Heroes of Might and Magic VI Returns Fantasy to Strategy in 2011

[JourneyThroughHell]

Black Hole Entertainment? Gah.
I would rather see the developers of HoMM V working on this. Oh, well, it's still fairly good news.

 

[NLS]

I used to play HOMM III with my friends many years ago. Just picked up the collectors edition of HOMM V a few months ago, and I really liked it. Hopefully HOMM VI will be as good or better.

 

[Dectilon]

Can someone enlighten me on why 4 is considered to be awful, because that's my favorite one. I liked that you could have combat-heroes, empty spots so you could bring in an extra hero or unit type even after you had all of your team's units, two units per tier that you had to choose between, the system where schools of magic are opposed, the various sub-skills related to the schools of magic to give them a bit more personality... I liked all of that. The only thing I really disliked was that heroes didn't have any personal advantages like in 3.

5 I found to be more of a mess. I didn't like that it took forever to turn, that battlefields felt tiny when both teams had a full stack of units, that regular units had attack spells or that it was hard to navigate the map because you had to turn the camera around all the time to get a good view. I liked that they added the two divergent upgrades in the expansion but I still prefer 4's idea where the two units could be complete opposites to each other, but still be just as useful.

 

[thiosk]

ive not played the series before, but stardock?

sign me up

 

[UnravThreads]

I'm also more excited about Crossworlds, but not just because it's sooner. I've actually been having more fun with the new King's Bounty games than I did with the old HOMM ones. Don't get me wrong; I liked HOMM3 as much as the next guy, but there's just something about KBTL that drew me in more right from the start. I'm sure it probably helps that it has the classic gameplay and nostalgia factor while also being a fully modern game with all the improvements I'm used to in terms of better interfaces and stuff. I'll wait and see how HOMM6 turns out after the last couple games have been kind of meh. For the time being, though, I'm more confident in Katauri's ability to turn out consistently fun games lately.

I must shamefully admit I've never gotten a foothold in any HoMM game to date. I've got all five through the Complete Edition (Woo! Horned Demon t-shirt!), but I've not had much success. Managed the first campaign in HoMM V, but as soon as I got to the second I just couldn't progress. I reinstalled HoMM III last night, though, so I'm giving that a try.

 

[Grubnar]

Can someone enlighten me on why 4 is considered to be awful, because that's my favorite one. I liked that you could have combat-heroes, empty spots so you could bring in an extra hero or unit type even after you had all of your team's units, two units per tier that you had to choose between, the system where schools of magic are opposed, the various sub-skills related to the schools of magic to give them a bit more personality... I liked all of that. The only thing I really disliked was that heroes didn't have any personal advantages like in 3.

5 I found to be more of a mess. I didn't like that it took forever to turn, that battlefields felt tiny when both teams had a full stack of units, that regular units had attack spells or that it was hard to navigate the map because you had to turn the camera around all the time to get a good view. I liked that they added the two divergent upgrades in the expansion but I still prefer 4's idea where the two units could be complete opposites to each other, but still be just as useful.

Indeed.

Although my personal favorite is II or III, IV was by no means a bad game. I only thought the graphics could have been better and more consistent. I avtually thought that the Hero skill system was very interasntin and well made.

I bought Heroes V when it was relesed and it is one of few games I regret paying good money for. I feel like I was ripped off. It takes FOREVER to get anywhere on the Adventure map, the battlefield is too small, the story is stupid and boring, and parts of the basic unit design are bonkers!

I am in two minds about buying this, it could be as good as the old ones but most likely it will be as bad as V.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Heroes of Might and Magic (the first 3, at least) are, like, my childhood and my present.

Not to mention King's Bounty, and the RPG that spawned Heroes of Might and Magic... Although I haven't played most of those games, I think I've only played VII and VIII of all the 9 or 10 of them.

In short, I'd love to see how it turns out... Although I haven't even played HMM 5 yet.

Is it any good? As in, any better then HMM 4? I mean, that one had it's redeeming moments like being able to use your heroes in combat and stuff, but the cities and the story were just shit, I miss the old plot of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 with that Tarnum guy. Or whatever his name was, the immortal dude who kept reincarnating to fix his fuck-ups...

HoMMV seems to be a bit of a marmite game, either you love it or you hate it. Personally I love it, but then I got the Gold Edition that came with both expansion packs. I think everyone agrees it's a shitload better than IV, but I wish they'd kept it's hero system. i think the best thing about it is the towns, which are brilliant.

I never really cared much for the old universe (the big sci fi thing was stupid) but I liked the whole Tarnumn thing (I bought a few of the Heroes Chronicles games, which are spinoffs from III about him. How about that, spinoffs of spinoffs?). I doubt it will turn out that this new one is connected to the old one in he same way that IV's was. The new one makes more sense really, I think, but the history could do with a bit more fleshing out.

 

[Evilsanta]

Alright! A new Heros of Might & Magic. I loved the V and i sure hope that Ubisoft wont fuck this up. Or use there DRM.

 

[Nazrel]

Can someone enlighten me on why 4 is considered to be awful, because that's my favorite one. I liked that you could have combat-heroes, empty spots so you could bring in an extra hero or unit type even after you had all of your team's units, two units per tier that you had to choose between, the system where schools of magic are opposed, the various sub-skills related to the schools of magic to give them a bit more personality... I liked all of that. The only thing I really disliked was that heroes didn't have any personal advantages like in 3.

5 I found to be more of a mess. I didn't like that it took forever to turn, that battlefields felt tiny when both teams had a full stack of units, that regular units had attack spells or that it was hard to navigate the map because you had to turn the camera around all the time to get a good view. I liked that they added the two divergent upgrades in the expansion but I still prefer 4's idea where the two units could be complete opposites to each other, but still be just as useful.

