GAME FORMULA
Heroes of Might and Magic is one of those conservative and self-sufficient series, from the continuation of which only one thing is expected: a repetition of the old. Like chess.
Is the board a different color? Yes, sure. More figures? Well, let it be. But only so that there must be sixty-four squares, and the knights move in the letter “G”. And so that no one dares to call the rook a tour! The fans won't forgive.
One thing follows another, like the little rhyme about the house that Jack built. Here is the castle, here are the creatures that are born in this castle every week, here is the hero-commander who leads these creatures, here are the resources for which this hero fights, and here is the field lined with cells on which he fights. Take out one brick and the whole pyramid will crumble. Therefore, sequels are of no interest to anyone on their own.
For twelve years now, everyone has been worried about only one question - how close is it to the original?
Compared to the classics, the game has become simpler in certain components: before the battle, the exact number of creatures in the enemy squad is shown, and an unsuccessful battle is offered to be replayed without loading a save. To the guillotine of these impudents Short - and superficial! - description
Might and Magic: Heroes 6
A mandatory performance when storming a castle is the destruction of the fortress walls. And not so much with a catapult, but with units. For two or three turns, they usually line up along the wall and gnaw at it little by little (just like in the fourth part).
Everything takes its course
And then suddenly insight comes. Like with foreign language: I was tormented, crammed, didn’t understand - and suddenly I spoke.
You learn the new logic of the gameplay somewhere in the third hour, and all that is needed is to stop perceiving “Heroes 6” as a single whole. No matter how you put it together, the sixth part breaks down into three components - tactical, role-playing and strategic.
Tactical - these are good old battles on a checkered field. Here, fortunately, almost nothing has changed since the fifth part: units move once per turn, the order is determined by morale, heroes do not directly participate in the battle. Each unit is rendered with academic care, and each is doing something different. While waiting for their turn, crossbowmen, clanking their armor, leisurely clean the grooves for bolts, Cerberus heads talk to one another, and wanizame, upright sharks from the new faction, play jazz on a shell-covered oar. The bestiary is wonderful - all creatures are living, they breathe, itch, get bored, you can simply put them opposite each other and study them with pleasure.
The cities of the enemy faction can be rebuilt, and not many resources are spent on this. Be afraid! Now hundreds and thousands of creatures of the same type in the army are neither a rarity nor a luxury.
Well, strategy is about conquering the world. It is like a patchwork quilt, stitched together from zones of influence with mines and creature dwellings. They cannot be captured without conquering the nearest fort or city (the first is different in that you cannot build anything or hire creatures in it), and the struggle to expand the empire turns into redrawing the global map, rather than the petty capture of individual buildings. The activity is fascinating, but rather painful, because there is simply no point in traveling for a hero without a large army: he will not win anything on foreign territory. Moreover, now you can redeem all creatures from all cities at once in one place, and the enemy is always ready to meet you with his entire army.
Once you get used to it and learn to deal with all this, you’ll stick for a long time. The game allows you to feel your rapid, excited pulse; you fall in love with her and play greedily and furiously. The heroes turn into heroin, the gameplay flies along, and you can exhale: everything has grown together.
Revived the series.
To make it clearer where someone else’s territory ends and where your own begins, there are even special obelisks installed on the maps, painted in the player’s color.
The shortest profession in the world
And then it all ends.
By inertia, continuing to play and admire, you suddenly realize with despair: yes, these are normal “Heroes”, not the experimental fourth part, but... why are they needed? Everyone is satisfied with either the third series or the fifth. The sixth is also not bad, but everything old was transferred here without a soul, and everything new was added without a purpose.
Creatures? They are very nice, and the sea castle was a pleasant surprise, but half of the “old men” have disappeared, the units are unbalanced and overloaded with skills. You forget about them, confuse them, and it starts to irritate. Deprived of the talents of New World Computing, Black Hole employees simply do not know any sense of proportion.
Heroes? Well, the developers have achieved their goal: all skills are open immediately, you can see where you need to invest points to gain access to the next ability. This makes leveling more predictable, but does not save you from the same type. There are still many fewer points than the skills themselves, so you inevitably have to choose. You memorize the best skills very quickly - and, as before, you learn them from card to card. As for spells, they are now filtered out of the game by a teaspoon a day. And since they have a cooldown, on the battlefield you have to think hard about which of the three damage-dealing skills to use now and which later. The head is swelling again, and the irritation is growing.
