Rating: 
Summary: Bad News for Heroes III fans - but still fun for Newcomers
Review: Heroes of Might and Magic fans can be as tough to please as Tolkien fans. With three previous games to base their expectations on, Heroes IV had a high bar set for itself. Unfortunately it comes up very short - but for new players it still reaches high enough to be plenty enjoyable.For those new to the series, Heroes is a turn based strategy game in which your heroes serve as generals, leading mystical and themed troops in battle against other heroes. You manage towns' resources to build improvements, generating advantages, new trooop types, and acquiring wealth to buy troops. Heroes and towns have different flavors - a nature based hero and town will have sprites, elves, and unicorns, while an undead town will generate zombies, vampires, and bone dragons. Managing your resources, moving around your pieces, and using strategy in combat is what the game's all about. I admit I fall into the category of 'high expectations previous Heroes player'. I anxiously awaited the release date - what new creatures would be added? What glitzy graphics? Like many other Heroes III fans, I was disappointed. Heroes IV abandoned its beautiful, colorful 2d graphic in favor of 3d isometric graphics. Even at low resolutions I find myself squinting at the newly rendered units on the screen because they've become very small, and, in many cases, their modeling makes them look alike. Towns and structures suffer the same fate - the storybook look of your towns has turned into geometric, boxy, dull looking objects. Much of the flavor has been lost. Also, upgraded units have disappeared. I enjoyed the look and bonuses of upgrading from a unicorn to a war unicorn, for example, in Heroes III, but now there is one and only one version of each unit. In terms of gameplay, the changes are a mix of pros and cons. Combat now involves your heroes as melee pieces - just like any other unit. The con is that they are very easy to kill. The interesting plus is that you can team up multiple heroes in a single army. Another interesting development is that you don't need a hero at all to move an army around - get your hero killed and your strongest unit will take the lead. You are also free to unlease new units from your castle heroless in the same manner. Wandering armies are likely to encounter wandering monsters - another nice change - that hoard of dragons won't let you just skirt by it anymore. Lastly, in terms of new units there are few with this release - if anything, many more of your favorites will have disappeared. Both the skill and the magic system have been updated. You have more choices, as well as the ability to mix classes or branch off into specialties. I especially like the added flexibility which the updated system has. A few other pros I enjoy are new options like caravans, which let you dispatch armies from one castle to arrive automatically at another a few turns later. It's nice to reduce some of the micromangement while you get on to bigger and better things like conquering the world. The game's sounds have changed. Put back in (from Heroes II) is the opera singing while in town. Lost, like so much of the rest of the game, is the flavor and distincness of the different town types. Also, the game shipped with a maddening bug which repeated music like a skipping CD - something fixed later with a patch. To me it feels like a completely different game, like a new bunch of programmers took a stab at creating a Heroes game based on a list of feature bullet points, which is why so many loyal Heroes fans have given it negative reviews. It's not a bad different game; newcomers will enjoy it very much. Those expecting a turn based fantasy strategy game will be delighted - those expecting a sequel to the popular Heroes series will find themselves disappointed and [$$]poorer.
Rating: 
Summary: This game...SAY NO
Review: Well, I bought this game about the day it was released. My brother moved away, and we used to have a lot of fun playing head-to-head Heroes III over the net. As you can imagine, we were pretty stoked when Heroes IV was released, because we were getting so good at III, it was becoming boring. When I looked at the box, it never occurred to me to check to see if it said "multi-player." I mean, after all, it was *Heroes*. I installed, it, and clicked "Multiplayer." Oh, gee! "We're sorry, this feature is not yet implemented, please check our website for updates." I was incensed! I do still check the site occasionally. They released an expansion. Before they even finished the core game! As far as I know, there *still* isn't a multiplayer update, over a year later, meaning there won't ever be...
Rating: 
Summary: I Had Fun!
