as amazing.
The sound effects are quite good as well. Different creatures grunting their pain, the sounds of arrows leaving their bow, catapults launching and the boulders crunching against castle walls! The main map features the sounds of saw mills on approach, and the clacking of your horses feet, all well done. I believe a lot of these sounds made their way forward to the next games. The music I'd describe as just being okay. I don't consider the compositions themselves all that special, but the main downgrading factor is the actual quality of the sound coming through your speakers. A sad trend of the mid 90's were developers wanting to take the music out of the end users hands.
^The sorceresses land, kiss from a hydra
The problem was most people had pretty awful sound cards, which made MIDI tracks sound about 500% worse than an 8 bit machine, and straight out of the late 1960's. With CD technology there was room to fit straight audio files onto the disc, so companies made the music into a sound file and compressed them onto the CD. The compression is awful, and the output is in mono. It's 1995 and I'm listening to mono tracks on my subwoofer and surround sound Dell speakers! Did I really come from the Amiga platform for this? The music was still created using MIDI, and it wouldn't have taken more than 5 megabytes of space to include MIDI support for the people who wanted it, yet I've got to listen to this 14k mono file! Thankfully somebody else must have complained about this, because Heroes 2 added MIDI support in addition to a better compressed (and in stereo) audio file.
Heroes features a fairly good economy. Early on you can always use more money, later on the cost of those powerful beasties will be depleting piles of it. I wish there were more to buy, an area which made considerable improvement in the upcoming games. As stated earlier, the resources add much to the strategy as well as the economy. You can have all the gold in the world but if you're lacking on sulfur you'll be needing to kiss those dragons goodbye! The lack of a certain resource nearby early in the game can really distress you, knowing you'll have to explore outward to find it, but not having what you wanted before you did that exploring! If Heroes has one thing in common with the Might and Magic series, it's the great economy.
Upon winning the campaign you'll be greeted with the realization that the story featured in the manual in no way connects to the story shown in the actual game! All those heroes you've been chasing around this entire game, seemingly so you could become king? All 4 enter the same castle they left at the beginning of the game, standing forth next to the actual king. It's made to sound almost as if all the lords were working together this entire time to make sure this dude was recognized as the rightful king, and by the way the king is not Lord Ironfist! So going forward the games actually took the story from the awful manual, rather than the game itself. The whole thing makes me feel as if Heroes was simply meant to be a remake of King's Bounty, and the actual story of saving the current king got wiped out at the last minute by the manual, and they only kept a tiny bit in the game to where maybe people would think it made sense, but it really doesn't make any sense!
^We won, castle building
You're then presented a score based solely on how long it took you to complete the game. Quite a bummer. Here I am knowing that I've had to do so much more with this Lord Alamar playthrough, and not only do I get a score below my own Lord Ironfist playthrough, I'm in third place below an imaginary dude put there by the game developers which I can't get rid of! Why is there a page full of high scores from the developers when they have their own credits page? Why can't I erase them? And why are you rewarding speed runners as the sole determining force of a high score? My Ironfist playthrough got the high score because that's how I had to play the game in order to beat it. He has weaker creatures, so you've got to take what you've got and get to those enemies as quickly as possible. Yet with Alamar I explored every nook and cranny but got punished for it through the scores. Another disappointing example of them regressing from King's Bounty, which seemed to have both speed and all the things you did in its mind when determining your score.
Magazines of the era overwhelmingly praised Heroes. Computer Games Strategy Plus called it "a beautiful game, graphically and aurally", saying the game works equally well as strategy or role playing and calling it the most enjoyable of both worlds he's played this year. Electronic Entertainment called the games visuals great, "including stunning Super VGA-though with limited animation", noting the music was just as good, saying it should please strategy and fantasy fans alike, and giving it a value of 5 out of 5 stars. Computer Gaming World called the gameplay intuitive yet featuring significant depth. The only fault they could see is a lack of map editor (included in a later Windows95 release) concluding that "as a whole, Heroes is probably one of the best wargames for people who hate wargames yet released" and giving it 5 out of 5 stars. Computer Gaming World later awarded Heroes strategy game of the year (tied with Command and Conquer) for 1996, and named it as the 133rd (of 150) best game of all time. It was a PC Gamer editors choice where they called it "engrossing, easy to play, and even easier to get sucked into", and giving it an 88%. It would be named a runner up for strategy game of the year from PC Gamer.
I certainly disagree with any magazines mentioning the strategy and role playing working equally well, to me it's a strategy game with some role playing elements. If anyone thought the music sounded great, they must have been listening on some tiny speakers. While I agree with any recognition for game of the year or runners up, on an intellectual list of the best games of all time I would leave out Heroes in favor of the original, King's Bounty, as that's where most of this games features originated. Even on a personal list it wouldn't quite meet the cut, as I'd put Heroes 2 and 3 ahead of it. Still I find Heroes to be a fine game. It features excellent graphics which hold up to this day, and while the story is weak, Heroes offers addicting strategy which is greatly enhanced through the limited role playing which is there. I hope you'll check out my video review, where I check out all of the magazines mentioned here, as well as many more. I'll read from the manual so you can see the peculiar story yourself, and even show off an interesting connection from Prima's Offical Strategy Guide for Might and Magic VI, and much more. Readers of this article may also enjoy my writings for Might and Magic IV (DOS), Kings Bounty (Amiga), Defender of the Crown (Amiga), or Curse of the Azure Bonds (Amiga).
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