There are bridges in the game, but no trolls - yet.
INTRO:
The Heroes of Might & Magic series has gone through some upheaval when its original creator, New World Computing, experimented with risky ideas while suffering the financial turmoil of its once-owner, 3DO.
After New World Computing went under and the rights of the franchise went to Ubisoft, the series underwent a reboot that discarded the original canon for a new one, yet its gameplay returned to that seen in the first three titles.
These changes may not seem all-positive to every veteran of the franchise, but it would hard to ignore the improvements over its predecessors that the fifth title has brought about, especially in its graphics.
PREMISE:
Some veterans of the franchise may be irked that Ubisoft and Nival Interactive, the independent developer that Ubisoft has contracted for the game, have discarded the original setting that involved Enroth and its protagonists and antagonists.
A new, albeit familiar, setting has been created in the place of the old one. The fantastical world that this game is set in is called Ashan. Following the tradition of the series – and perhaps almost any other strategy game – there are several factions vying for control of the world. There are the usual goodly types who believe in a peaceful future and villainous archetypes that traffic with dark forces or are demons themselves that seek to wreck the world, as well as less typical sorts of factions such as capriciously cruel and egotistical dominions.
If there is a problem with the new setting, it is that it can be easy for players to be confused over the various fantastical names being thrown around, especially when they have yet to familiarize themselves with the lore. There will be more elaboration on this later.
On the other hand, for players that are already tired of the original setting, especially after Heroes of Might & Magic IV’s attempt at crafting a new saga that tries to maintain continuity with the original canon, Ashan may be a breath of fresh air.
GAMEPLAY - OVERVIEW:
The gameplay would seem rather familiar to veterans of the series, or at least the first three main entries. Instead of continuing the (perhaps flawed) Hero-centric gameplay of the fourth title, the fifth entry returns to the gameplay of the second and third.
One example of a returning gameplay design is that units within an army are presented with models, each of which represents a stack of units.
For the more puritanical veterans of the series, this can be a welcome reversion to the tried-and-true. However, veterans who are already tired of the usual formula may be a bit irked.
That is not to say that the designs in the fourth entry have been discarded entirely, as will elaborated later.
HEROES - OVERVIEW:
Like the previous games, Heroes are characters that the player needs to lead his/her armies.
However, in a change from the previous games, there are several types of Heroes, one for each faction in the game. This is a change from the previous games, which had a couple of Heroes for each faction, one of which relates to the “might” concept of the series while the other relates to the “magic” one.
However, there are multiple permutations of each type of Hero, specifically one for each individual with his/her own name. An entire section is needed to elaborate on this, however.
In the “Adventure” screen (this shows the map that the player and opponents are playing in), Heroes act as icons of their armies as they move about the land. In battle, they generally stand by the side while their armies fight it out, like they had in the first to third games.
However, perhaps as a tribute to the fourth’s attempt at making Heroes more involved in battle, the Heroes in the fifth title can partake in battle to a certain degree. They cannot take any bodily harm, but are considered to be defeated if their armies are annihilated, like they were in the first three games.
There are more details on how these fundamentals work out, as will be mentioned later.
HEROES AS INDIVIDUALS:
In the previous game, the differences between Heroes of the same type are mainly cosmetic. They have different names and portraits, but the differences in gameplay among them amount to little more than starting skills and capabilities.
In the fifth entry, Heroes with different names actually have different potential in their capabilities. This is not just limited to the characters in the story campaign, though these are the most powerful as befitting the protagonists of narratives.
Anyway, each Hero with a unique name generally starts with an ability that no other Hero possesses. This ability, known in-game as “specialty”, is generally useful throughout his/her career and cannot be disabled or negated in any way.
For example, Irina of the Haven faction has a background in griffin-rearing, so her specialty concerns bonuses for griffins. Although griffins are not immediately available to a Haven player right from the start, Irina is a splendid choice for players who like griffins and their ability to perform retaliation attacks more than once. This talent of hers is not replicated in other Haven Heroes.
Otherwise, Heroes that are endemic to a faction share the same progress tree, though different Heroes can go down different paths as the player sees fit, as will be described later.
HEROES IN CAMPAIGNS:
The Heroes that appear in the story campaigns are not available in any other game mode, mainly because they have specialties that can be overpowered if they are playable in other modes. Some campaign-associated Heroes do have specialties that are the same as the balanced ones used for other game modes, but they generally start with far better statistics.
Whichever campaign Hero that the player is given, the player must learn to exploit these talents because he/she will have to use the same Heroes at least until the end of their associated campaigns. In the campaign mode, the Heroes’ progress through their career is maintained from one scenario to the next, at least until the end of their associated campaigns.
Some players may be a bit miffed that any Hero or Heroine that they have developed over the course of a campaign is practically discarded at the end of it. Even if said Hero or Heroine appears in subsequent campaigns, he/she tends to appear as just a mere character, or if he/she is involved in the gameplay (either as a protagonist or antagonist), his/her statistics and skills may have changed entirely.
