Heroes of Might and Magic IV

aka: HOMM4
Moby ID: 6105
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

As the fourth installment of the series, Heroes of Might and Magic IV brings many new features to the game while retaining the old interface design and gameplay.

The game still is about exploring huge maps with heroes and armies, collecting treasures, building up cities, fighting monsters and defeating foes. There are six new and large campaigns and 24 single scenarios to play, all set in the Axeoth world to which many have escaped after the world-ending disaster in Enroth known as the Reckoning, shortly after the events of Heroes Chronicles: The Sword of Frost.

Towns and interracial alliances have been redone. Units are now split to 4 levels, with each town having two buildable unit types per level; however, after the first level, each town has to decide which dwelling to construct, discarding the other unless another town of the same type is found. Towns now also have caravan buildings, which can transfer units and resources between towns and allied players. Individual units can now traverse the map without heroes (including neutral ones, if such a setting is enabled), and heroes who perish in battle can be resurrected if their body is taken to a friendly town, while those who are defeated by an enemy player can be taken to a prison.

The game is now entirely displayed in an isometric view, and the battlefield is split to small square tiles instead of large hexes. Heroes fight side by side with other units and are used for combat as if they were a standard unit, which restricts their spellcasting only to times when it is their turn. However, multiple heroes can be present in a single unit stack. Heroes no longer have individual specialties, and only differ in town allegiances and whether they specialize in might or magic - towns of similar affinities can hire heroes from neighboring towns in an affinity graph, with the exception of Stronghold (Might) which can hire might heroes of any faction but never magic ones, as they do not have access to a magic guild.

As before, the game can be played in hot seat mode with other players, and comes with a map editor. Post-launch updates have added online multiplayer capabilities.

Spellings

  • Герои Меча и Магии IV - Russian spelling
  • 英雄无敌IV - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 魔法門之英雄無敵四 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

127 People (121 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 81 ratings with 4 reviews)

The best of all HoMM...

The Good
It's pretty simple : I liked almost everything in this game. But clearly, there are three things that makes HoMM IV a so incredible game : the gameplay, the graphics, and the music. The gameplay : Some changes have been made since Heroes III, and some fans will probably be disappointed, but in my opinion, it changed for the best. It's nice to have heroes fighting on battlefields (even if it can transform the game into some kind of turn-based Diablo-like in some cases), and there are many little improvements that makes the gameplay more and more enjoyable. The graphics : even if it is not "true" 3d, the isometric view is really beautiful, with many details and nice design. The only flaw is the animation of some creatures during combat (mainly the "human-shaped" ones), especially their "walking" animation. The music : I can only say a thing : the music in HoMM IV is one of the best I ever heard in a video game. It is simply wonderful.

The Bad
Well, there ARE actually a few things... First, many creatures from Heroes III disappeared. It is partly explained by the story (because, you know, they blow Enroth up in the intro movie), but... And it is no more possible to upgrade the creatures. And when you build your castle you must choose between two creatures for each level (for instance, Nagas or Genies). It is not really important, but when you played Heroes III for hours like me, you feel... restrained. Then, the AI. It's not exactly bad, but the computer players are, well, a bit stupid. It is more easy to play in "hard" mode because the computer will kill himself attacking the most powerful monsters from the start. Finally, there is one last thing. The campaigns. Six campaigns, each telling a different story. Some of them are actually pretty interesting, but it lacks of a global storyline like in Heroes III. You will play two or three of the campaigns, and no more, because there is no story to catch you. It's really sad. Oh yes, there's one more thing : the story-telling texts. They're just too long. You end having the feeling to be reading a book on your computer screen.

The Bottom Line
If you liked the other Heroes, just give a try to this fourth episode. And if you didn't like them... well give it a try anyway ! You won't regret it !

Windows · by Pirou Julien (2968) · 2004

Much better than HMM 5!

The Good
I think HMM 4 is the best game of the series, and that it is ten times better than its follower, HMM 5. When I first started playing it, about 4-5 years ago, which is really impressive considering I'm still playing it(><), I actually knew this would be one of those games I'd REALLY like.

First of all, this game offers a much better perspective than any other HMM game, which offers ten times easier navigating while keeping it simple. Not like the follower, which really looks a lot more complicated than it is, with the fancy hero and all the buttons and so on, and like its predecessors which graphically was plain bad.

