Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia

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.

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.

The Good
It's very addictive. I'm not sure exactly WHY it has such high replay value, but even repeating the same scenarios over and over again is a lot of fun. The graphics are good, in my opinion. A turn-based strategy game doesn't NEED top-of-the-line graphics. The backgrounds and creatures are actually beautifully rendered. The only graphics that probably should have been a little more intricate are spell animations. Compared to Heroes II, the AI seems to be more on a level with what is possible for a human player to do. In the previous game, it seemed as though the AI had access to more resources than I did, and that my creatures could therefore never compare. In Heroes III, the AI is more equally matched, and sometimes your computer opponents will fail to take advantage of blatantly obvious opportunities... it's nice to be given a fighting chance. It's a fun multiplayer game for two or three people, although many more than that and it starts to take huge amounts of time to finish. The map builder is a fun feature too--makes you appreciate how difficult it is to create a challenging but win-able scenario.

The Bad
The campaigns are terrible. Each one gives you three scenarios. Without exception, the first two are so easy that they are not any fun--the sole purpose of the first two scenarios is to build up your heroes for the third one. Kind of akin to walking around purposelessly in an RPG to try to get your characters up to level 99... and I HATE doing that. And then, once you finally trudge through to the third scenerio, it is way too hard. The AI has overwhelmingly superior forces from the start. The scenarios are nice moderate levels of difficulty, it would be so nice if the campaigns had been similarly designed.

The Bottom Line
Very fun, very addictive. I didn't exactly lose any sleep over this game, but it is a great way to run out a dull afternoon.