However, players that are irked by this may be pleased by the finale of the game, which appears to fetch data from the log of the player’s travails through certain campaigns to set up the starting conditions. To elaborate more on this would be a spoiler though.
The campaign will not inform the player of the intricacies of the progress tree for each type of Hero, which will be described later. Therefore, the inexperienced player may well develop his/her campaign Heroes in inefficient ways, which may lead to difficult fights further on that may sour his/her experience of the game. Of course, this can be averted by reading the manual.
Yet, the player is better off forewarned about the challenges of the game’s campaign mode beforehand. For better or worse though, the developer would continue their policy of designing campaigns with the assumption that the player knows what’s coming in later expansions for the game.
HEROES – CAREER PROGRESS:
As in the previous games, Heroes of all types share certain lines of skills. They get to pick one of these skills to learn or advance when they gain a level. Some of these skills would be familiar to veterans of the franchise, such as Attack and Defense, while some others are slight overhauls of skills that have been seen in earlier titles.
Like in the previous titles, a Hero cannot possibly learn all skills that can be learned. They can only ever pick a handful, so the player must decide carefully on the progress of the Hero’s career in order to obtain outcomes that he/she wants.
Another tradition that the fifth entry would follow is that each skill unlocks the opportunity for the Hero to obtain sub-skills, called “abilities” in-game. They can be picked in lieu of new skills or skill upgrades when a Hero gains a level. Each skill generally has three abilities that any Hero that learns the skill can pick without fulfilling any other prerequisites.
However, unlike skills, abilities cannot be upgraded for greater bonuses, but instead decide the specialization of the Hero. This is where the fifth title diverges from its predecessors in terms of complexity.
There are more differences that can be intriguing. The greatest of these is that each type of Hero has a special skill that the other types do not have, and he/she has it right from the start.
For example, the Academy Wizards have the skill of the Artificer, which allows them to create special items that can be equipped on stacks of units to give them capabilities that they otherwise do not have. This gives the Academy faction a measure of unpredictability and versatility against the opposition.
Furthermore, unlike the other more generally obtainable skills that can only be upgraded twice to the third tier (“Expert”), these unique skills can be upgraded further to fourth tier (“Ultimate”). This additional tier either grants greater bonuses, such as in the case of the Warlock’s Elemental Chain skill, or grant different bonuses entirely, such as the discount prices for creating unit artifacts that Wizards get when they reach the Ultimate tier.
(It is worth noting here that in the earlier versions of the game, the Ultimate rank had stringent prerequisites. These have since been removed as of its last update. This is a much welcome change as the previous implementation shoe-horned players into predictable development plans for his/her Heroes.)
In addition, a Hero may have access to fourth and fifth choices of abilities for certain skills that require more prerequisites and thus more planning on the player’s part. These special abilities tend to be more specialized (and thus more powerful in certain scenarios) than the generally available ones. Some of them are available to only a few factions.
For example, the Mana Burst ability, which is associated with Destructive Magic, is only available to the more magic-oriented factions. This ability has different prerequisites for different factions, but for all of these factions, it does the same thing: make the use of spells by enemy units particularly risky.
Some of these special abilities are specifically unique to only his/her faction (and usually require him/her to advance his/her main skill). For example, a peculiar Haven Hero can develop his/her Dark Magic skill to obtain the Fallen Knight ability, which makes his/her Dark Magic spells particularly powerful but at the cost of the morale of his/her army (which will not like following such a character).
However, the player has to keep in mind that for each skill that a Hero has, he/she can only have up to three abilities. Taking the unique abilities entails an opportunity cost, namely the general-purpose reliability of the regular abilities.
Moreover, some of these abilities are more useful in one-off games, such as multiplayer matches, than in the campaign. For example, the Wizard’s Reward special ability grants a one-time bonus of 1000 gold, which is impractical in the long-term campaign mode. (On the other hand, it also grants 2 permanent points of Spellpower, which makes it more useful than its counterpart, Arcane Exaltation.)
Unfortunately, as interestingly different as Heroes of Might and Magic V’s take on career progress is when compared to that of its predecessors, it inherits a habit from past titles.
When a Hero gains a level, the player is forced to look at a level-up window for the Hero – there is no way to advance without picking the next step in the Hero’s development. Moreover, the player is only given a few options that are randomly picked from the group of skills and abilities that the Hero has met the prerequisites for.
These choices may not be the ones that the player wants, and considering that a Hero can only have so many skills and abilities, the player may be forced into making decisions that go against his/her plans. Some players can be irked by this element of luck in the progression of a Hero’s career.
HEROES – IN BATTLE:
In the first three titles, there was an issue about the actual role of Heroes in battles. In those games, Heroes that have learned spells, if they have the skills to cast them in the first place, are at least able to cast spells as long as they have mana, but Heroes that have not can do anything but watch. Being drained of mana also renders them useless. The fourth title tried to remedy this, but ended up making empowering Heroes a cheesy but effective way to win.
