Heroes of Might and Magic

Since it isn't all that good to write about my nostalgia games all the time, I figured this time, I'd take a look on Heroes of Might and Magic, specifically the latest, sixth installment.

The first of the first.

In the distant 1986, the now defunct New World Computing released a turn-based role-playing  game for DOS called "Might and Magic: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum". It had 6 basic classes the player could choose from, inspired more or less by "Dungeons and Dragons". The world in which the game took place was called VARN and is a sort of marriage between a classic medieval fantasy and sci-fi elements. The series is considered to be one of the founders of the genre along with The Bard's Tale, Wizardry and Ultima series. It spanned 8 more games, perfecting the RPG formula in the same setting along with many spin-off titles: Heroes, Crusaders, Legends, Warriors, Shifters and Dragon Wars of Might and Magic.Most of the spin-offs were created after New World Computing became a subsidiary of The 3DO Company, and all but the Heroes were single titles.

Coming out in 1995, RPG macromanagement
was somewhat revolutionary.

Why would anyone face or shoot his
enemies diagonally is anyone's guess.

Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic quest, came out in 1995 for MS-DOS, and was later ported for Windows 95. It was the first of the franchise where the combat was fought by groups of units and not solely by characters. In the first through fourth title the action took place on the world of Enroth, and after it's destruction - the world of Axeoth (Heroes of Might and Magic IV), adding new features along the way like skill specializations, spell system, artifacts and unit upgrades (HoMM 2). The series spanned a great total of four games and five expansions before 3DO filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and the rights were bought by Ubisoft.

Even though HoMM IV wasn't
what players were expecting, it still
had two expansion sets.

 Ubisoft, perhaps wanting to get out of the shadow of "Might and Magic" and taking advantage of the negative feedback 3DO got for all the controversial changes they made in HoMM IV (no creature upgrades, 3D graphics with an awkward combat camera, heroes were units you could use normally in combat, fewer towns and neutral creatures to name a few) introduced a whole new setting for Heroes in the face of the world of Ashan.

Show of hands, anyone else
disappointed
that this guy wasn't in the game?

Asha is not limited to life, but represents
the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, that's
why necromancy in Ashan is a noble calling

My introduction in the series was when I played the critically acclaimed Heroes 3. With a multitude of neutral units and playable races, it had a fairly interesting and diverse gameplay, I'm sure much more can be said, but at that time I didn't really heed much attention to classics, and when I wizened up, the fifth one more than whet my appetite. I remember I played the fourth Heroes, but it looked awkward and lifeless, so I don't have much first-hand experience with it. I can only go by Internet sources when claiming that Ubisoft ignored HoMM IV's gameplay innovations and build around the gameplay of "The Shadow of Death". The hero was not considered as a movable, killable unit in combat, but he or she could make an action once a turn in combat - casting spells, which were mana reliant, performing abilities, which weren't, or attacking a creature. The fact that the hero could attack a creature and exhibit martial prowess, and not just be an omniscient overseer, in my opinion brought diversity to the idea that constitutes "hero" in the series. The setting is more or less a typical fantasy universe, created by the life-aspected dragon goddess Asha, and assailed by her hellish brother Urgash in his realm of Sheogh. There are 6 other, lesser dragons, each aspected to the four traditional elements + Light and Darkness.

Tall dwarf, bear dwarf, shield dwarf,
spear dwarf, mammot dwarf.... I'm starting to
see a pattern....

The newest game is distributed via Steam and presents a few
awesome features for online players, sadly connectivity
issues  turns the requirements for
bonus content into a silly restriction.

Content wise-Ubisoft's Heroes V, developed by Nival Interactive consisted of only six towns, each with it's own campaign comprising of 5 missions.The campaigns were as follows : Haven, Inferno, Necropolis, Dungeon (Dark elves), Sylvan (Wood elves) and Academy (Mages and constructs) with the expansions Hammers of Fate (2006) and Tribes of the East (2007) further adding the Fortress  (dwarves) and Stronghold (greenskins) factions. Each campaign added maybe a dozen hours of game time, more or less following the story of the Demon Sovereign Kha-Belleth's plans to father a son from the ruling griffin dynasty, who would later free him of his imprisonment in Sheogh.

The last expansion brought most to the gameplay, featuring a double upgrade system (you could  choose from two types of upgrades for any creature), deftly woven in the story and campaign, a new mechanic for Necropolis (quota of raising undead after battles), and the Stronghold rage mechanic (the more rage they get, the stronger they become for up to three levels of rage for each stack which is also a subject to special Stronghold abilities). I think that the second expansion is by far the better of the two. Taking into account the art style of the Fortress units, which lacked a creative spark (dwarves of all shapes and sizes, visually appealing, yet repetitive in design), the rune system which was too heavily focused on macromanaging your resources ( having them in battle makes an enormous impact), and the campaign was far less spectacular than what the original and Tribes of the East had to offer.All in all it was a fairly nice reboot of the Heroes franchise in my opinion, and it tried in earnest to respect the traditional style of play while being fresh and visually appealing. Not enough to brake the mold, but not a dud either.

"The wall of Asha shakes,
when the wall of  Sheogh shimmers".

"Tether a griffin's wings,
and she'll learn to fly using her claws"

Heroes 6 on the other hand is a whole different story. It is the best example of turn-based story telling I've ever seen. And normally I'm very negative towards prequels, because it most often spells " trying to fit everything into what you already set as a standard with your last works", it's rarely creative, or even engaging. If you don't believe me ask one of the Star Wars fans, who's seen the original Lucas trilogy before the prequels. This game, however takes place 4 hundred years before Heroes of Might and Magic 5, long before anyone we knew was born (Kha-Belleth being the exception ofcourse), so there isn't any shark jumping or stretching the plot to make it fit. Actually the game presents surprisingly few shout-outs to the previous titles (the most notable being having a week for double sulfur production which reads "too bad the people of Ashan haven't found any use for this resource yet").Developed by the same studio that brought us the mediocre Warhammer tactical RTS, HoMM VI unexpectedly has a lot going for it.

