Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest (PC) Review

There is a story here… or, to be more specific in the manual. It's the standard medieval fantasy tale of a Lord Something-Something, who must fight his opponents, the Sorceress Whatever, the Barbarian What's-his-name, and the Warlock John Doe. In-game there's not much of a plot to experience, as was customary in old DOS titles. There's a Campaign, and a Standard Game mode, with the only difference being that Campaign maps aren't randomly generated, and their settings can't be adjusted.

…In other words, it's better to go straight for the Standard Game, as it's far more enjoyable, with an enormous variety of maps to try out. What is Heroes of Might and Magic all about, however? The answer is: your basic turn-based strategy game. Actually, no, it's not your basic turn-based strategy game, but one of the progenitors of the X4 sub-genre. Players need to build and upgrade bases, then explore a vast region, and, when ready (or when attacked), engage in battles.

As expected the whole thing is divided in turns, and in each one there's a restriction on the things that can be done. For example, in the map, where you'll spent most of your time on, you get a limited amount of steps you can make, which is depended on various factors, like the class, stats, and equipment of your hero. It is here where you can find useful trinkets, discover where is what, and exploit whatever resources can be found - but hurry! The enemy won't let you take your time.

Tactics do matter here, sure, but the winner is usually the one with the more resources to spent, and in order to gain resources, a hero unit must capture a mine. Doing so will provide with a specific type, like wood or gold, but the opponent can re-capture it just by entering, since it's not possible to leave guards behind. This means that players need to balance exploring the world, guarding mines, and returning to base to gather more troops - or have a "secondary" hero act as the delivery service.

Gathering enough resources will enable building a variety of structures in a castle, with each one adding a number of units after seven turns. As expected, the more buildings you create, and the more castles you have, raise your chances of succeeding - but you need to carefully decide when to do what. Focusing on spending most of your resources on one castle, can lead to the rest being left behind, and thus be less helpful. Oh, and never forget that castles can be captured just like mines.

Therefore, in the end, swords and staffs (and fangs and nails) will clash, and it is here that your tactical skills will be put to the test. A match between two armies is basically a chess game, with each unit having specific pros and cons, whether that's the ability to run faster towards the enemy, shoot from a distance, hit two or more enemies at once, or being able to withstand damage. You won? Great, you get the equipment of the other guy or gal, and gain more experience.

Aside from resources, the second most important element of Heroes of Might and Magic is the power of a hero or heroine, as the stats of such a unit are actually added to the ones who will do all the fighting. As an example, move around with a hero that has a high enough attack power, and an army comprised of just a few elite units, like, say, fire-breathing dragons, and he or she will dominate the battlefield, and demolish much larger armies with a couple of sneezes.

Yes, this might feel a little unfair. The one that carries the larger stick will be the winner, so it's not about strategy, but about gathering stuff really fast, right? Not exactly. Once again, it's all a balancing act. Players need to think how to divide resources, how many units to take with them, and how many to leave behind in a castle to defend it, and, finally, how to divide power between their hero units. In conclusion, it's not about who is the strongest, but how that strength has been "spread."

If there is a flaw here, and a serious one at that, is how the AI is super dumb and predictable. Why is that a problem, you say? Because, in order to make things easier for it, the enemy AI actually cheats! The CPU finds more resources and faster, recruits neutral monsters more easily, and explores the map as if it knows where everything is beforehand. Its weakness? The aforementioned predictability. When 'A' happens, the CPU almost always does 'B,' and you can exploit that to make it do what you want.

Another issue is the lack of content. On one hand this might sound like an exaggeration. This offers four types of heroes to choose from, a great variety in units, many spells to learn, and lots of items to find. You can also enjoy 4-vs-4 local play, or LAN/online matches, and, depending on the version you have on your hands, there's also a map editor, and a random map generator, both of which raise the replay value sky high. In reality, though, you'll see everything there is to see very soon.

Sadly, the gameplay loop feels the same from start to finish. No matter the hero class or map settings chosen, players will be doing the same things again and again, with almost no variation from match to match. The weird thing? The gameplay is so enjoyable that it doesn't really matter. Yes, it's very repetitive, but for some strange reason very addicting too. It's easy to get bored with it, and stop playing after a few hours, yet a voice in the back of your head will soon draw you back to it.

One last comment before the final conclusion. The game is old. Super old. So it's the ugly duckling of the series, right? Nope! While this looks like your simplistic fairytale book, filled with fairies, unicorns, dragons, and so on, it's so vibrantly colourful and varied that it makes every instalment after it look dull by comparison - and although the music is your standard medieval fantasy fanfare, the ambient sound effects, manage to bring this VGA-fuelled world to life.