World map? In comparison with the third "Heroes" it is confused and empty. There are few interactive objects on it - only beautiful, but stupid bushes and trees, behind which you can’t even see the road. Of the buildings, the most common are mines and forts, then - buildings of experience and skills, and occasionally - some chat spheres and markets. But the map still looks as if someone had already plundered it before you. Everything around is so colorful and at the same time bare, there is no spirit of exploration.
The sixth “Heroes” are making full use of the Internet. For example, every now and then there are chat spheres on the map through which you can send messages to other players. The Russians say: “Vote, don’t vote, you’ll still get a penis.”
Locks? You can't look at them without tears. After the city screens, the threequel - priceless exhibits of scrupulous self made- and after the breathtaking screensavers of the fifth part, these framed pictures are just a mockery. And the reduced amount of resources, designed to make construction more thoughtful, only slows it down and again irritates it.
Everything else is nothing more than frills sewn onto the remains of phenomenal mechanics. The magic is lost, the fairy tale has run away. You can play the sixth “Heroes”, even for hours, but you can’t fall in love with them.
Opinion
Alexander Trifonov, site manager
“The creation of the new part of the series was entrusted to guest workers - the result is predictable”
To be honest, I initially didn’t expect anything good from the sixth “Heroes”. When the development of the fifth part was entrusted to the domestic Nival, I rejoiced along with all the fans of the series - after all, its revival was entrusted to a world-class studio, already famous for creating high-quality strategies. With the sixth part, it's the other way around. To “construct” the sequel, instead of a reputable company, Ubisoft hired migrant workers from Black Hole, who have not made a single decent game in their lifetime. The result is predictable. Of course, the Hungarians tried, but the lack of experience and budget affects literally everything - from the terrible interface to the same city screens that they promised to implement in the release. in full form, and even postponed the release for this, but never did. The saddest thing in this whole story is that in the current economic realities it could not have turned out any other way. Only Free2Play projects bring any decent income on today's PC market, and there was no point in Ubisoft investing a lot of money in the development of a niche hardcore strategy that everyone would download from torrents anyway. Have you noticed that the turn-based strategy genre has quietly died on PC over the past few years? "Heroes 6" - clear example Why.
Is it fair to compare the series? Heroes of Might and Magic(change of places and further hello Ubisoft) and Starcraft? Comparing the history of series, of course, is of little use - the franchises have gone through completely different historical paths, stepped on different rakes (yes, SC also had hot days in the frying pan, but, as already said, of a different kind) and came to the present day in a completely different way. different states, but if we talk specifically about Heroes of Might and Magic 6 and Starcraft 2, then some analogies can be easily drawn. The developers of both cult games tried to cope with essentially the same task - to preserve the signature gameplay and drive and at the same time improve everything that could be improved, as well as add something special. The whole point of both sequels is in the details, insignificant and at the same time critical.
And online services. But more on that later.
Magic from online
What I'm getting at: at one time, this same Starcraft 2 received a forest of criticism for the fact that the game was very similar to Starcraft 1. Why exactly this is bad is still an open question, but the fact remains that many people don’t like it when developers They don't fix what isn't broken. "Heroes 6" has an identical case in which basic mechanics and the meaning of the gameplay remained unchanged, and in the eyes of the guardians of universal progress, this approach is the main drawback of the recently released strategy. Accordingly, the deeper under the skin of a gamer the “they are selling us a ten-year-old game!” syndrome sits, the worse it will become for him from heroic races on maps and sieges of beautiful and not so beautiful castles. Read, as they say, contraindications and beware of allergic reactions.
Well, if you don’t suffer from this illness or just sincerely love “Heroes,” then let’s figure out what’s been tweaked in the relatively ideal strategic formula this time.
According to the tradition that has developed over the past few years, the launch of PC projects, the release of the sixth part of “Heroes” took place against the backdrop of failures of online services, blocking access to some to a certain portion of the content, and to the entire game. The portion of digital keys that came to Russia at a certain moment either reset to zero or not, after which some players could not enter the game at all, and for some (I was in this group) “Heroes” started, but the function responsible for a lot of things Conflux system. A day or two later, new keys were sent to everyone, and everything worked, but the start was, as they say, lost.
Now about the Conflux system, which I already promised to talk about twice. Ubisoft's HoMM-focused online service is responsible for collecting statistics, distributing achievements and other bonuses for accumulated experience, and also looking for opponents for multiplayer.
The network growth on the body of the game is generally the most noticeable change in the gameplay. The point is that achievements received from the network provide access to many heroic abilities and properties, as well as artifacts and all sorts of things that are simply impossible to open while outside Conflux.