The fifth title may have struck a careful balance between having Heroes act as facilitators to their armies and participating directly in battle.
Instead of just standing by and watching, Heroes get their own turns (more on the turn-management system later) in battle. Their turns can be spent on performing attacks against stacks of enemy units, casting spells or activating their special abilities. The Heroes cannot be stymied in any way.
Different Heroes have different abilities that may allow them to participate more in battle than just contributing bonuses to their armies. Interestingly, any other Hero may have an ability that counters any attempt by a player to abusively exploit the advantages of a certain Hero’s ability. The following example elaborates this.
The Haven’s Hero, the Knight, can perform a run-by attack that inflicts considerable damage on a stack – any stack, regardless of reach. This may seem like a simple “ranged melee attack”, which is nothing new in video games. However, the Knight has an ability that allows him/her to mark a stack of unit under his/her control for “protection”. If it is attacked by any enemy stack, the Knight gets a free attack on it. This greatly rewards otherwise risky tactics that are oriented around meat-shields (especially the Haven’s Griffins).
This ability of the Knight happens to be countered by an ability of the Inferno faction’s Hero, the Demon Lord’s Mark of the Damned. This ability curses an enemy stack such that it takes damage when it takes any action, which happens to work against meat-shields with high number of retaliations (more on these later) quite nicely.
Likewise, the Necropolis’ Necromancer has an ability that allows him/her to gain mana from the infliction of damage on a stack that he/she has marked, which makes this handy against meat-shield tactics.
Most players are likely to resort to casting spells during battle, however, especially considering how useful many spells are in the fifth title. There will be a separate section on spells later.
During battle, a Hero also performs reconnaissance. Although any player can see the positions and numbers of any stacks of enemy units, he/she cannot see certain statistics of theirs, such as their current courage (or morale) ratings and the health of the “topmost” unit in a stack. The player gets to see these if the enemy stacks get closer to his/her side of the battlefield. Certain Heroes happen to have abilities that allow the player to see these when they are further away.
HEROES – IN WORLD MAP:
Like in the previous games, Heroes are the units that the player uses to clear and conquer the map in play, in preparation for dealing a decisive strike against the opposition. They interact with mines, “neutral” buildings and visit cities for reinforcements and such, among other things that veterans of the series may be familiar with.
The player may also use Heroes as couriers, e.g. having a secondary Hero to bring units and items over to the primary Hero. This is perhaps more important in the fifth title as there are more buildings that can be equipped with a garrison of units to deter cheap take-overs.
FACTIONS – OVERVIEW:
Following the tradition of the series, there are multiple factions with different ideologies and strategic capabilities in the fifth title. This tradition may have been enhanced further with the introduction of idiosyncrasies to each faction and certain special abilities that its Heroes can get, as will be described later.
FACTIONS – UNITS:
In addition to having its own type of Hero, as mentioned earlier, a faction generally has seven so-called “levels” of units. The “level” of a unit does not only provide an idea of its general power, but also the size of its recruitment pool, or “population”, to use the game’s own (perhaps poorly-named) term. To elaborate, a higher level for a unit means that it is generally more powerful in combat but is fewer in number.
In the vanilla version of this game, each level of unit has a pair of variants: one for the default set of units that are unlocked when their associated abode is built, while the other is for upgraded versions of the default set.
All these designs are much like those for the factions in the first three games, meaning that the fifth title eschews the “either-or” system in the fourth title.
However, unlike the first three games, the upgraded versions of units are not merely the same units with greater statistics. They happen to obtain special abilities and talents too, which make them straight upgrades over their predecessors. However, they also happen to be more expensive.
There are certain upgraded units that have entirely different abilities from their vanilla versions too. For one, the Haven’s Marksmen, which are the so-called upgrades for its Archers, do not have the latter’s Scatter Shot ability; instead, they have Precise Shot, which is something else entirely.
Such strategic and tactical differences between vanilla units and their upgraded versions introduce an element of opportunity costs to the game. Unfortunately, as interesting as this is, it also highlights an issue with the game, namely the absence of the convenience to downgrade units.
Of course, the player is given the convenience of either purchasing the vanilla version of a unit or its upgraded version when doing recruitment, but this is a partial solution. Moreover, the purchase draws from the same pool of recruits, so it may seem like a waste of recruits if they are recruited as vanilla units.
Speaking of recruitment pools, the fifth title continues the tradition of implementing a limitation on the recruitment of armies that a player can perform when having a Hero at a town. This was intended to prevent players with abundant resources from having too much of an advantage over those that do not, and it still works.
A recruitment pool for a level of unit is created when its associated building is built, so it may be in the player’s long-term interests to consider building them early. Like the previous games, the fifth title also implements special weeks with lore-specific horoscopes that increase the replenishment rate of certain creatures (or their “population growth”, to use the game’s own jargon) just for those weeks. There are even more kinds of weeks, which will be described later.