So, interface-i-ally it's good, but what about combat screen? Well, to be honest, that's really up to yourself. If you liked the predecessors, you'll probably like this, but if you don't like turn-based combat screens this may not be the hit for you. New to the game is the event of the hero actually taking part in the battle, opening for hundreds of new combinations of both spellcasting and fighting, for example. This gives the actual hero a lot more independence, like when you can practically take on the entire board with the nature-summoning bard Allegra or the barbaric Mongo. The quests, campaigns and scenarios are both new and look the same as before at the same time, but will probably remind you of heroes 3. When it comes to the follower, I haven't looked into the actual campaign part , but I believe this will look a lot like before as well.

Before playing heroes 4, I strongly advise you to get ready for a lot of classic heroes gameplay in HMM 4 like in every other game in the series, only ten times better! Better than Heroes 5!

The Bad
The last board of the "a Bard's Tale" campaign was impossible and so intensely annoying that I smacked the computer in rage. Should you have made it though, send me a message and I'll look into it :)

The Bottom Line
The game is really addictive and will spellbind you, not unlike how it spellbound me and how WoW spellbound thousands every day, only this is better, I think. Hate it or love it :)

Windows · by Spag (58) · 2006

An ambitious attempt to enhance the HMM predecessors, a treat for HMM fans!

The Good
*3rd Update. Last update, Thursday May. 30, 2002. Thank you very much.

Wow, finally they made a difference that really counts. If your a fan of HMM, you notice that since King's Bounty, HMM I-III the gameplay is much less the same. In HMM IV, they changed the whole thing! (well almost). Still familiar, with a touch of isometric style. You play this game, you'll get the feel of Lord of the Rings. Seriously.

The good stuff: 1. Better graphics, better view. Yes, where in HMM I-III it's the same old, same old. They gave a isometric point of view that makes the 3D point of view very amusing. The graphic details are getting better.

  1. Better animation. Although the combat is still turn based, they made the animation a little more realistic, better special effects.

  2. Better Heroes, No favorites. Well, good and bad. Now you can only choose your favorite face, haha. No longer picking favorites from the basic skills they have (e.g. Basic Intelligence). Which means no hero is better than the other, no more restarting the game to find that "perfect hero".

  3. Higher levels, more skills, more spells, more everything. Experienced players are advised to play the highest level (Champion), feel the difference. Anything less is a SIN! Hahahhaha.

  4. Combating Heroes This is a major surprise! The heroes are considered individual units that can fight, cast magic, etc. And to my personal opinion their stats vs normal creatures are pretty reasonable, meaning that your characters still can easily be cut down when fighting 100 Minotaurs.

  5. More creatures per town Well, unlike the prior HMM III, you can upgrade your creatures. They eliminated that (sigh), but now there are no 5 level creatures, max level 4. This is because the 2nd to the 4th level creatures consists of 2 types, of which you have to choose which creature you want to breed. Choosing one type will automatically cancel the opportunity of the other. Eg. If you build a building that creates Knights, this will cancel your ability to breed Angels.

  6. There are other surprises that I shouldn't say (or else it'll spoil the fun), but basically, they (programmers) have tried very hard to make this version less irritating, more strategical, etc. I commend their effort!

    The Bad
    The Bad Stuff:

  7. The map movement isn't as smooth as it used to be, but it doesn't effect the gameplay that much, I also experienced that combats taking place in swampy areas are kinda slow.

  8. I was a little disapointed about the cinematics, where usually in each campaign there are cinematics to watch. I have passed a couple of campaigns and guess what, no cinematics. Imagine playing Diablo without those cinematics, boring.

  9. Oh, I still consider the spell book in combat could use a lot of major fixing, it takes a while to find the spell you want. I prefer the previous classification in the spell book, where it's divided into the spell levels, not just spell type.

  10. Minor, but worth mentioning. They don't tell you anymore how much experience you get per combat. Have to check it manually. Yeah, right.

  11. Impossible? For the champion level, I experienced some campaigns on the first level are almost impossible to pass. Almost impossible? If not extremely irritating, you will notice that in the champion level, the greatest threat is not the enemy player, but the neutral enemies. Try the Barbarian campaign for instance: Level 1 character, no magic, and you have to face around 300 guys in a single combat. Yeah, you could hire creatures, but by the time you get 100 Berserkers, the enemy has reach 500. Sigh. This would be one of those days you would like to cheat. But that's against my religion! hahahah.

    The Bottom Line
    Oh, a must. Yes please, wouldn't think otherwise.

My overview of the game:

Graphics & animation: B+ I've seen better, but it's still better than most.

Gameplay & Addiction: B+ Got to play it to believe it.

Overall Score: B+ See the above.

Windows · by Indra was here (20756) · 2002

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by phlux.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Corn Popper, Xoleras, DarkDante, Zeppin, Klaster_1, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added April 2, 2002. Last modified March 6, 2024.