Here they are, network bonuses.
Well, we are good users, with license keys, we can do everything until they cut the cable for us. Even upgrade your heroes on two fronts at once. There is even some special pleasure in such parallel development of one’s heroic dynasty. After all, if earlier fantasy warriors had only one crooked, but such an interesting career ladder, now there are as many as one and a half of them: one - like full-fledged system a classic leveling system, and another half - goodies for the puppeteer who plays hour after hour. If you put these pieces together, it turns out that de facto nothing new appeared in “Heroes”, but Christmas decorations for Conflux they stripped the branches of the traditional system, leaving the latter half naked.
For this combination the developers get a solid A+. You have to be able to spend effort, time and resources on tearing a piece out of the game, attaching a fifth wheel to it, putting it on faulty online rails and returning it to its original place under the guise of some kind of novelty. Five years well spent!
Oh yes, this same Conflux also has a system for exchanging notes on battlefields a la Demon/Dark Souls. Useless (the question is, what should gamers lie about and warn each other about in HoMM 6? Oh, those common online fences), but funny.
What do we have?
In terms of plot, HoMM 6 is another video game “Forsyte Saga” with all that it implies. Let us rejoice in the fact that following the family troubles of the main characters is a purely optional matter, you can skip the dialogues, and you can’t read the briefings that precede traditionally well-tailored missions. Perhaps the writers even tried to tell us interesting story, but until the gamer’s own imagination turns on, conjecturing endless meadows behind the pixelated grass, and hordes of heavily armed warriors behind the statistics numbers, supported by any off-screen acting, flat dialogues for good, justice, honor and their antipodes do not evoke absolutely any emotions.
Describe game process HoMM 6 is somehow even stupid. If you played HoMM 3 or even just HoMM 5, then all you need to talk about is exactly what details the famous Devil was hiding in this time, well, if the “heroic” series, and at the same time in general All turn-based strategies, passed you by at the last moment, then you don’t really need “Heroes 6”, it would be much better (in every sense) to buy something from the classics that have stuck in your teeth.
Because the new TBS are worse than the old ones. It's just worse, and there's nothing you can do about it. New projects in this genre are largely created for those who have managed to play the old ones to pieces, but continue to love the genre and want more. Well, and a certain number of young gamers who fundamentally do not recognize old games.
Now that I have explained to everyone the basics of leading fantasy armies, it’s time to go over not imaginary, but real innovations. Firstly, the local military and magical elites have finally switched to a more unified currency. You will no longer see ten resource saws on the map, each producing its own special precious and not so precious stones. There are only four resources left - money (aka gold), wood, ore (just “ore”, stones look like stones) and blood crystals. And praise be to all the local gods for this. The spirit of the good old strategies from the nineties, of course, with this turn of events has faded slightly, and completely orthodox gamers are unlikely to be happy with this, but this time the developers amputated the correct appendage.
After adjusting the mined buns to some, but general culinary standards, it became much easier to figure out which strike on which mine would force the enemy to reconsider their budget for the purchase of dragons. But it has become more difficult to keep captured resource mines on literally foreign territory - the merry carousel of army catch-ups has also gone under the knife. From now on, each building on the map depends on nearby cities, and a first-level hero in the company of a couple of archers will not be able to lead the enemy’s main army of thousands by the nose, because as soon as our three saboteurs fall from the mine we just visited on the tour, it will immediately come back under control ruler in charge of the local regional center. Worse game there was no change after this; better, however, too - it’s not that the awl has been replaced by soap, but there is nothing particularly critical in this change, the heroic routes and tactics have changed, but that’s all.
The third change that is noticeable at first glance is a common-sense approach to racial problems in captured cities, once embodied in Age of Wonders 2, has finally come to HoMM. After each major victory, it became possible to organize resettlement of peoples. You play as orcs - and all your cities will be orcish, the rest can be driven out of their homes. Logical, convenient and - once again - well, finally!
But the crooked interface inherited from the fifth part was not fixed. The location of the buttons is illogical, unintuitive, and inconvenient; it is difficult to understand which icon is responsible for what. Well, yes, if the strategy does not need Korean APM, then it is not necessary to give precise, quick tools to your hands. The fans will endure it.
