Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty

The Good
This is a hugely addictive game, where there is a near-perfect blend of strategy, fantasy, and role-playing. This expansion pack for the original game has eaten more of my free time than any other game, by far. I continue to play this classic to this very day. The maps in this expansion are far superior to the original, plus you get a map editor to make your own!

The music is pretty cool. Each type of castle has its own musical theme (wizard, sorceress, necromancer, knight, warlock)

Battles are turn-based, so you can take time to ponder which units and spells to use against your enemy's units. Or (if you're feeling brave) you can let the PC do it for you.

It's an absolute joy defeating guardian monsters, then gathering artifacts and seeing how they improve your heroes.

The Bad
There was nothing that I dislike about this game. The graphics are dated by today's standards, but in my opinion, this game is a flawless gem. I wish its descendants with the prettier graphics were as clean and tight - but instead they look too busy.

The Bottom Line
Thoughtful, turn based strategy, in a setting with fantasy armies - hydras, golems, orcs, gargoyles, titans, you name it, they're here!

The Good
This expansion to the the original Heroes 2 adds new campaigns, new maps, new artifacts, new world map locations and a new building making the game even richer and more addictive.

There two new short campaigns (3-4 maps each, with one map being optional) and two long campaigns (8 maps each, but with several more optional paths) that are completely independent of the original campaigns. In total both the original and the expansion campaigns have a similar number of maps, but the expansion maps are bigger and harder than the original ones, making the experience last longer. The many optional paths of the new campaigns add replayability, as each path provides you with different bonuses (and penalties - the more lucrative paths take more in-game days to finish, thus lowering your overall score). All campaign maps have short movies and voice narration like the original ones, which is quite something when you remember that this game is from 1997 when games often cut back on video materials.

The new world map locations are nothing short of a game changer: Barriers were added to limit your progress until you visit a corresponding traveling tent to get your password. On many maps this will force you to choose between pursuing a traveler's tent that is often located off your course to get to the riches behind the barrier leaving you open for a counter-attack, or to continue with your chosen plan and hope that your current forces are adequate for the job. New creature dwellings were added that allow you to recruit creatures that cannot be bought in any town. This addition is would have been largely unimportant if it weren't for one dwelling - a barrow mound that allows you to recruit ghosts. While other dwelling offer the various, but unremarkable, elementals, ghosts have a special ability that allows them to increase their number by killing troops. This means that a clever player that manages to first reach the barrow mound and then attack a weak but numerous wondering monsters can easily turn the game to his/hers favor. The other locations are not quite as useful but can provide important bonuses - from additional weakly movement in the stables to new heroes from jail houses and to expanded map views from the hut of the magi, all have their place in every map.

Another feature was the addition of a small number of new artifacts. About a third of them offers both a bonus and a penalty (forcing another tactical decision), while others offer just a conventional bonus. These bonuses are much greater compared to artifacts from the original game, and their culmination is a super artifact that is automatically from three others and makes its bearer almost unstoppable war machine.

Many new stand-alone maps are included that make full use of the new features (though the more powerful features are often ignored) that can be played both as in single player and multiplayer (depending on the map). Naturally, the editor will allow you to create both original and expansion maps.

The Bad
The game suffers from the same problems that the original had, among which boring cinematics (the narration is done over a repeating image of some sort - like a dragon flying over and over again around a castle - that isn't very compelling) and utterly unbalanced towns (a small troop of black dragons from the Warlock town can handily massacre an entire army from the Knight town). The designers did try to address the second problem to a small extant by offering an additional building for the Necromancer town. That building increases the necromancy skill of your necromancers for each one built (meaning you need to control multiple Necromancer towns) allowing you to increase the number of skeletons raised after each victory. Unfortunately, the high material cost of the building makes it a bad investment in the early stages of most maps (when skeletons are most in demand) and by the time you are able to construct the building you are relaying on your stronger troops instead of your skeletons. This critic isn't true for large maps designed for necromancers, but there aren't many maps that could fit that description.

What really disappointed me was the lack of new units in this expansion. Seeing how the original unique units got their own dwelling, one could assume that a batch of new, even more powerful units with new and interesting abilities would be set loose on the battlefield or even a new town. Sadly, this wasn't the case. This does not make the expansion any worse, but it does not allow it to rise to the greatness of the Armageddon's Blade expansion for Heroes 3, which added a new town and many new creatures of different strengths.

The Bottom Line
A wonderful expansion that makes Heroes 2 complete. All that was good in the original is retained, with new features that only add to your enjoyment. Truly a must have item for every HoMM fan.