Heroes of Might and Magic III is an amazing game that can be challanging, entertaining, and just pure fun.
The graphics might not be good (and are actually bad for PC) but considering it was made 7 years ago, you can imagine that the graphics were the best possible back then. The cutscenes (or the scenes before and after campaigns) have amazing graphics, even for 2006.
Heroes of Might and Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic II were practically horrible (the gameplay was fun, but the graphics ruined everything). But it all dramatically changed in Heroes of Might and Magic III.
The gameplay is quite simple once you learn it. It takes about 50 minutes to learn most of the game, but every scenario you might discover a new artifact, object, or effect. With 2 expansion packs (Shadow of Death and Armageddon's Blade) you can expand the possibilities with new creatures, artifacts, campaigns, scenarios, objects, and even a new castle in Armageddon's Blade.
The original game features 8 castles, each with unique structures, creatures, heroes, effects, and spells. The combat is the main thing where tactic is used, and the rest is mostly strategic. The player must build armies and expand his empire by building structures, conquering castles, and defeating rivals, while keeping an eye on resources to build you towns such as gold, wood, ore, gems, etc.
Heroes of Might and Magic III also features new spells, to help the player in and outside of combat. Spells can boost your creatures, hurt you enemy, weaken your enemy, create obstacles, remove obstacles and even teleport, fly, and walk on water outside of combat. Different creatures have different effects that work like spells, but are automatic.
Artifacts play an important part by boosting your creature's strength, making you walk more, giving you extra resources, giving you spells, or protecting you from spells. Artifacts can also be sacrificed when you into special building for experience and resources.
Heroes have secondary skills, which are special abilities to help the player in any aspect of the game. Secondary skills are obtained by increasing levels, which is possible by getting experience from battles. In addition, primary skills are also in the game to determine your hero's main skills.
Instead of normal fighting, when you attack a castle or being attacked, a siege will occur. A siege is when the defender of the castle walls for extra protections and attackers. The attacker must get over the walls using flying creatures or destroying them using spells and a balista.
This game also has campaigns, which scenarios based on stories in the game. Campaigns are usually harder than normal scenarios, and are for only one player. After you have mastered campaigns, you can go online and test yourself against friends and rivals on the Internet.
This game gets a perfect 10 in value because it also features a map and campaign editors. Map editor is used to edit the in-game maps or create you own maps. Campaign editor is used to create your own custom campaigns by putting together a couple of scenarios and adding cutscenes between scenarios.
Well, I've gotten this game about 6 years ago and I still play it. It's fun making maps, trying hard scenarios, or going online. I have tried Heroes of Might and Magic IV but didn't like it very much, because the gameplay changed in a bad way. I'm looking forward for Heroes of Might and Magic V (or actually my new computer that I can play it on) and hoping that the series will continue as it is now.