Fire and vampirism and fire again
The balance of the game is strange. Well, why be ashamed - there is no balance in the game. And it’s not even about the brutal bonuses obtained in Conflux - spells are scattered along the leveling branches, it seems, at random. One of the most glaring examples is “Vampirism,” a powerful “buff” that can be learned almost at the very first level. An army thoughtfully enchanted with the simplest spells becomes many times more dangerous and impudent, sweeping away all the sorcerers who decided to devote themselves to other magic. Plus, while some abilities/spells must be learned by every first hero, others, uh, 80% are generally not clear why they are needed and what they give. Take the updated “Tactics”, without which from now on troops will appear on the battlefield on random cells. Completely random, the two outer columns have been removed for the simplest construction, have fun as you wish.
But this does not interfere with enjoying the game. As usual, we are these same different abilities, with skills and sorcery they buried it to the top of the head, and then poured it on top. What difference does it make if one candy is sweeter than another, if there are about two hundred different ones here? The questions of assembling the magic bender of everything - this is already the second or third bottom in “Heroes”, to which you still have to swim, and for the first tens of hours you can just cheerfully grab everything that shines closer and brighter.
Otherwise, we are treated to more or less the same game from 1999 with graphical upgrades. Which is, by and large, good.
It cannot be said that Heroes of Might and Magic 3 at one time completely “closed” the genre of turn-based fantasy strategies (after all, after the main HoMM, Age of Wonders and other King’s Bounty were released on major holidays), but for its own series it became the pinnacle, beyond which made it impossible to see not only all subsequent projects, but also the path along which “Heroes of Might and Magic” could move forward. Having seriously stumbled with the fourth iteration of HoMM, the developers were unable to find the right path, but the game makers who replaced them concluded that the best decision was to move back, somewhere closer to that very third part. In a word, after the 1999 masterpiece, there was no life in the world of “Heroes”, and the seemingly more or less lively and profitable franchise de facto froze in place, finding itself hostage to its position.
I recommend I don't recommend itGame profile
Full title: Might & Magic: Heroes 6 ("»)
Developer: Black Hole Entertainment
Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment ,
Publisher in the CIS: – « Buka"
Genre: Turn Based Strategy
Official site: http://might-and-magic.ubi.com/heroes-6/en-GB/home/
Russian game page: http://www.buka.ru/cgi-bin/show.pl?id=537
Our resume
Idea: And it’s been a while since we’ve had new “Heroes”...
Graphic arts:Technically outdated The graphic style is good, but completely secondary
Sound: The theme music, composed by Paul Romero for Heroes of Might and Magic 2, is the most interesting thing here. However, they are out of place in the local landscape
A game: Probably, those who like to ride a “heroic” horse for a campaign or two will be pleased. Those who were expecting a deep and thoughtful game in which every game - an adventure and a challenge - will be disappointed. These are no longer the same hardcore “Heroes”
Verdict GameWay!
3 /5 (A bit weak)
Buy a licensed disc with the game Might & Magic: Heroes 6
Buy a license key for the game Might & Magic: Heroes 6
Balance is a great thing, don’t say it. A few seemingly minor changes, a couple of clarifying touches, and what was played at the beta stage as a mockery of the series looks like a completely wow game after release. Fortunately, since the first press reviews - the developers Might &Magic:Heroes 6, corrected the most obvious bugs and shortcomings, and also fixed holes in the balance.
I won’t say anything bad about the new “Heroes”! Good, however, too, because the game does not represent anything interesting for the sharp and nimble mind of a veteran strategist. It seems that give me the technical task: to specifically make a clone of the “heroes” as boring as a toothpaste advertisement, and the result will be something like a new Black Hole project.
The series has always stood on the relative simplicity of the rules and the tight balance of turning into ease of mastery, almost paradoxically combined with impressive strategic depth.
There is lightness in the sixth part, let’s say, maybe even too much of it. But that deep balance of gameplay elements, which ensured the success of the best parts of the series, is not in the game at all.
The main idea when developing Heroes 6 There was, apparently, an attempt, by simplifying the game rules and discarding outdated elements, to make the game friendlier for the novice mass player. This is where its main problem grows - the developers overdid it and threw out too many elements that were fundamentally important for true “heroic” gameplay. Simplicity has replaced balance.
So, for example, there are now only four types of resources, they are very easy to obtain and therefore development is almost automatic. The balance did not spend the night here, and developing the city is boring. But everything is simple.
All troops available in all cities and villages of the kingdom can be bought at any time in any city or fort. This innovation kills any need to think strategically in an offensive and bring in reinforcements in a timely manner. But in Heroes 6 it's simple.