FACTION – ABILITIES:
One of the fifth game’s most positive designs is its attempt to make the different factions more different in terms of gameplay, not just aesthetics.
Each faction’s cities have an ability that is usually associated with its Heroes’ factional skill. For example, Haven cities can build special facilities that allow the player to practically upgrade lower-level units to the vanilla versions of higher ones. This can be incredibly powerful, but the upgrade costs are steep enough to discourage abuse of this ability. Moreover, only a limited number of units can be trained per week.
(The game attempts to explain the narrative issue of this ability by suggesting that all Haven units are human and therefore can have progress in their career. However, this cannot explain the upgrade of Knights to Angels.)
However, by improving the primary skill of a faction’s Heroes, the Heroes’ use of a faction’s ability can be enhanced further, or at least made more versatile. Returning to the example of the Haven, the Knight can take abilities that reduce the cost of training.
Such factional abilities provide for strategic deliberations that were not there in previous games.
UNIT STATISTICS:
Most of the statistics that a unit has would be familiar to veterans of the series, such as its attack rating and hitpoints.
Unfortunately, certain statistics retain their typical designs, not necessarily for the better. Chief of these is the damage range that a unit has. When it makes an attack, the game makes a random roll within the range, meaning that luck becomes a factor, however minor, in the damage output of the unit.
This is especially problematic for high-level units, which have much wider ranges, thus making them seem less reliable than lower-level units at times.
One particular statistic has been improved for the better, however. That is Initiative, which will be described later when the game’s system for battle is elaborated.
Certain units also have their own mana pools for the purpose of spell-casting. However, unlike Heroes, they can only use a limited number of spells and their mana pools are often rather small, thus allowing for only a few turns of casting. That is, if they can survive that long; they are often targeted first.
The statistics of unit morale and luck also return, and they are still luck-dependent as they were in previous games, for better or worse. Generally, having good luck for a unit stack means that it is more likely to perform a critical hit, doing double gross damage, but this is a matter of chance.
Morale, or “courage”, to use the game’s own (inconsistent) term for this gameplay element, works in similar ways. For example, mixing units from different factions is still a recipe for disaster, because they take significant hits to morale. On the other hand, morale is now more involved in the system for battles instead of simply giving a unit stack with high morale another extra attack. This will be elaborated further later.
Like in the previous games, a unit stack can make retaliatory attacks against an enemy stack that attacks it but generally can only do so once before the next cycle of its turns. When it has expended its retaliatory attack and is awaiting replenishment, it cannot respond to further attacks. There are exceptions though, such as the Haven’s Griffins, which can retaliate more than once.
As in the previous games, different units of different factions have different costs, even if they belong to the same level. These costs often reflect their capabilities in battle. For example, the Dungeon faction has the most expensive Level 1 unit, mainly because it is arguably the most statistically powerful at this level.
Overall, the different units’ statistics are quite easy to understand and exploit, with the exception of damage range, which is out of control of the player unless he/she uses spells or abilities that give more certainty to their damage output.
UNIT ABILITIES:
The abilities that units may have are possibly the main reasons for the players’ choices in fielding them. Even the most mundane units appear to have special abilities, so they are not a total waste to recruit.
For example, the Peasant is one of the weakest units in the game, but his Taxpayer ability means that he generates one unit of gold per day, meaning that a player may gain a long-term advantage by having some peasants stay around for a long while. However, to prevent the Peasant from giving the Haven player a cheap strategic advantage, his initial cost of 20 gold coins means that he only pays off this cost in a long while.
However, as a Hero or City can only hold up to seven stacks of units, the player cannot always have both upgraded units together with vanilla units in order to take advantage of their possibly different abilities.
Some of these abilities can seem tremendously useful – perhaps even too useful. For example, the Inferno’s Imps – both vanilla and upgraded – have the ability to drain the mana reserves of opposing Heroes. This makes them particularly devastating against enemy Heroes that depend on magic. On the other hand, such units are often saddled with setbacks. Returning to the example of the Imps, they are one of the most expensive Level 1 units, especially if one considers their actual combat capabilities, which are awful.
Interestingly, the “abilities” of animosity that have been seen in previous games, such as Giants’ hatred of Dragons and vice versa, are missing in the fifth title. This can be explained away by the creation of new canon for the series, but the fifth title may seem to lack sophistication compared to its predecessors regarding this matter.
UNITSIZE:
One of the designs of the fifth title that further separates it from its predecessors is the concept of unit size. In the previous games, units are sprites that practically take up a single cell on the grid of the battlefield (more on this later); each cell had enough space to accommodate sprites of different sizes.
This is not so for the fifth title. There are units that are designated in-game as “Large Creature”, and they happen to occupy a square space of four cells, as opposed to one for other units. Therefore, these creatures take up more space on the battlefield, thus making them more susceptible to area-effect attacks because these only need to hit one of their four cells to have full effect.
