The humble beginning of a legendary strategy series.
Heroes of Might and Magic is set on the same world as most of the Might and Magic games. The nearly non-existent storyline of the original Heroes focuses around four Warlords who are competing over the conquest of a newly discovered continent called Enroth. In the campaign you can choose to take the role of any of these four Warlords, and battle the other three Lords with mercenaries called Heroes.
Heroes of Might and Magic focuses mostly around mercenaries called "Heroes" who you as one of the four Warlords, hire, and command. These heroes don't actually fight themselves, however; they simply offer leadership to armies you purchase for them at a town you own. Heroes can, however, cast magic spells that they can learn at a town's Mage Guild (if they own a Magic Book which you can buy for them at a Mage Guild for 500 gold). Also, a hero's stats effect how well your units do in battle. Having a hero with a high attack skill means that your units will do more damage when attacking the enemy. Most of the game consists of you ordering your heroes to explore places, and to capture resource buildings while battling neutral monsters for control of artifacts, useful structures, and to conquer unowned towns. You also have to battle enemy heroes, and often conquer enemy towns to win.
Heroes has more than just a campaign, it also features a "Standard Game" mode which consists of a bunch of unrelated scenarios where you can choose which faction you want to lead against the other three. The scenarios in the original Heroes are little more than skirmishes, but if you'd rather not bother with the campaign they are fairly entertaining. The Windows version of Heroes also features a Map Editor, and a Random Map Generator giving the game infinite replayability. If you tire of the same scenarios over and over, you can load up the Map Editor and generate a random map for use in a Standard Game. This is a very nice touch, and though the RMG is a bit rough around the edges, it also means that you won't ever run out of maps.
The graphics in Heroes are fairly cartoony and resemble something out of an illustrated fairy tale book. This brings a certain charm to the game, especially when it's stacked up against more serious looking games (including the later games in the series). Still, the cartoony 2D graphics may turn some people away, but I liked them then, and I still like them now.
The audio is not really anything special. It's fairly standard, and features very few sound effects, and the music is mostly forgettable though some of the town themes (especially the Warlock town theme) aren't bad.
Heroes of Might and Magic is a classic strategy game in every respect. Players who got into the series with Ubisoft's recent Heroes of Might and Magic V may find the graphics, and audio difficult to stand, but it's definitely a game that belongs in every turn based strategy fan's library.