As if this were not enough, any city or fort of an “alien” race can, by investing a certain amount of resources, be instantly rebuilt into your own. Once! – and magically, where rivers of lava had just flowed and terrible demons were walking, green lawns with neat houses of honest taxpayers appear. This simplification eliminates any possibility that the player will use troops from a castle other than his own and that the presence of outsiders will negatively affect general morality in the squad. Another serious strategic layer was simply crossed out. But everything is simple.
All buildings (mines that provide an additional increase in the settlement's troops) located in the city's control zone can no longer be captured until the city itself is captured. To take control, for example, of a sawmill without capturing the city, you can only leave the hero standing in it - as soon as he moves, the building immediately comes under the control of the owner of the area. This simplification, again, greatly narrows the scope for strategic play on the map and reduces to almost nothing resource wars, the need to control the territory and protect it from enemy hero-infiltrators.
All this makes the strategic game on the map completely formulaic and boring. No in Heroes 6 that feeling of the importance of decisions made at every turn. When we say the choice of whom to beat - the gremlins guarding the mine, or the golems guarding the chest, it really decides a lot. Moreover, it can have a variety of consequences. There is no sense of adventure when exploring the map, even for the thousandth time, is an exciting activity. And at the same time you feel that the world on the other side of the monitor is alive, and there is something to do in it. IN Might &Magic:Heroes 6 everything is reduced to simple and boring functionality, leaving almost no interesting choices for the player.
The combat isn't very impressive either. Of course, the complete madness with the wild efficiency of healing units did not survive to release. However, other problems with balance, for example, the very high speed of units, and the almost complete impossibility of building any well-thought-out tactics in battle (for example, preventing this shooter from attacking by covering him with infantry) have not gone away.
What do you order to do and plan if the heaviest infantryman crosses the battlefield in two turns (and under acceleration he can handle it in one), and the battlefields are large enough so that he can run around those who are trying to block his path and attack the one without any penalties? whoever he wants? As a result, the fight looks like a fairly simple exchange of blows and lacks any serious tactical possibilities. The main thing is to choose the right targets for attacks and concentrate the damage well. It's easy to learn and unpretentious. And it's boring.
A truly interesting innovation "Heroes 6" can only be called new system hero development. All possible skills, passive abilities and spells are now divided into many different schools. And now the player himself decides what to spend the skill point received at the level on - on the “ice arrow” spell, or on a passive ability that gives additional experience at the end of the battle.
However, it must be said that the skills do not seem to be very balanced - the magician is almost useless now. What's the use of an ice arrow with damage that doesn't reach a hundred, if you can, using a warrior's skill, without losing a drop of mana, enhance the attack of, say, a crossbowman so that the damage gain is fivefold?
Checking the balance properly in a fight with a living player is not a trivial task at all. Not only is the game menu interface simply prohibitively unintuitive and inconvenient, but connecting with anyone is a big problem.
I don’t know what went wrong with Black Hole and Ubisoft, but an attempt to connect to the game usually ends with a message recommending that you check your network connection, saying that something is wrong with it. Of course, sooner or later there will be someone with whom there will be a connection, but playing with a specific person, for example, with a friend, is often simply impossible. For a project of this level, such shortcomings are unacceptable.
The graphic style is not bad, but completely secondary. By the way, there was no normal city screen in the beta, and this is a very big and unjustified blow to the atmosphere of the game. The lion's share of purely aesthetic pleasure from the “heroes” was precisely admiring the beauty of their cities. Here, instead, is some kind of nondescript window... simple and functional, yes... And in order, for example, to improve a warrior, you must definitely go to the recruiting troops tab. Otherwise, this opportunity is simply not available - typical mistake in the interface, and the error is not justified in any way, given that there was no such problem before.
Campaign "Heroes 6", framed as a kind of family saga and not bad in its own way. However, it suffers from the same balance problems. Example. At the end of the mission, you need to defeat the enemy who has accumulated enormous forces. His increase in troops in one city is equal to, or simply exceeds, what the player receives by controlling the entire map! At such moments, I want to think about why I’m wasting my time on the tedious passage of this game, instead of doing something more useful for myself and society.
However, the campaigns "Heroes 6" can't be called bad. They, after all, provide the lion's share of the pleasure that the game can bring to the player. Fans of the story campaigns in the previous parts will probably like it. The main thing is not to gorge on something more after the game is completed.
Only some of the melodies written by Paul Romero for Heroes of Might and Magic 2 remind us of the good days of the series. True, those same magical harpsichord plucks that so perfectly complemented the journey through the green lawns of HoMM 2, and sounded so wonderful in themselves, as if -they lose from what they sound in this game. The landscape here is not suitable for them, no matter what you say...