Review: I've read through the reviews on this game and was surprised at how many bad reviews it received. I do think that some of the points in the bad reviews hold some merit but I don't think it is as terrible as they make it out to be. It is true that it doesn't play like HOMM1-HOMM3 but then I wouldn't want it too. If I wanted HOMM 1-3 I'd just load those games up. As far as the "poor" graphics...well...HOMM 1-3 didn't have exactly the best graphics I'd ever seen. HOMM4 I believe does have better graphics but they do have a different "feel" then the previous games. However I say 'So what?' As for there not being much difference in the difficulty levels, there wasn't much difference in the difficulty levels for HOMM 1-3! Once you know how to win at a game you can always beat it whatever the difficulty level is. I think that this game suffers from the same sequel difficulties as everything else, whether its a movie or a book or a video game. If you change it too much the "cult" crowd goes crazy and if you don't change it enough everyone else gets bored. I believe the ultimate question is whether I have had fun playing the game. The answer is 'yes, I did'. Is it worth the money? In my opinion 'yes'. There were some things I would like to see different and I do agree with some of the negative comments. In a nut shell I'd say that if you are looking for a total repeat of HOMM 1-3 then you probably won't like it too much. If you are interested in something a little different and are not to picky about having just a graphically glorified version of the previous game then I think you would enjoy this. I do believe that the negative reviews have been too harsh.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I have been reading through these reviews and have finally noted something very interesting about a change brought to the HOMM series. "You must CHOOSE between which armies you'd like to have populate your castle, eg, choosing Champions means you can't have Angels, and choosing Monks means you can't have Crusaders. There's no upgrades possible for units. You just get them and away you go." You see, I've been playing HOMM for many years now and started playing a similar type of game called Disciples (they've had 2 versions out so far.) The thing is, both have their merit and things i like about they're game play. HOMM has always been more commercial, while Disciples was more unique and a bit darker in tone. However, it uses that concept of selecting the path of your troops quoted above. If you need fighters, you have two paths that branch out as they gain experience. Example: Standard fighter/knight or Witch-hunter(Resistant to mind attacks). As these types progressed in experience, they could become Crusaders or Angels, etc. But you have to decide the first time you build a structure. You can't go back until the next map. It sounds to me, that EDO has taken note of it's "competitors" in this market and wanted to try their hand at offering similar features/tactics. I have to give them credit for the effort. Though, from these reviews, it seems I simply need to try the game myself to see whether it plays well. Anyways, that's just my spin on this. i truly enjoy both games for their own approach. Though, for those who are looking for a slightly different spin on the game style, I highly suggest you check out the Disciples series as well. (www.strategyfirst.com). Happy gaming.
Rating: 
Summary: Not at all like the other HOMMs
Review: My wife and I have played Heroes of Might and Magic since HOMM1 came out. Then, going from HOMM2 back to HOMM1 was like moving to a place with no running water. Somewhere along the line, 3DO bought New World Corporation but kept most of the staff, somehow we knew it wouldn't work. Homm3 came out 1 year past it's due date and it was well worth it, it's 2 expansion packs were also well worth it and any "bugs" were fixed, including spelling errors. We anxiously awaited the release of HOMM4 and actually purchased it in advance. When it came, boy were we disappointed! There were only 39 single player maps (No Multiplayer though it did finally come in a patch), most of them were small, only 1 was X-Large and any that had an underground had very little of an underground. The map maker no longer made random maps and it has no help file so you have to spend a lot of time figuring out how it works. If you've played the other HOMM's you'll be very bummed if you buy this one, even the campains were very [weak]. We altered a lot of the maps so we can play them but if I had the chance again, I wouldn't buy this game.
Rating:
Summary: This game freaking ...
Review: I have been a HOMM fan ever since HOMM 2, I loved HOMM 2,
and loved HOMM 3 even more. Man, HOMM 3 is such a great game.
