Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia

aka: HOMM 3, Heroes 3, Heroes of Might and Magic III: A Restauração de Erathia, HoMM3:RoE
Moby ID: 1494
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia takes place long after the ending of Heroes of Might and Magic II: Price of Loyalty and partially concurrently with Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. Receiving news of her father's death, Catherine Ironfist, Queen of Enroth, sails for Erathia to attend her father's funeral. Fearing the worst, she assembles a military fleet as her escort. Arriving on the coast of Erathia, Catherine finds an allied wizard's tower, devastated from battle and abandoned. There she learns Erathia is falling to its enemies. Mustering local armies, Catherine marches to Erathia's capitol, restoring lost land along the way.

The Restoration of Erathia retains the bulk of the gameplay from its predecessors, with significant additions and modifications. It features 8 entirely distinct towns with 7 creature levels each, but this time all creature levels (save for neutral-only ones) can be upgraded. Also new are war machines, a total of 122 artifacts, overhauled spell list, new and edited map locations, an alignment mechanic which affects interaction with some of the map locations and spells, and 7 single-player campaigns with a vast set of single scenarios which can be played against the AI or other human players.

Spellings

  • Герои Меча и Магии III: Возрождение Эрафии - Russian spelling
  • 魔法門英雄無敵3 (主程式) - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 魔法门之英雄无敌III:埃拉西亚的光复 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Linux version)

10 People

Linux Version
  • Loki Entertainment Software
Linux Programming
Linux Q/A, Support
Linux Sales
Loki Honcho

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 169 ratings with 11 reviews)

This game defines "turn-based fantasy RPG strategy"

The Good
Heroes of Might & Magic III is a dangerous game. It belongs to that seemingly innocuous category of turn-based strategy games. Just one more turn... Slow, ponderous gameplay without action that should bore you to death. Of course chess is such a game and it has endured for centuries. And chess has no dragons, knights (well not ones in shining armour anyway), no magic and heroes. It hasn't any beautiful cities to build and expansive maps to explore. No music such as the truly epic score of this game ranging from Celtic pieces to gothic themes inspired by Berlioz. It represents a huge improvement to an already excellent game in almost all respects and it is dangerously addictive. Just one more turn... The different castle types vary aesthetically as much as in tactical terms and the campaigns are challenging and varied. Heroes have more skills and their specializations make them interesting and unique. Battles are a treat for any aspiring tactician and the choice of skills has a definite impact on the effectiveness of any particular strategic approach. Hot-seat is an added bonus, and it was greatly appreciated by many players. And it only adds to the game's huge addiction factor. Just one more turn...

The Bad
The music, although easily within the top 20 game soundtracks of all time is not quite as good as the stunning operatic pieces of the previous game. Some people disliked the shift from the story book, slightly comical 2D graphical look of HOMM 2 to the more "serious" pseudo-3D creatures of this game. Some creatures still look funny, such as the cute imps, but overall the creatures appear more somber than before. Some may find the resource system cumbersome and the magic system is a little imbalanced in higher spell levels. The same goes for Might versus Magic. Any hero without at least some magic is going to suffer in battle. Finally, hero specializations are interesting, but make some heroes potentially more powerful than others.

The Bottom Line
This game has dominated my life until the sequel appeared and I returned to it yet again. It's not that the sequel was not a worthy successor. It just didn'r have the same lasting appeal of its predecessor. I've brought many first-time gamers into the fold with this game and not one of them has forgotten it, not even those who mocked the game before they tried it. A Warning to the Wise: Do NOT try playing Heroes of Might and Magic III for the first time if you do not have lots of time to spare. LOTS of time.

Windows · by Silverblade (1382) · 2006

A turn-based Strategy game that will fill many of your hours.

The Good
It flows. When playing HoMM3, you don't waste your time on minor things like extensive resource managment or deep experiance calculations, you simply play the game. The interface is clear, straight forward and easy to learn, and I believe it's the most powerful feature of the game.
Other nice additions- Excellent sound in .mp3 mode, so you'll be able to play it even while not playing the game, averge graphic and a good AI, that'll require some time to defeat.

The Bad
The game is almost identical to the other games on the series. The graphics are very similar, and most of the objects weren't changed at all, other than increasing their resolution a bit. Some of the armies are clearly better than the others, and on lower difficulty levels you can easily reach some of their more powerful units on the 1st or 2nd turn.
The campaign is terrible. The story is childish and uninteresting, each of the scenarios is easy and straight forward, and there is no real challange.
The greatest problem of the game is its multiplayer. Since it's a turn based games, you may wait long hours waiting for the other players to play, and for a game which supports up to eight players this can be a long wait... Actually, me and my friends started playing Talisman between our turns.

The Bottom Line
Although the game has many flaws, the single-player (and hotseat for up to three players) is f-u-n, and it's worth buying just for that.

Windows · by El-ad Amir (116) · 2000

Hours and hours of fun!

The Good
This is the game that finally released me from my obsession with Diablo II (LoD) and helped me make the permanent transition to Linux. There is a map editor for Linux ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/os/linux/loki/extras/heroes3/ which makes the game that much more fun (Sim City anyone?) though I wish I could include my own videos and art. If version 4 were released for Linux I would be one of the first in line for it. This is one of the most interesting strategy games on the market because of the ease of use, yet complex tactical situations you have to think about.

The Bad
Not quite as complete as the Heroes of Might and Magic III version I got for Windows which came bundled with Armageddon's Blade and Shadows. Loki will be sadly missed - RIP Loki. Enemy ranged troops seem to have a big advantage stationed in a castle, AI seems a bit shakey.

The Bottom Line
If you liked Archon on the C64 then you'll love Heroes of Might and Magic III. HOMM picks up where Archon left off adding quests, a role playing slant, better graphics, and an editor which doubles the fun of the game.

If you're unfamiliar with Archon or HOMM, both games involved a sort of chess-like playing field on which a variety of monsters could do battle. But this is about where Archon left off. HOMM by contrast is much more involved: you can go on quests for the holy grail, take over enemy castles and build them up, build legions of armies, turn monsters into skeletons, etc.

Though by today's standards this game isn't cutting edge, it remains one of the most playable strategy games ever - risk doesn't even come close!

Linux · by Charles McColm (2) · 2004

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Trivia

Mythology

Heroes of Might and Magic III made a complete major screw-up in Greek Mythology. This refers particularly to: the Gorgon and the Medusa.

In Heroes, the Gorgon is a fire breathing/death staring Bull from the swamps. In Greek mythology, the only creatures that closely fits this description are the Khalkotauroi. The Khalkotauroi were a pair of fire-breathing bulls forged from bronze by the Smith God Hephaistos as a gift for Aeetes, King of Kolkhis. These bulls were later killed by famous Greek hero Jason, in his quest for the Golden Fleece.

Now the Gorgon in Greek Mythology actually refered to a race known in Heroes as the Medusa. Gorgons are a race of vile creatures that had hair of live snakes, necks covered with scales, they have tusks similiar to of a boar, golden hands and bronze wings. Oh, and they're famous trade mark: anyone looking at them would be turned to stone (due to their extreme ugliness).

Initially there are 3 known Gorgons (other sources say there were more): Stheno, Euryale and their most famous sister: Medusa. Medusa was later killed by the Greek hero - Perseus.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Indra was here, tarmo888, Xoleras, Silverblade, DarkDante, Stratege, Paulus18950, Shu Nin, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added May 27, 2000. Last modified March 28, 2024.