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)

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Linux Version
  • Loki Entertainment Software
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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

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

Fun for a short while

The Good
Audiovisuals are the best bet of HoMM3. Graphically is pleasant, and creatures are well designed and animated (and it's a TBS game). Music is also excellent, and sound effects don't fall from the standard.

The Bad
Replayability suffers greatly from repetitive gameplay. Although there are many campaigns to choose from, every game quickly becomes the same as the previous. It's a matter of improving your cities as soon as possible, therefore improving your creatures. Then, raise as many creatures as you can: in battle, your best chance is outnumber the enemy, even with weaker units. But most important is to find the best hero/monster/spell combination (like regenerating vampires under command of a hero with Vampire specialty). Once found, the game becomes easy even at the King level.

I don't understand also why forests and hills block travel completely: It's a poor way of simplifying and I think shows the designers paid more attention to visual aspects than to game itself. The list of spells is far from being large, and creatures are actually half of the total, as "minor" versions quickly become obsolete.

Supposedly, the Map Editor expands replayability, but making your own scenario needs patience, too much patience. And what's the fun of exploring a world you already know from head to toes? Perhaps playing maps created by others... but as I said every game is the same.

The Bottom Line
Nothing more to say... I think HoMM3 may appeal more to RPG gamers than Strategy ones, as it focus on Heroes (curiously), and has a strong Fantasy paper-and-pencil RPG feeling.

Windows · by Technocrat (193) · 2002

This game has taken up many hours of my life.

The Good
The different varieties of monsters, castles, and magic spells. The map editor was one of my favorite parts of the game.

The Bad
The Inferno group only has one shooter. If it had one more it would have been my favorite group.

The Bottom Line
You start with a castle and you build it up. You can buy buildings to create men and then recruit them, and you can build your mage guild (place where you learn your spells). When you have acquired an adequete army you can try to take over the world!

Windows · by Attila (553) · 2004

Even now a great game.

The Good
When I first saw information about HOMAM3 I was very skeptic. I thought that the second part was so good that nothing could beat it. Now I know that I was wrong. HOMAM3 takes all bugs and mistakes from first and second part and repairs it. It also adds some more features to make gameplay even better.

This game has indeed a very nice gameplay, computer may not be the smartest but we can live with that. Increasing the number of slots for units in hero's screen was a smart move, as the number of units in all castles increased as well. And units often have many unique attributes such as charge or healing. Also spells are better here. Instead of Mass Bless or Mass Curse, the amount of units affected depends on hero's skill, not by the spell itself. Combining with a lot of new spells, we can easily say that magic got stronger here. Castles changes as well. More buildings, more units. And of course more money up to 4000 gold per day for capitol or even 9000 gold for capitol with Grail. The campaign is ok but nothing special here. However the game shows it's level in multiplayer, especially in hot seat option. Playing with your friends sitting in the same room is just great.

The Bad
Multiplayer mode is indeed good. But only in hot seat option. If you want to play with your friends online, you have to have a lot of patience. Players can set a limit of time for every turn but battles are separate things and they can last for hours. Another player of course sits and watches his map getting more and more bored. Also in single player the campaign is not a very challenging one. We rarely see objectives different from "destroy all", "move your hero somewhere" or "get xxxxx gold, monsters, resources". It's a strategy game, not an RPG but still some maps could be a lot better. There are six campaigns, but the real game starts from the one number 4. Numbers 1-3 are so easy that imho they cannot be counted as campaigns.

Computer is not very smart as well. During battles, hostile archers (300 of them) attacked a group of 500 skeletons (slow and weak units) instead of Liches, Dread Knights or Ghost Dragons which could do far more harm.

The Bottom Line
HOMAM3 is definitely worth playing. It's one of those games which will draw player's attention forever. Of course it can bore you as it has some flaws but comparing to all other parts it's surely the best one.

Windows · by Ajan (262) · 2005

[ 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.