Incidentally, all Level 7 units are large creatures, which is a design that may have been deliberate just to realize the aforementioned consequence.
WEEKS:
Perhaps more so than the previous titles in the series, the fifth has expanded on the system of weeks that is a minor signature of the series.
Like the previous games, each turn in the world map is one day in the chronological progression of a match/scenario. Seven days equal one week, and for this one week, there may be a special, randomly selected tweak to certain gameplay elements, as depicted by the name of the week.
Some of these names are red herrings and possible Easter eggs that have no in-game effect. For example, there is the humorously named “Week of the Hamster”.
Certain weeks increase the population growth of specific units (and their upgraded versions), as mentioned earlier. There are also weeks that affect the population growth of all units, and may even affect a player’s long-term plans. One particularly nasty week is the “Week of Plague”, in which recruitment pools for any player are wiped to zero, even those of the Necropolis’ faction.
Some weeks affect the production of resources, such as the curiously named “Week of Festivals”, which actually reduce productivity. Some other weeks apply bonuses or penalties to the Heroes’ journey across the Adventure Map and their capability to recruit units and develop their careers. One example is the “Week of Honor”, which doubles their experience gain rate.
Some other weeks actually affect battles. For example, there are weeks that can affect the strength of spells or unit attacks, or even both. The most amusing of these is the self-referential “Week of Might’n’Magic”.
Unfortunately, as the nature of the subsequent week is rather random, luck becomes a factor in the strategic contribution of the system of weeks. The game attempts to mitigate the effects of luck by having players know which week is coming up next so that they can prepare, but not everyone may be in a good position to exploit or counter the next week, or even the current one.
ADVENTURE MAP:
The Adventure map has always been a mainstay of the series, which in turn inspired similar games. The one in the fifth title is little different from its predecessors (discounting its graphical designs, of course), but where it is different, it matters in terms of gameplay.
The most important aspect of the adventure map is its various expanses of terrain. Mountains usually block physical movement over land, though they can be circumvented with (very rare) items that allow a Hero’s army to fly over them. Seas are another obstacle, at least until players build ships and have armies embark onto them to be landed elsewhere with viable beaches.
The most sought after objects in the adventure map are loose caches of resources, especially in multiplayer. Despite being “loose”, these caches are often guarded by unaffiliated armies of creatures, which the player may need to clear. Players with more diplomatic Heroes may be able to hit two birds with one stone by enticing these independent armies to join the Heroes, who can then proceed to claim the caches.
Next, there are the resource nodes, most of which still typically produce resources on a daily basis. Taking a leaf from the two previous games before it, the fifth title has resource nodes capable of housing garrisons, which make them harder to be wrested away by enemies. This is especially useful for defending particularly important resource nodes, namely those that produce rare resources that certain factions need more than the others.
Then, there are the so-called “neutral” locations. These are usually occupied by creatures that are not affiliated with and are hostile to any player. The types of creatures that occupy them are usually recognizable by the type of the locations. For example, Crypts are usually occupied by the undead.
The loot that they yield can be random, however. On the other hand, they are “seeded” when the map is generated, so the player cannot “game” the loot via saving and reloading save-games when playing on single-player.
As for the loot, the locations almost always yield resources (the most common being gold). Certain rarer (and tougher) locations may give gear pieces (called “artifacts” in-game) that Heroes can equip. There are even locations that grant spells to the Hero, such as Pyramids, though these are useless if the player already has access to that spell in cities.
Then, there are locations that are dwellings for creatures, outside of cities. When captured, they act as growth boosters for very specific creatures, as well as recruitment spots for them. Therefore, certain dwellings may be more useful to certain players with an inclination towards specific factions. These external dwellings do require the player to hire a secondary Hero to manage without sacrificing progress opportunities for the primary Hero, but they can be worthwhile.
After that, there are locations that impart experience points, permanent or temporary statistic bonuses to the Hero and give quests to the Hero that can be completed for great gain. These are of value in multiplayer matches, in which players race to build a powerful Hero with an army to match.
Interestingly, the 3D graphic engine for the game allows for the display of the trail of a Hero’s army. The bigger the Hero’s army is, the more footstep decals it leaves behind. This can seem like a visual oddity, because the Hero’s model is constituted of a single animal mount and its heroic rider. Anyway, the footsteps fade over the course of several turns, but observant players may be able to notice them and the experienced ones among them may be able to gauge what their opponents are doing.
Most Adventure maps have a variety of terrain. The different terrain types are mostly there for aesthetics, but there are certain terrain types that have impact on gameplay. For example, Swamps are likely to slow down anyone, while Roads are very easy to travel on.
BATTLE SYSTEMS:
In battle, the initiative ratings of units and Heroes determine when they can move, regardless of the owning player. Units with higher initiative ratings move first, so there is a chance that the player that owns them can cripple slower units without their turn ever coming into play.
