You know those things you look back at and think about how unlikely it was that they
ever happened? Heroes 3 is one of those things for me.
My MUM bought it for my sister for Christmas, finding it in the budget gaming section of
a Trago Mills store. The only reason she chose it was because it had dragons on the cover.
And my sister loved dragons at the time. Please, don’t be like me. Don’t leave
it to chance. Just go and buy Heroes 3. I might as well talk a bit more about my first
experiences with it, because they may mirror your first impressions of this title. Like
most budget games bought in Trago Mills, it was a bit disappointing to load this one up
and to realise it wasn’t some magical 3D game filled with dragons, but was instead
a dry, low-res, turn-based stat-heavy game. The first time you load it up it forces you
through a lengthy intro movie, which even back then looked dated and rubbish. I think
I felt a bit sorry for it really, so while my sister was off doing other things on Christmas
day I booted it up and ground my way through the tutorial. And very soon, I was hooked.
And its appeal has never worn off. That game’s tutorial was a great investment. Well done,
younger me. It’s sort of like a Total War game, but
with turn-based battles represented by a single unit and a number next to them. But that makes
it sound rubbish. It isn’t rubbish, and is very easy to skip past the bits you don’t
like, which I’m going to say now: will be none of it.
Think of it as a world map with cities dotted around. You control heroes who venture into
the shroud and who accumulate resources and armies from the places they visit. Every day,
your heroes can traverse a certain distance, and you can upgrade one building from each
city you command. Then you end your turn, and do it all again. You can do a good job
of this without much effort, but take the time to do it perfectly, to visit regenerating
resources every week and stuff like that and you’ll be rewarded with the slight edge
over your opponents. And that can be immensely satisfying, especially on the harder campaigns.
Every week, your cities get new troops, so the early game is a decision between economic
or military growth, which then gives way to later-game map domination. Each new scenario
is a world of goodies waiting to be harvested. But you need to get on with it!
Because somewhere, in that shroud, an AI player is doing the exact same thing. And I figure
that most missions put you at a disadvantage, meaning that if you wait too long then the
AI is going to out-grow and eventually crush you. It’s turn-based, but there’s still
a sense of urgency to it all. All the while you’re battling wild animals,
and the occasional AI army for a tense showdown, with every one potentially making or breaking
the game. But this is still under-selling the game’s
appeal. Each city spawns an army with 7 different unit types of varying tiers, which is replenished
every 7 days. You get loads of the weaker units, and fewer of the more powerful. At
the top of the hierarchy, and the last to unlock, are the super-powerful units. These
are the dragons. The devils. The angels. And just a handful of them will murder hundreds
of the weaker units. Younger gamers will hopefully get as much satisfaction from learning these
different characters as I did. I still like to imagine how a single ballista shot can
skewer 60 enemies, or the horrific state my dragons must be after being stabbed by 200
troglodytes several times. Or how an army can travel all day, then switch armies with
another hero who can then get them to travel for another entire day, ON THE SAME DAY. It’s
remarkable that the game can tell such vivid stories from its stat-driven, low-res icons.
But those pixelated graphics are charming. There have been 7 of these games now. So if
you think this game’s too dated then go ahead and try one of the newer ones. But guess
what: I still think this third game is the best looking of the lot. There’s something
NICE about these 2D graphics that the 3D versions are yet to rival. It’s much like how Age
of Empires 2 is still great the way it is. And of the Heroes series, this third game’s
graphics are the clearest of the lot, and wonderfully diverse and colourful. I still
find this game pleasant to look at, even when it is all at 15 FPS and at a sub-HD resolution.
The sound effects and music are warm and welcoming, and after a session you’ll be well versed
in the game’s pacing, it’s battle cues and the new day sound. It’s just a really
nice gaming experience to boot up a new scenario with the intention of maxing out your heroes’
levels, or to daringly rush into enemy territory early on with a half-baked army in the hope
of scoring early game victories before the armies get too massive and terrifying to deal
with. It’s still a bit confusing to me what the
game is. Heroes of Might and Magic is NOT the Heroes TV series, nor is it Might and
Magic, which is a separate series, a lot more like an early Elder Scrolls game in terms
of presentation. So now we’ve established this is ‘Heroes
of Might and Magic’, it’s onto what’s the base game and what’s an expansion, since
this threw me off for years as well. Right now, Steam has an HD overhaul version, but
apparently has lots of missing content. GOG has a COMPLETE edition, but this excludes
the Chronicles campaigns. I’d suggest you start with the Complete edition just cos it
comes with so much stuff, plus world editor. What my Mum bought in Trago Mills was one
of the Chronicles campaigns, called Clash of the Dragons and it really doesn’t have
much content other than a single string of missions. But I do like that these Chronicles
Campaigns are longer than the main game’s 3-level-long ‘campaigns’, which gives
you more time to level up and to grow fond of your heroes. And towards the end you get
some quite interesting units types. These Chronicles campaigns are also available on
GOG. I’ve never been the most patient when presented
with walls of text, which this game can sometimes throw at you at the start of a new turn. But
the stories this game can tell are often very entertaining, or sad, or humorous in one way
or another. I recall the chess games my character always lost against his advisor, or the graphic
description of a gravely wounded dragon with no tail, and how I spent so long on these
campaigns that the story would eventually stop after a month or so of turns, rudely
implying that I was taking longer to beat that mission than it expected me to! One story
that sticks with me is a custom scenario about all guys going to war with their girlfriends.
Each day starts with hilariously gender-stereotyped snippets as the guys end up lounging about
in their pants, wallowing in filth, while the girls spend their time planting flowers
and keeping everything neat and tidy. My sister and I used to take turns to play this one
to settle once and for all which gender was better.
I have only just scratched the surface of what this game has to offer. It still has
an active reddit and youtube community, and from it turns out the game’s mechanics are
a lot more sophisticated than I ever gave them credit for. It’s also done the predictable
thing of making me realise how rubbish I am at the game. I’ve always ignored the spells,
seeing them as being secondary to the armies. But when I see the overpowered strats people
come up with online, it makes me want to boot up a mission I’ve never been able to beat
to try it again. If you learn to like this game, you will get a LOT of satisfaction from
it. It’s a travesty it’s taken me 20 years to talk about my love for this game, given
the series is still managing to limp on and that the community for this one particular
game from the series is still alive. So hopefully this video can draw more people to this incredible
game because it really does deserve playing. For me, I enjoy replaying the campaigns I
know I can already beat, as well as occasionally taking a new stab at the ones that I haven’t
managed yet. And it makes me want to make a game like it, which is always a sign that
the game is excellent. I say time and time again that I don’t like
turn-based games, yet they always turn out to be my favourites! Heroes 3 is the best
game I know like it. If young Philip could see past this game’s dated graphics and
nerdy mechanics, then you definitely can too. Most bargain games we got from Trago mills
were discarded after a few disappointing minutes or so. But Heroes 3 is one game that we’re
still both very fond of: so much, in fact, that we’re both very pleased we were wrong
about our initial assessment of it, where we were disappointed that it wasn’t a 3D
world filled with dragons. We’re both older now. Mum no longer buys
us bargain games from Trago Mills. But I think our younger selves would be proud of what
we’ve become. Here I am, still enjoying the game and finding new content for it! And
my sister became a full-time streamer, where she has finally got to play in a 3D world
filled with dragons.