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New World Computing |
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LC475 (25MHz 68LC040) |
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Reviewed by: Jon Ostenson
Heroes of Might and Magic is a fantasy strategy game that pits you against three other warlords, vying for control of the realm. Your abilities and armies are based on the character class you choose (Warlock, Sorceress, Barbarian, or Knight). With spells and armies you will march across the land, encountering strange artifacts and places, as well as engaging the other warlords in a battle for complete domination.
Gameplay & Interface
Heroes is remarkably simple to learn; there is a tutorial included in the manual, but the game's installer didn't put the tutorial game on my drive and I couldn't find it on the CD anywhere. But, in all truth, it's probably best just to jump into this game, consulting the manual now and then to find out what you're supposed to be doing. The game's main screen organizes vital information well, and allows easy access to most of commands and functions you'll use while playing. Combat and recruiting armies might take a little perusing of the manual, but it doesn't take long to figure those out. The packaging includes a nice laminated reference sheet with all the recruitable creature types and building paths which really aids gameplay.
Your main tasks in this game are to recruit heroes and armies in order to gather enough strength to crush your opponents. Recruiting is tricky, since you're limited by the kind of castle and character class you are, along with the fact that new recruits become available only once a week. You can spend a lot of time exploring, though, and gathering resources as well as improving your skills and abilities as a hero (which, in turn, effect the fighting ability of your armies). Combat is handled well, is simple to learn, and entertaining to watch. There are quite a few creature types and spells in the game that provide for lots of variety and challenge during combat.
Heroes offers single scenarios that you can play, or campaign games that test your abilities in a number of situations. You can also connect to a network and play against other long-distance human opponents. I did not test this feature of Heroes, so I can't say how easy it is to setup (although the documentation makes it seem fairly simple), or how well Heroes deals with this type of gameplay.
Difficulty & Replayability
Becoming familiar with the game and its interface isn't the tricky part of Heroes--conquering the game is. Be prepared once you start a game to spend hours in front of your computer (enjoyable hours, that is) before you finish it, even at the easy level. Campaign games are guaranteed to last for quite a while, but the scenario games can be quite challenging as well. You'll usually have one or two weak opponents, but the longer it takes you to conquer others, the more time they have to gather resources and recruit heroes and armies.
Since Heroes is a strategy game, the potential for playing it over and over is nearly limitless. Gaining an idea of which creatures do best against which enemies, and which spells are most powerful will take you some time. In addition, each scenario will provide numerous challenges as far as gaining resources goes; resources are most important in the game, for they are what allows you to gather heroes and armies to your side.
Graphics & Sound
Heroes has some nice graphics, including even some creature animations during combat. The creatures, buildings, and heroes are all cartoonish in nature, something which I think could be improved upon with today's technology. There are quite a few sound effects, both during combat and while you're searching the land for armies and resources (although some of these, too, seem "cartoonish"). Neither the graphics or the sound detract from the game, but I don't think they add as much as they possibly could.
Conclusion
All in all, Heroes is a very good game that, if you let it, can keep you glued to your mouse and monitor four hours on end. It strikes a nice balance between role-playing games of the AD&D nature that encourage individual character development, and other strategy games that focus on things like troop movement and resource development. I would like the game to offer more choice in the character classes of the heroes you recruit, and to offer more control over what class can be recruited. I felt a bit limited, too, in my choices when it came to recruiting armies.