Fans are a fastidious bunch. And the army of fans of the world-favorite game series is an even more demanding, violent and often self-contradictory people. Give some innovations, while others shout “Hands off the shrine!” ready to burn any innovator at the stake of the Inquisition. And it’s a shame when developers, trying to please everyone, end up making a game for no one. This is exactly what happened with “Heroes of Might and Magic 4” - few people perceived the project adequately.
Fortunately, the flag that had been shaken was picked up by the flagship of the Russian gaming industry Nival, ushering in the fifth part of the series the triumph of “classics 2.0” - with three-dimensional graphics, but the principles familiar to everyone. And still there were dissatisfied people, for whom “hexagons are dearer to their hearts.” Needless to say, the announcement of the sixth episode, given to the authors of the mediocre strategy Armies of Exigo and the wargame Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, aroused wariness among adherents of sword and sorcery? As it turned out, not in vain.
⇡ Counter-Reformation
The main problem of Might and Magic: Heroes VI is the general course towards simplifying the game. Following the words of the project’s producer, Erwan le Breton, that “Heroes” was too overloaded, the Hungarian executives from Black Hole Entertainment began to cut and rework the sixth part in every possible way. And these changes are evident from the first frames.
What has always been peculiar business card, the “face” of any warring party in “Heroes”? Of course, her city. Partly, it was the appearance of cities that formed the first impression of newcomers about a particular race. At one time, Nival, having given the fifth part of the series full three-dimensionality, turned the demonstration of castles into a breathtaking spectacle. Accompanied by gorgeous music, the camera slowly flew around the majestic temples and powerful forts against the backdrop of a sweet pastoral (or not so dear) landscape. You could rotate your citadel as you wish, zoom in/out, and generally meditate on it for a long time.
Alas, we are not destined to see all this beauty in the new game. It’s unclear what the developers were guided by and completely destroyed one of the most aesthetically pleasing moments. From now on, the city screen is a small window with a defective picture and a set of tabs for construction, recruiting troops, trade and other business affairs. Large icons climb on top of each other, there is no trace of clarity, as in the fifth part, and the constructed buildings, with the exception of specific ones like the fort and the town hall, are not displayed visually anywhere. It is clear that this is, rather, only a cosmetic flaw, but those who are accustomed to the pomp and beauty of the fifth and even third “Heroes” will find it difficult to come to terms with such asceticism.
There are now five castles themselves. However, no one has canceled the additions, so their number may soon increase. But initially there are five sides to choose from - the Alliance of Light (people), Inferno (demons), Necropolis (undead), Defiant Tribes (orcs) and Sanctuary. The latter is an abode of Japanese fantasy culture, inhabited by aquatic naga creatures.
All creatures, including those from previous parts, have undergone significant processing and redesign, and the troops have been replenished with previously unseen creatures with their own distinctive features. The development of cities itself has become significantly simplified for two reasons. The first is the absence in the construction tree of some buildings like the Tower of Magic, in which, taking into account the new role system(more about it below) the need simply disappeared. The second is reducing the number of resources to four. Sulfur, mercury and precious metals disappeared into oblivion, which automatically lowered the requirements for buildings and high-level fighters. So hundreds of angels are no longer the ultimate dream, but an entirely achievable reality.
Another very controversial innovation is associated with resources in the sixth “Heroes”, the legs of which seem to come from the Disciples series. From now on, cities and forts create a zone of influence around themselves, which makes it impossible to intercept the mines and dwellings of creatures located in it. That is, you can leave the hero stuck in the mine and rake in the proceeds for yourself, but as soon as you leave the enterprise, the resources will again flow to your opponent. The only way out is to storm the castle, and if successful, its territory with all adjacent buildings (except neutral ones) will go to you.
Finishing the topic of cities, it is also worth mentioning the possibility of rebuilding captured castles to suit your faction. For a symbolic sum, the orc shacks will be turned into the crypts of Necropolis, and Inferno will be repurposed for the benefit of Elrath and his Alliance of Light. Thus, now there is no need to monitor the compatibility of creatures and the morale of the composite army - you can, without distraction, methodically assemble a huge army of your race.