I looked forward to this game, but no, 3DO had to change the
game completely. 3DO manages to successfully taken out
everything that was fun in the HOMM series and give us a
horibble looking and boring game. no longer we have the beautiful graphics of HOMM 3,
no longer we have the challenge of HOMM 2
no longer we have the serious tactics of HOMM series. good job 3DO, no wonder you are doing so bad.
get rid of the M&M series and focus on HOMM!!
but I heard they are not going to develope the HOMM
series any more. which is just stupid. how much
did you make off M&M? how much did you make off HOMM?
can you guys do math?
Rating:
Summary: another view
Review: I'm just adding something here to the three previous reviews, since I agree with them and don't want to be repetitive. Read those too. A very cool game, but the biggest disappointment is that there is only one XL scenario. The others seem limited by their size. Also, it doesn't really get much harder as you crank up the play levels. The 'wandering' monsters are harder to defeat, but they kill off the computer's heroes, too, so you don't have to worry about fortress defense as much. I love this game, but give a slight preference to HMM-3 (more so when combined with expansion pack).
Rating:
Summary: Not good enough
Review: I played this for months and months determined to finish it. Basically this is a poor sequal to HOM3. I did enjoy playing it but I just ignored the bad parts of the game, and concentrated on finishing. I put it up to the hardest level and still beat it easily. The HOM4 design tactic is to have jump points near your main town so making it difficult to expand. This just makes the game stupid. In no game did there seem to be a time element, just wait and build and you'll be ok. When you find an enemy in a town too strong, just move around and the enemy hero is sure to move so you can jump on them.
Rating:
Summary: Different and fun
Review: I'm a huge Heroes fan. I got the original when it first came out and have been hooked ever since, and unlike almost all other Heroes (especially Heroes 3) fans, I really enjoy H4. Yes, it is a lot different than the previous games, and there are some features, such as the no hex battlefield, that I think should be changed, but really, no one's perfect, not even a gaming company. And for all you H3 fans who complain that the game is too different from the rest of the series, I say that if 3DO was going to make something similar to H3, they'd make it in the form of an expansion for H3. H4 is a different game, so it's going to have some differences; eventually, players are going to get bored with the same old, same old of H3, so change is necessary. I'm not saying that H3 is a bad game; on the contrary, if I had to choose, I'd probably pick H3 over H4, only because I'm more familiar with it and have been playing it a lot longer.
The thing that I really enjoy about H4 is that it's familiar enough that I was able to learn how to play it quickly, but it's also different enough that I can go back and play H3 and not feel like I'm stepping back to a more primitive game, such as it is with Heroes 1-3; if someone has H3, they're not going to play H1 or 2 because H3 is simply a better game. H1 and 2 are classic games, yes, but anyone would admit that H2 is better than H1 and H3 is better than H2. H4, however, is so different from H3 that you can play them like different games with similar aspects. So don't knock H4 before you try it!
Rating:
Summary: Buy it for the fun, not for nostalgia!
Review: I got the game HOMM4 as a gift, and I had no idea what Heroes series was. I am enjoying this game thoroughly. If you read through the reviews, you'd see two distinct categories - those who have played past Heroes games and those who haven't. Players of past Heroes rank this one very low, while most of the newcomers rank it high (like me). The graphics is above average and the gameplay is quite enjoyable. The negative factor in the game is the poorly written and often very confusing manual and the lack of multiplayer support. Even after reading the manual several times, I'm having to figure a lot of things out for myself. Not that there are too many of them out there, but some websites and FAQs provide much better help. 3DO needs to hire good HelpWriting team for the manuals. Don't even try the official website of the game since it dishes the same garbage in an even terse language! As for multiplayer support, what is the use of such a feature if the game is not good enough to play? Slam down that extra $$ for the extension if you can't live without it.. If you are a Heroes series player, you're better stay off this game since it'll shatter your existing 2D castle of expectation. But if you are new to this series, this game is excellent for building that new castle of fun!! [PS: Don't forget to make use of the game update for latest patch without which you are playing a game not worth talking about!]
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