During battle, a bar at the bottom of the screen shows the sequence of moves according to the initiative ratings of the unit stacks and Heroes involved. This is handy, especially when a player utilizes the “waiting” feature.
The player can also have a unit stack or Hero wait, after which they gain a bonus of 50% to their initiative, meaning that the order of their turns would be mixed, possibly placing them in a convenient spot after enemies have moved.
When a unit gains a bonus from good morale, it gains an extra move, which occurs after everyone else has moved. This can be of tactical advantage, but it also comes with the risk of the unit being stymied before it can take its extra move.
There is also another variant of the battle system, called “Dynamic Combat”, which provides for quicker albeit more hectic battles. Instead of having their turns planned out for them in a relatively certain and predictable queue, unit stacks and Heroes have their own so-called “action point” counter, which fills up at a rate that is proportional to their initiative rating. Once the counter of a unit stack or a Hero is full, the owning player can have it make a move.
In this battle mode, a unit that scores a morale bonus retains half of its action-point counter, which allows it to move again earlier than usual.
“Dynamic Combat” would be familiar to players that have played certain RPG titles from Japan. However, to the veterans of the Heroes of Might & Magic series, it is relatively new and may seem too chaotic for players who prefer slower gameplay.
Like in the previous games, any strikes that a unit stack performs on its target have their damage and consequences calculated and inflicted immediately afterwards. This means that the target has already become weaker before it retaliates. However, there are certain units in the game that can inflict their retaliatory strikes before they are even attacked. Some others force the calculations of both attack and counter-attack at the same time.
The fifth title is not the first to have such units with special counterattacks, but some players may be pleased that it retained such designs.
BATTLEFIELD:
In the fifth title, the battlefield is generally a grid of 10 by 12 tiles, with the 12 titles arranged as the nominal distance between the two opposing armies. In sieges, the battlefield is expended a bit to accommodate the walls and moats of a city, if there are any at all.
Each unit stack has its own movement rating, indicated by “speed”. Generally, this rating only covers the distance that they can move, but for certain units, especially cavalry, the distance that they move may provide bonuses to their other statistics.
The titles are square, so there can be some frustration in trying to figure out the possible locations that a unit can move to or how far it can shoot for the case of units with ranged attacks. This can especially be a problem for players who are used to more sophisticated grid shapes, such as hexagonal ones. Moreover, this means that units that are Large Creatures can be hit by substantially more enemies.
Generally, most tiles in a battlefield are innocuous empty spaces that can accommodate a unit stack (assuming that it is small enough). However, there are tiles that are occupied by obstacles that may hinder movement, and/or even provide cover against direct ranged attacks. There are also tiles with special objects that may grant bonuses or penalties to adjacent units, but they are much rarer.
The appearance of these tiles appears to be random, so the player may want to consider exploiting them whenever they appear. Yet, the random appearances of these objects mean that there is an element of luck that the battlefield provides, for better or worse. Sometimes, they can be decisive in a battle that would otherwise be a stalemate.
SPELLS:
Spells are practically a necessary part of battles, especially so if the player is using the Dungeon’s Warlock. Heroes generally start with a spell or two (with magic-inclined Heroes starting out with more), but can learn more by visiting the Wizard’s Tower at cities that are controlled by the player.
However, there are restrictions to a Hero’s learning of spells. Firstly, he/she can only have so many spells in his/her repertoire before he/she can learn no more, so the player may want to reserve some slots for higher-level spells. Secondly, he/she needs the necessary skills to learn any spells of higher level than Basic (the default and lowest level).
Spells are categorized into combat spells and “adventure” spells. The former are used in battle, whereas the latter is mainly for use in the Adventure map. Regardless of their type, all spells cast by a Hero draw from his/her mana reserves, which can run dry if the player is not thrifty (especially when using Warlocks).
The combat spells are further separated into four schools of magic, which can be learned by any Hero. However, certain Heroes benefit more from learning certain spells. For example, the aforementioned Warlock is best off learning Destructive Magic at the earliest opportunity, because he/she would be spamming spells a lot.
In addition to the usual roles of buffs, de-buffs, healing and direct damage, spells have further sophistication in the form of element types. This is generally useful for when dealing with creatures that have specific weaknesses, resistances or immunities against specific types of elements. For example, knowing these elements and their polar opposites is very useful when fighting against Elementals, which are immune to many de-buffs.
The Warlock Hero happens to take this system of elements to a level that has not been seen before in the series, and perhaps the sub-genre of fantasy strategy games as well.
After having taken the ability of Elemental Vision (which is practically a must for any Warlock), the Warlock Hero can see what the game refers to as “Elemental Chains” underneath unit stacks, which allows him/her to make use of her special skill, Irresistible Magic, to impart greater effect to spells of opposing elements that he/she casts on them. The benefit is mainly greater damage.
This can make the Warlock Hero quite overpowered at times, because he/she can even harm units that are supposed to be resistant to spells.