One can debate for a long time on the topic of the above-mentioned perturbations and their expediency, but what the developers are definitely worth thanking for is the redesigned character leveling system. Spontaneity and random selection of skills are a thing of the past, giving way to a full-fledged role model. When a hero receives a new level, in addition to the standard increase in parameters such as strength or magical defense, he receives one point to develop his skills. All of them are divided into two large categories: “Physical skills” and “Magical skills”. There are also “Hero Skills”, but they develop automatically. Each category, in turn, is divided into several subgroups.
The pumping model is the same for everyone, but race imposes some restrictions on it. For example, a necromancer, by definition, cannot study light magic. This also includes the hero’s worldview. Depending on the decisions made during the game (whether the cowardly enemy unit was released or not, whether the traitor was executed or pardoned, etc.), the Tears and Blood scales grow. As one of them is filled, it becomes possible to increase its level and thereby receive certain bonuses from the adopted orientation. The second line in this case predictably loses its meaning: points will still be gained, but it is no longer possible to shake it up.
⇡ Five at a crossroads
“Heroes-6” deepens the mythology of the fairy-tale world of Ashan, discovered by Nival chroniclers, and the action of the new part takes place five centuries before Queen Isabel and the events associated with her. But if earlier we witnessed the gradual fall of the Griffin Empire, now everything is exactly the opposite. The humanity of Ashan is united under the rule of the Falcon Empire, and the Griffins have yet to become the magnificent dynasty that they will appear in the future.
The story begins with the hooligan antics of the willful Duke Vyacheslav (almost all people here are of Slavic roots, so don’t be surprised), who on a voluntary basis establishes good neighborly relations with the orcs of the leader of Kraal, which greatly irritates his comrades from the neighboring duchies. And everything, it would seem, is good and rosy, there is peace in the whole world, and the prophecy about the coming invasion of demons from the fiery prison world of Shio is just looming somewhere on the horizon. But no - the short introductory campaign ends, and Vyacheslav himself is killed in front of everyone by his own daughter Nastenka. The girl is summarily executed by brother Anton, even though she swore that she did not do everything of her own free will. The large Griffin family is naturally falling apart, and the player will have to take a direct part in these fraternal squabbles.
Actually, after the end of the prologue, the developers offer a choice of five independent campaigns, one for each existing race and, as a result, for each of Vyacheslav’s offspring, plus an epilogue. Moreover, the fact that five human children ended up being assigned to different, often completely “anthropophagous” races is explained very superficially, which only enhances the feeling of delusion. And okay, Anton, who after the death of his father headed the Griffin dynasty, but the rest...
One is resurrected by a necromancer aunt, the other, out of despair, let a demon into herself and went on a joyride around Shio, the third ran away from her brutal husband to the nagas, and the fourth is an illegitimate son who found refuge with the orcs. Each has its own character and motives, but the goals are similar - to find and punish the true killers of Vyacheslav, and at the same time save Ashan.
At first, the plot is seriously unsettling with its crumpled and chaotic presentation. "Where I am? Who are all these people?" - No one is in a hurry to answer thoroughly. Bang! Here Slava is friends with the orcs. Bang! Here he is at war with another duke. Bang! The griffin is already dead, the kids have fled, there are five campaigns, the choice is yours. In the campaigns themselves, the situation is initially little better. And the main engine of the plot - the interlude videos - are executed so badly that there is no desire to follow them.
Against the background of the overall graphic splendor and riot of bright colors, these inserts (with the exception of CGI videos, with them everything is traditionally in the openwork) are striking on the spot with poor animation and certainly close-ups of the characters’ clumsy faces. But if you come to terms with them and make your way through the first missions of the campaigns, the narrative gradually begins to gain momentum and throw up interesting situations. For example, in one of the tasks, Anastasia will have to travel through the labyrinths of her own mind, putting together scattered memories. It looks quite fresh and interesting. And closer to the end, when the plot gives out all the trump cards, you understand that the writers did not waste their time... Like the rest of the developers, who, unfortunately, still failed to please all groups of fans.
⇡ Advantages:
- interesting plot after a dull beginning,
- excellent design and nice graphics,
- mature role system,
- great music.