!!!Since HoMM 6 is a fairly new game, I'm putting up a SPOILER warning, since a great deal of what I want to talk about concerns story and story-telling!!!

"Sheogh smells of sulfur,
darkness smells of fear"

"There is no rest for the wicked,
where there is not justice for the dead".

The game centers around the five children of the Duke of Griffin - Slava. Each of them is connected, or otherwise manipulated by angels, seeking to further their own goals. The story has an impressive sense of pace sometimes, taking two big tutorial missions to establish a sense for world and destiny. Most games rely on a dramatic opening sequence for that, but this game takes the time (personally it took me 6 hours being thorough) to show us what Slava was like, his greatest achievements, his convictions and struggles. All of this makes the starting conflict of the story, his murder by the hand of his daughter Anastasya, much more relevant (it would have been shocking, if it wasn't known from the get go). The story here overlaps, and the campaigns are not in sequence as in the Nival Heroes. This approach brings more immediate pressure as the story unfolds, and makes more sense as each sibling simultaneously peels off a part of the secret conspiracy involving the ancient war between the angels and weird psychic beings called The Faceless.

"There are many dragon gods,
but only one fears the Light"

The maps tie gameplay and storytelling together in a wonderful way. Rarely do you have to just crush the opposition, or escape. Instead each mission gives you a sense of purpose, reflected in various objectives and numerous unique optional missions. A very strong point of the game is the occasional dialogue between the characters at the start of the turn; it's not relevant to the story but reinforces the realism, especially helps when you've spent 20 turns playing and you've lost your sense of destiny as it were. The narrative pulls you back in, with the albeit funny or silly at times yet never dull dialogue. The mission loading screens deserve a special commendation for the sometimes surprisingly insightful and contextual aphorisms. The game does tend follow the main plot around the demon invasion and the war with the Faceless and some credit can be given for making a believable and cohesive narrative and motivation for each of the Griffin siblings and the nation they represent. That being said however, Irina's Sanctuary campaign and Sandor's Stronghold campaign scarcely dealt with the war against the Faceless and the angels' plans on using their bodies to resurrect their fallen kin. In my opinion especially the latter needed some contextualization in the family's struggle, but in both cases it was just a war of dominance against the ruler of the respective faction and later reaffirming the claim on previous territories.

The gameplay introduces new useful features to the Heroes franchise. First and foremost the skill system and inventory received an overhaul. There are now five schools of magic and five categories of might that players can manually choose skills from every level. This eliminates the random, yet somehow more natural way of level progression for a calculated climb to bigger and better abiliies, most of which scale on the attack or magic power of the character. New artifacts are introduced, with the strongest set items available only in online play. To further customize your character there is a tear/blood gouge with two upgrades, each yielding a powerful spell. It is worthy of note that that gouge is a powerful story-telling instrument and often used way to customize the actions and consequences of the siblings in their respective campaigns. Also there is a faction specific skill which can be performed by the hero regardless of his actions this turn and fills up according to his success in battle.

There are a few map changes in HoMM VI. Most noticeably the map is now divided into areas governed by a fort. The fort guarantees the possession of all the surrounding resource points and is defendable.Your resource points are captured only if your opponent takes over your fort, guarding them. Reducing the number of resource to the manageable three (wood, ore, crystals) + gold made it much more easier have and manage an army. That coupled with an easy teleport system to each city and fort makes defending territories much easier and turns invasions into real battles, not just skirmishes and races. Every fort, city and recruitment point can be converted for a price to suit your faction . It would seem that Heroes 6 promotes far more aggressive gameplay than the previous installment, now that the logistics are much easier and invasions can be so rewarding. The AI itself is extremely solid and in the campaign sometimes requires meticulous turn by turn advances, so that you can keep up with your opponents' onslaught. Sadly it isn't always consistent, as some of  the last missions were much too easy in comparison. The units are mostly balanced and have more special properties than in the fifth installment, an especially prominent quality of some Sanctuary units for instance, is the fact of  being amphibian - allowing the hero to literally walk on water.The creatures' skills can be boosted by standing around random beneficial objects on the combat map.

Time to meet the naga daimyo....
daimyo?  Seriously?

The art direction is as suspected on par with everything we've come to expect from Heroes. Each faction has a suitable collection of strange mythical beings. I especially like how Black hole didn't go putting dragons as an elite creature on most factions. Though some might be severely annoyed at the naive and silly portrayal of some of the Sanctuary units in the campaign. Stylistically they look and feel so eastern inspired, so much so that the awkward stereotypically asian amphibians in the campaign become a parody onto themselves. A similarly disastrous blunder would be if the people of Ashan worshipped an entity called " Gawd", it's that obvious and distracting. A really nice touch were the boss battles in which your character battled a single enemy and sometimes it's bodyguards. That made the fights much more personal, though some were obviously less climactic and there just to fill the role. The voice acting and music is nothing that deserves much credit, nor does it ruin the experience, a big chunk of it being unessential fluff to flesh out the world.

When it boils down to it I think Heroes 6 made a remarkable journey through to years, to grace our monitors in modern 3d technology today. It presents numerous character builds and an enjoyable 30-40 hour long singleplayer, occasionally foiled by technical flaws. Disregarding the laughably presented naga, the winding story and obvious character developments, the narrative struck me as a steady pace into new and distinct situations. Even if the story is nothing special I can definitely claim that the story-telling technique, the RPG elements have improved and will likely improve further in the future. One can only hope....