Furthermore, the elemental signs rotate randomly turn-by-turn. This can work for or against the player that owns the Warlock, depending on his/her luck. Players who do not like elements of luck (no pun intended) may be off-putted by this. Of course, it can be mitigated by having the Warlock learn many spells, but he/she can only learn so many.
MULTIPLAYER & SKIRMISH:
For players who want to be involved in the meta-game of strategic plans and competitive gameplay, there is the multiplayer mode that retains many of the elements from the first three titles. There is also a skirmish mode, which may be handy if a player is experimenting with certain gameplay options that can be toggled on or off when hosting matches.
Speaking of these options, these were hardly, if not never seen, in previous titles in the series.
There is the option of “Simultaneous Turns”, which allows players to enact their Heroes’ moves in the adventure map simultaneously, with the exception of getting into battle. For this case, these Heroes would appear to be engaging in battle in the eyes of other players that have their own Heroes passing by. They cannot be interacted with until the battle ends.
To prevent players from dallying, they and the host can agree on implementing timers for their time in both battles and the adventure map. If any player cannot make decisions quickly before the timers are up, they forfeit their turn. This feature is strictly only for experienced players of course, though hardcore fans of the series may well appreciate it.
Duel Mode throws players into a battle right away, without having the need to raise one via the gameplay in the Adventure map. The game comes with a selection of preset Heroes with their own armies for players to pick from. Fortunately, the game’s own Map Editor can be used to create customized templates of Heroes and their armies for more variety in the participants.
Finally, there is “Ghost Mode”, which appears to be mainly intended for multiplayer. If players want a faster multiplayer match but without resorting to the sometimes chaotic Simultaneous Turns, players can resort to this mode, which effectively turns any waiting player into the bane of the player whose turn is currently active.
The other players take control of ghostly “Heroes” that can move about in the Adventure map, but not into the “fog of war”. They are able to stymie the current player with penalties, take control of neutral parties that the player is trying to deal with and perform other annoying actions.
WRITING & STORY DESIGN:
The characters in the story sometimes make exclamations that can confuse players on their perceptions of the lore of the story. For example, the same one character may sometimes make exclamations invoking the name of a deity or the name of the realm that he/she lives in. Unless the player has noted earlier which name is for which entity or place, he/she may have a hard time liking the lore of the game.
Each faction also has its own campaign, though the player should not expect them to be effective in imparting lessons on the idiosyncrasies of their associated faction. The campaigns are mainly there to set up a story of redemption, ancient evil, duty, love and revenge. It is an epic story, but jaded story-goers would find nothing new in it.
There is some humour to be had from the game though. Every protagonist has his/her own sense of humour and personality, such as the defiant albeit naïve Isabel and the sarcastic Raelag. Unfortunately, an issue with lip-synching and other animations detract from their amusement value, as will be described later.
BUGS:
Unfortunately, the fifth main entry in the series debuted with some crippling bugs that have been overlooked by the developers. Among these, the most annoying is a glitch with the Dive ability of the Haven’s Imperial Griffins, which cause them to fail to return to the battlefield after launching into the air.
This problem was fixed, but that a glitch that affects one of the signature designs of a unit points to a laxity of play-testing. This also happens to contribute to the stereotype of Russian developers – of which Nival Interactive is one – having poor quality control.
GRAPHICS:
Perhaps the most obvious designs that represent the differences of the fifth title from its predecessors are its graphical designs. The fifth title is mainly rendered with a 3D engine, specifically a modified version of the engine that was used for Nival Interactive’s Silent Storm titles.
Considering that Nival Interactive used to make games with much darker aesthetics, that Heroes of Might & Magic V has vibrant and colourful visuals is a surprise, at least to people who follow Nival Interactive’s exploits. The game can seem pleasing to people who have a penchant for epic fantasy.
Furthermore, there is a surprising amount of detail in the textures and number of polygons for the models, at least for a game of its time. This allowed the game to use close-up views of models without showing too many flaws, at least at first glance. This is all well too, because the models for units and Heroes in the game are a pleasing blend of typical fantastical notions, e.g. horns for unicorns, and severe looks that are more attributed to modern dark fantasy, e.g. most of the dragons look lithely serpentine instead of looking like bloated lizards that typical dragons resemble.
There are also plenty of particle effects in the game. These can be seen from the gases and other miasma that exude from units of the Necropolis faction, to cite some examples. The spells are of course chockfull of particle effects too, usually colour-coded to their type of magic and their element.
Perhaps the most breath-taking things that can be seen in the game are the 3D rendition of the cities that the player builds up. The game makes use of panoramic camera angles, which work well in showing off their splendour.
However, the graphical display of these cities is not without issues. Loading up the city screen can take a short while, and even then, the player can see texture pop-ins. More observant players may notice that there are few models that portray the inhabitants of the cities. The far-out camera angles do prevent most players from noticing this during the first time they saw these cities though.
