Heroes of Might and Magic V, thoughts?
05-24-06, 06:12 PM
#3
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
I'm waiting to receive my LE copy from UBI but I've been playing alot of the demo over the past week and I really enjoy it. Seems like alot of fans don't really care for the graphics and the "manga" art style but I think it looks great. One thing I liked about the old Heroes games is that they were easy to jump into and play and the controls weren't complicated, you could practically do everything with the mouse. Nival has managed to bring this game to 3D and still retain that same ease of control and jump right into feeling. I didn't think it was possible and I thought for sure this game was destined to fail and put a nail in the coffin for the Heroes series - man, was I wrong! I can't wait to get my copy so I can do some multi-player sessions with my brother and some friends.
05-26-06, 11:36 AM
#5
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Originally Posted by Jadow
The beta sucked. Hopefully the final version will be better.
05-26-06, 11:52 AM
#7
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
I played the demo, and it was a lot more similar to HIII than HIV [which I hated].
Pros, based solely on the demo:
*3-D combat allowed a lot 'cooler' looking combat. At times the camera would shift so it follows the arrow or spell flying into the creature, or zoom in to show hand-to-hand combat.
* Seems like more creatures have skills, including things such as spells or 'kamikaze' type things where they blow themselves up. One town's creatures could create mirror images of themselves to serve in one combat.
* Hero can attack or use a spell. I don't think the hero can die in battle [am not sure].
* You don't have to be in town to get creatures--you can buy them, and use a spell to teleport some of them to you.
* I believe there are more town/creature types than there were in 3 or 4.\
* When your hero gains a level, s/he can often choose a Skill or an Ability, and the skill/ability tree seems much more fleshed out than in HIII, though it would certainly help to have a skill tree chart to refer to.
Cons [and some of these may have been addressed in the final version]:
* Seems to be relatively resource heavy. I don't have a powerhouse, but it's also not a piece of crap: Required: System: Pentium 4 / Athlon 1.5 GHz or higher or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB Video Memory: 128 MB Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB Recommended System Requirements System: Pentium 4 / Athlon 2.4 GHz or higher or equivalent RAM: 1024 MB Video Memory: 256 MB Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB.
* This might be my eyes, but visually, it was sometimes a little hard to make things out on the screen [which was a problem I had with H4 as well]. I didn't experiment with other resolutions too much, though.
* Camera - the 3/4 overworld camera took some getting used to. Sometimes it was hard to tell where you could go, or hard to orient the 'minimap' with the full display, or find your hero. Also, in combat--if you've got it set so you can see the whole battlefield, it's hard to make out the individual creatures. Of course, I was playing with Inferno, who are all red anyway. You can zoom in, but as far as I could tell, the camera didn't autofocus on the active unit [except during one of the strike animations].
* Difficulty--it seemed to be on the hard side. I will admit, however, that I most likely am not the best SRPG player, though I do like them quite a lot.
* I don't know [but doubt] that it comes with a random map generator. The RNG really extended the lifespan of HIII for me, and lets me play a quick game in 1/2 an hour, or a longer, larger game over a period of time.
Ultimately, if you liked HIII better than H4, HV does a pretty good job at reviving the feel, while adding some new twists that do, overall, improve the game depth. It's not for the weak-PC'ed, and the camera/visuals do take some getting used to.
I'll admit, I haven't bought it yet--I forgot it was coming out, and given the problems I experienced with the demo, I might just stick with HIII for the time being.
Pros, based solely on the demo:
*3-D combat allowed a lot 'cooler' looking combat. At times the camera would shift so it follows the arrow or spell flying into the creature, or zoom in to show hand-to-hand combat.
* Seems like more creatures have skills, including things such as spells or 'kamikaze' type things where they blow themselves up. One town's creatures could create mirror images of themselves to serve in one combat.
* Hero can attack or use a spell. I don't think the hero can die in battle [am not sure].
* You don't have to be in town to get creatures--you can buy them, and use a spell to teleport some of them to you.
* I believe there are more town/creature types than there were in 3 or 4.\
* When your hero gains a level, s/he can often choose a Skill or an Ability, and the skill/ability tree seems much more fleshed out than in HIII, though it would certainly help to have a skill tree chart to refer to.
Cons [and some of these may have been addressed in the final version]:
* Seems to be relatively resource heavy. I don't have a powerhouse, but it's also not a piece of crap: Required: System: Pentium 4 / Athlon 1.5 GHz or higher or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB Video Memory: 128 MB Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB Recommended System Requirements System: Pentium 4 / Athlon 2.4 GHz or higher or equivalent RAM: 1024 MB Video Memory: 256 MB Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB.
* This might be my eyes, but visually, it was sometimes a little hard to make things out on the screen [which was a problem I had with H4 as well]. I didn't experiment with other resolutions too much, though.
* Camera - the 3/4 overworld camera took some getting used to. Sometimes it was hard to tell where you could go, or hard to orient the 'minimap' with the full display, or find your hero. Also, in combat--if you've got it set so you can see the whole battlefield, it's hard to make out the individual creatures. Of course, I was playing with Inferno, who are all red anyway. You can zoom in, but as far as I could tell, the camera didn't autofocus on the active unit [except during one of the strike animations].
* Difficulty--it seemed to be on the hard side. I will admit, however, that I most likely am not the best SRPG player, though I do like them quite a lot.
* I don't know [but doubt] that it comes with a random map generator. The RNG really extended the lifespan of HIII for me, and lets me play a quick game in 1/2 an hour, or a longer, larger game over a period of time.
Ultimately, if you liked HIII better than H4, HV does a pretty good job at reviving the feel, while adding some new twists that do, overall, improve the game depth. It's not for the weak-PC'ed, and the camera/visuals do take some getting used to.
I'll admit, I haven't bought it yet--I forgot it was coming out, and given the problems I experienced with the demo, I might just stick with HIII for the time being.
Last edited by tonyc3742; 05-26-06 at 11:54 AM.
05-26-06, 12:56 PM
#8
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
The performance issues were supposedly fixed in the final release. My only problem was when I zoomed out and rotated the view of the map, it made things really slow and choppy. Other than that the game ran great.
dtcarson - you do realize you can zoom in and out, on the map, with the mouse wheel? Just curious if you knew that because you said it was hard to make things out visually on the screen.
dtcarson - you do realize you can zoom in and out, on the map, with the mouse wheel? Just curious if you knew that because you said it was hard to make things out visually on the screen.
