You simply have to have the willingness to learn and give this game a chance. If you do this, you will be rewarded with an amazing strategy experience.
Great game from my youth with a lot of happy memories.
I loved Heroes of Might and Magic V. I tried the earlier installments before, but never understood the game and its mechanics. For some reason, HOMM V was a lot more accessible and easier to understand.
In Heroes of Might and Magic V, you follow a classic story about saving the kingdom, repel invading factions like demons, undead and creatures of the deep, and become the hero that saves the day. You can play the good and bad campaign, each consisting of many different missions, or scenarios. The story is fair and has a good pacing. Because the game thrives on this story, I will not spoil it further.
The mechanics in HOMM V are relatively simple. You explore a map, with various resources, towns, small buildings and upgrades, to increase your strength, stats and army. On the map, different units are stationed, some friendly and ready to join you, but most of them are hostile. You fight them to earn XP, level up and unlock more skills. The goal of each map varies from scenario to scenario but mostly includes the conquering of a town or gate to win. Some scenario’s are timed, adding to the challenge.
This game is really hard. The first scenario is some sort of tutorial, and can be completed easily, but after that, the game turns 180 degrees and throws everything it got at you. In the later scenarios, the enemy AI can be unforgiving.
I really like all the units, their backstories and their overall design. They just look badass, have awesome attacks, sound effects, animations and skills. In terms of creativity and design, I think the creatures in this game are better than the ones from King’s Bounty.
The graphics are great for the time and the animations of the units en environmental buildings are nicely done. The color pattern is warm and soft and enhances the experience.
By far the best aspect of Heroes of Might and Magic V, is the sound. The (combat) music is absolutely great and the sound effects are spot on. I loved the satisfying sound effect of the scythe of the Wraith units and the four-sword attack of the Rakhasa rani. It is sound design at its best.
The mechanics, controls and interfaces are easy to understand and can be mastered fairly quickly. The only small issue I experienced are the timed missions. In your quest log, you see that you need to capture a city in a certain amount of days, but on screen, no timer, reminder or warning is shown, making you instantly lose the scenario when not paying attention.
Another small problem is the “stalemate situation”. In the later missions, you and an enemy AI hero can both control heroes and cities and try to take over the enemy city. Because all units get replenished every start of the week, both heroes can get exactly the same power level when buying new units every week. This way, there is no real advantage over the enemy and it is just “luck and prayer” if you hit hard enough.
Looking back at the game in comparison with King’s Bounty, I think I prefer the latter in terms of graphics, mechanics, story and overall atmosphere. Nevertheless, Heroes of Might and Magic V will always remain a classic and a piece of nostalgia from my youth.
Definitely recommend this game.
After playing classic Heroes of Might and MagicII, that got me into the series, this is one that was most memorable.
2 great expansions, and nice simple story did great job along with first time great 3D graphics (including castles and battle).
Gameplay is perfect and pretty well balancedbetween the 6 races (8 after 2 expansions). Heroes and artifact systems was done great as well.
Hoping someday 8th part of the series comes out for us to enjoy. This one is for me the best of the series.
Graphically light years ahead of everything else in the turn-based genre and is easily on a par with the best looking real-time strategy games, such as "Dawn of War."
While nothing ground-breaking, this is a highly polished and likeable romp that will have the series' hardcore fanbase stroking their beards in delight. [July 2006, p.84]
On one hand, you can't ignore the game's various shortcomings, the lack of editing tools and failing multiplayer. But on the other hand, it's hard to dismiss a game that eats up late night hours faster than G-String Diva reruns on HBO, leaving you desperate to finish a campaign mission at 3AM before you pass out.
While HOMM5 retains much that fans once cherished about this series, its imaginative yet hamstrung shift to 3D, poor A.I., clunky interface, stingy multiplayer maps, and intimidating bug list render what could have been the rebirth of a phenomenal strategy game merely an average rehash.
Best game in the series in my opinion. Timeless artwork, interesting gameplay on the map and in combat, well-balanced and diverse factions, compared to the third game in the series. Campaign is fun and multiplayer is great. If you like any turn-based strategy games you should give it a try.
Существуют просто Зло и Большое Зло, а за ними обоими в тени прячется Очень Большое Зло. Очень Большое Зло, Геральт, это такое, которого ты и представить себе не можешь, даже если думаешь, будто уже ничто не в состоянии тебя удивить. И знаешь, Геральт, порой бывает так, что Очень Большое Зло схватит тебя за горло и скажет: «Выбирай, братец, либо я, либо то, которое чуточку поменьше»
An excellent game buried beneath some of the most disruptive technical issues I have ever experienced while playing a video game. While the technical issues could arguably be attributed to the hardware I was using (I played using an M1 Mac running Wineskin), I researched these issues before posting this review, and found that most of the following were relatively universal issues: AI players take well over 1 minute to take their turn on larger maps; save files can become corrupted, resulting in entire games becoming unplayable; and the music will randomly switch quite abruptly for what seems like no reason at all.
Heroes 5 is an excellent game - it has so much of what was great about Heroes 3, and truly is a lot of fun. However, you have to push through a lot of what seems like poor optimization by the developers in order to get to the enjoyable parts, and not everyone will be able to stomach the kinds of issues that were almost completely absent from prior games in the series.
An utter dissapointment to the Heroes of Might and Magic series. IV wasn't that great, but at least is was good enough to make you keep playing. This is slow, ugly, and boring. Do not buy.
I would have rated this game higher if I had given up on it earlier. It was far too long, too hard on easy to be a background or relaxing game, and not engaging or interesting enough to be something I really wanted to get into. The graphics are good, and the music would be nice, but the game goes on too long, so even the music gets repetitive. The cut-scenes were fine, but not worth the time you had already put into the game. Don't bother with it.
SummaryThe first game to reintroduce the video game legend to the public is Heroes of Might and Magic V, the sequel to the universally acclaimed turn-based strategy series with a touch of RPG. The new opus will benefit from the features and characteristics that established the success of the initial saga while offering a wealth of innovations s...