Unfortunately, Nival Interactive is not entirely dedicated to the graphical designs of the game. This can be seen in the animations of the models in the game.
Nival Interactive has designed a set of animations and postures for each level of units, but uses them for both vanilla and upgraded versions. This can give the impression that a unit has been merely given a model swap when it is upgraded. In addition, the same hovering and even attack animations are used for just about every dragon in the game.
The same issue can be seen in the Heroes too. When they are not in specially designed in-game cutscenes, the campaign-associated Heroes have exactly the same animation sets as those for the vanilla Heroes.
Speaking of in-game cutscenes, these vary tremendously in sophistication. There are cutscenes where the models of the story-associated Heroes are given custom animations, but these are so few. Most of the time, through the course of the story, the player will be seeing cheap camera close-ups to show who is talking at the time, to cite one of the deficiencies of these lackadaisical cutscenes.
Furthermore, there is a distinct lack of lip-synching for the voice-overs. This can make the cutscenes seem even more lazily done.
Such major gaps in the designs of the 3D graphical assets of the game detract from its otherwise magnificent looks.
Fortunately, the 2D artwork for the game is more earnestly done. Every unit has a portrait that may well have been the finalized version of the concept artwork for it. Almost every named Hero has a portrait of his/her own, to compensate for the fact that he/she shares 3D models with others.
The best 2D artwork is perhaps that for the icons of skills and (especially) spells. These are heavily stylized, though what they depict may not necessarily be portrayed in 3D, e.g. most buffs and de-buffs are merely depicted via icons that float below the 3D models of unit stacks.
Interestingly, despite what has been said earlier about the animations, they have been designed such that they accommodate the feature of accelerating combat animations. Players that are tired of watching the fighting and celebratory animations of units and Heroes can accelerate them to comical speeds. The game cleverly makes use of fewer animation frames to facilitate the acceleration.
MUSIC:
The designers for the fifth title may not be those that once worked for New World Computing, but perhaps wisely so, Ubisoft has picked the music composers that worked on the previous games for this one. Rob King and (the perhaps more well-known) Paul Romero returns, providing epic soundtracks to the fifth title.
Of noteworthiness are the soundtracks that are associated with the cities of the factions. Each soundtrack gives its associated faction the character that it needs.
The soundtracks for battles can seem repetitive though. Considering that the player will be engaging in battles for many, many times throughout a match, that there is only track to each faction’s music for use in battle can seem tiresomely few. This is especially so for the soundtracks which are associated with the Haven faction, because they happen to be the most vigorous-sounding.
Most of the music is orchestral, with many vocals and string instruments. This perhaps made the music that is associated with the Sylvan faction all the more different than the rest, mainly because woodwind is its prominent component.
Playing in the Adventure map means not having to deal with battles – yet anyway. Therefore, it is somehow fitting that most of the soundtracks to be heard in the Adventure map is soothing – at least when the player is not looking at hellish or ruined terrain.
Speaking of terrain, there is a soundtrack that is associated with each terrain. If the camera happens to be looking at terrain that has one type as its majority, the music switches over to the soundtrack that is associated with that type of terrain. This can lead to some hilarity when the player scrolls back and forth radically different terrain. (There is no transition terrain.)
SOUND EFFECTS & VOICE OVERS:
There are many sound effects and voice-overs that veterans of the series would hear in the fifth title but not in the previous games. Sword-strikes and such other sounds of clashing battles may be common, but in the fifth title, they are accompanied by other auxiliary noises to make them sound less mundane, such as swishes that accompany the swinging of swords.
Spells have the noisiest sound effects in the game, which is perhaps to be expected as they are supposed to be the most aesthetically spectacular aspect of a fantasy setting. Each spell has its own distinctive sound effect, so the player may be able to recognize them from hearing alone.
The musical flourishes that accompany a Hero’s achievement when it is reported to the player return in essence, imparting a sense of glee to every positive gain that a Hero has obtained. Sadder and gloomier tunes play when the player suffers a setback.
The voice-overs in the game are mostly contained within the campaigns. Units do have their own voice-overs, but these are usually just groans, grunts, screams and such other illegible utterances, if they are not beastly noises outright. Fortunately, most of the voice-overs are pleasing to listen to, such as that for the Dark Elf Hero, Raelag, who happens to have the most spirited voice-over in the game.
CONCLUSION:
Heroes of Might & Magic V can be seen as pandering to fans of the first three games, but it does retain certain ideas from the fourth title that enrich an otherwise tried-and-true, and thus well-worn, gameplay. The fifth title is also substantially prettier and more aesthetically magnificent than its 2D predecessors, which is of course an obvious improvement.
However, the fifth title also retains certain dubious designs from the previous games, such as supposedly minor elements of luck that can affect gameplay aversely at times. Its visual presentation, while magnificent at first glance, is also not without deficiencies, especially in portraying the new canon that the fifth title has. Still, such problems should not sour the experience from playing an otherwise well-designed game.