Indeed.

Although my personal favorite is II or III, IV was by no means a bad game. I only thought the graphics could have been better and more consistent. I avtually thought that the Hero skill system was very interasntin and well made.

I bought Heroes V when it was relesed and it is one of few games I regret paying good money for. I feel like I was ripped off. It takes FOREVER to get anywhere on the Adventure map, the battlefield is too small, the story is stupid and boring, and parts of the basic unit design are bonkers!

I am in two minds about buying this, it could be as good as the old ones but most likely it will be as bad as V.

V was horrible. The switch to 3D was the worst mistake they ever made, it just does not work with the genre, you want a 2D overhead with a wide view, but default they seem to think you want to look right at the heroes ugly faces. Don't get me started on siege battles, no matter what angle to tried, there was always some unit you couldn't see.

Though I did like the necromancy system.

 

[Vortigar]

Every game in this series has a few niggles. IV had the most glaring ones. But no game in this series has ever been less than entertaining.

Still play Heroes V when I've got some hours to burn. The Tribes of the East expansion is almost mandatory to make it enjoyable though, loads of good tweaks in there.

Looking forward to VI.

 

[sturryz]

It's the same game series you've been releasing for years.

No it isn't. Ubisoft only got the rights to M&M when 3DO went bust.

Thank you fact man, If it wasn't for your selfless ability to prove everyone wrong we would be no better then cavemen.

It makes me feel like a big man
Shit man, you broke my sarcasm monitor.

You have been a most worthy opponent, but the day is mine...

 

[Fetzenfisch]

absolutely looking forward to this. everything M&M related was quite enjoyable and accompanied my through my gaming life.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

I must shamefully admit I've never gotten a foothold in any HoMM game to date. I've got all five through the Complete Edition (Woo! Horned Demon t-shirt!), but I've not had much success. Managed the first campaign in HoMM V, but as soon as I got to the second I just couldn't progress. I reinstalled HoMM III last night, though, so I'm giving that a try.

There are some differences, but if you liked the King's Bounty games, you should probably have fun with the HoMM games if you can get into them.

On one hand, it can be kind of interesting having multiple heroes and managing your towns and unit availability and stuff like that, which does add depth in some ways, and having multiplayer was nice, at least when I had people to play with (and I hope that makes it into KB2 in some form, or whatever they end up making after the current series of stand-alone expansions/addons to the base KBTL game/engine).

On the other, I like the way you build up a single hero throughout the course of one long campaign in the KB games. You can get more attached to a character when you stick with them for a few dozen hours and get to develop everything about them over the course of the entire game, and you still get plenty of variety in terms of available units and skills and spells and playstyles, while the optional side quests sort of still give you a bit of customizing/upgrading what options you have open to you while letting you focus more on exploring the map and using your strategery in combat, which are the parts I'm more into.

Kind of interestingly, a lot of the things that are different between HoMM and the modern KB games are also true of the original KB, so it's kind of fun(ny) to see people's reactions to the different games, what they think was ripped off from where, and what they end up liking about them, depending on when they started playing which ones.

 

[veloper]

I'd rather see a new Age of Wonders of a Master of Magic 2.
HoMM was nice, but I prefer seperate units.

 

[Uncreation]

Woooow! I was just playing HoMM V and wondering if there will be a Homm VI. I love this. I have played all the games in the Heroes series, ever since Heroes 2. And i loved all of them. Well, some more than others, but still. I CAN'T WAIT!! Thank you for the wonderfull news.

 

[Eleima]

I did link to that purposefully, but only because you can't really buy the original King's Bounty in many places anymore. Though I suppose I could link to the Commodore 64 one... I just figured I'd link to the remake/re-do.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought King's Bounty was abandonware now, due to its age (oh gosh, it's 20 years old; I'm not getting any younger, am I?). In fact, I'm fairly certain it was legally available for download on some abandonware sites.

Anyhow, I love the HHoMM, been playing them since day 1, and I really can't understand why HoMM4 has such a bad rep': I love it to bits, if only for the soundtrack and the compelling stories in some campaigns (the mage and elf campaigns in particular). Anyways, this is exciting news, and I can't wait to see what HoMM 6 will be like!

 

[Sir Moomin]

These games have the best soundtrack ever made!

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I have three beefs with that kind of gameplay. 1 is that you can't meaningfully defend because unless you have the majority of your army on offense you lose too many troops to each fight. 2 you have to have a delivery boy hero transporting the weekly supply of troops to your main hero while he explores the map. 3. you need lots of chump heros to just go back and forth between building to capture the weekly sawmill, weekly gem pile, weekly creature output etc or else you aren't playing optimized, that is a lot of annoying micromanagement.

2 and 3. Greatly agree. I think the system of having to show up each week to pick up the tribute (like a f*ing mafia enforcer) is utterly redundant and should be abolished. That is mainly why I liked the caravan system from nr. 4. And it also makes no sense that a HERO should be used in such a way.

That brings my to my other point that they really need have heroes stack-able so that more than one hero can be in the same army. And creatures should be able to move without any hero present. This makes logistics so much simpler and the whole experience more enjoyable.

 

[blxtnsq]

Apparently I'm on Ubisoft's mailing list. They sent me an email with the trailer to this AGES ago (woot for signing up for things and then forgetting about them!).

I have been excited since day one. Seriously, out of all the games coming out over the next year, this is on top. Even on top of portal 2. :O Blasphemy! But yeah, I can't wait