⇡ Disadvantages:
- “dead” city screen,
- mediocre castle balance,
- chaotic presentation of the story,
- impossibility of simultaneous moves in multiplayer,
- general course to simplify the game,
- occasional glitches.
| Graphic arts | If you close your eyes to the nightmarish inserts on the engine, then “Heroes-6” seems really very beautiful game. The world filled with bright colors, special effects are organically woven into the overall style, and the creature models delight with very “live” animation and exemplary attention to detail. Except that loading times and rare disappearances of textures slightly overshadow the overall favorable picture. | 8 |
| Sound | In this regard, the game is traditionally good, although it does not offer anything new. The fighters are shouting menacing battle cries, birds are chirping in the world - pleasant, but not new. But the music is worthy of admiration. And even though the soundtrack from the series' permanent composers Paul Romero and Rob King partly consists of recycled tunes from previous parts, it is still epic and damn beautiful. Although some variety would be nice. | 8 |
| Single player game | Traditionally, players are given five large campaigns to choose from - one for each race, as well as a set of single-player scenarios. The missions are interesting and varied, the battles are complicated by various additional conditions, and closer to the middle a normal plot appears. But in some places the sharply jumping complexity associated with the uncontrolled proliferation of neutral armies is seriously annoying. | 8 |
| Group game | The game offers the standard set of multiplayer entertainment familiar to all fans of past “Heroes”: scenarios, duels and, of course, the “Hot seat” mode. Unless there was no place for LAN servers. The dynasty development system, which is practically unclaimed in single-player games, coupled with the connection to the Conflux network, works in multiplayer, allowing you to choose unique style and decent company. However, the lack of the possibility of simultaneous moves greatly slows down already drawn-out games. | 7 |
| General impression | “Heroes 6” largely follows the fate of the fourth part and a little of Disciples III, when thoughtless “innovations” made the project lost in the eyes of old-school players. Fortunately, Black Hole did not cross the dangerous line, having withstood at least some minimum standards decency. The main problem with Might and Magic: Heroes VI is that the game is overly simplistic. But this is still a very good strategy that can captivate you for more than one evening. | 7 |
It’s common to whine about the new “Heroes” that everything should be exactly as it was in the third part: any change that is insignificant at first glance means shock, drama, devastation and darkness. We, too, engaged in this kind of whining throughout all our previews, and not without reason. It seemed that four resources instead of seven was something between fraud and stupidity, capturing territories was a ladies' game for Dawn of War fans, and in general, please bring back 2D. After eighty pages of fan discussions filled with holy hatred on any gaming forum, which followed each official press release, even calm and sane people agreed on one thing: there is no soul and spirit of the old school, everything needs to be changed urgently.
That is, for some reason everyone decided that Black Hole- rebels whose hands are itching to break something. But in reality it turned out quite the opposite. Hungarians are sober, qualified performers without a single thought of their own, for whom cold calculation helps to hide their own cowardice and lack of talent. In order to cope with such a complex genre and such a difficult series, this, to put it mildly, is not enough.
Hero of Socialist Labor
Actually, all the fears that the authors are destroying the invented New World Computing mechanics turned out to be completely groundless. Yes, you cannot capture the mines adjacent to the castle or fort, you need to storm the bastion - thus, in Might and Magic Heroes 6 The classic situation is simply impossible, when hordes of unleveled heroes in torn shirts run around the map just to take over enemy resources for a turn or two. This is where the significant changes end. If you don’t even understand what we’re talking about, then that’s even better.
The hero can now walk around without any troops at all, but it is still impossible to fight in splendid isolation.
Just in case, let's explain. In “Heroes” two strategies more or less organically coexist: global and tactical. The first is a turn-based wargame, where we build a castle, capture mines and collect artifacts. The second is battles on a marked field, where purchased (or poached) armies, indicated by modest figures, exchange pleasantries. At this time, the hero himself stands modestly on the sidelines and, if necessary, can cast some kind of spell. The goal is to capture all enemy castles: a knight without permanent residence can last only seven turns.
Twenty-two years ago, during the release of the original King's Bounty(and ten years after), it seemed like the smartest and most elegant way to combine romantic wanderings through fairy-tale lands and large-scale battles in one game. But the mechanics carried over into the third millennium no longer give the impression of a cozy fairy tale. This is rather a rash attempt to be like Heroes of Might and Magic 3, naively believing that it is enough to just write off without any mistakes, and success will definitely come next. We have new “Heroes” here, damn it!
The queue for the kick, as before, is lined up in accordance with the morale of the squad.
The desire to repeat the third part verbatim, of course, is understandable - we remind you that everyone asked for approximately this. Only here is an HD remake ancient game should cost at most fifteen dollars, be called something in the spirit of HoMM 3 Turbo Remix and, for convenience, be sold somewhere on PSN and Xbox Live. But the Black Hole strategy is exactly that sixth part, it lies on store shelves in 2011 and completely ignores all the evolution that video games have made in their desire to turn from a meager set of rules into full-fledged works.
Mother heroine
Strictly speaking, Might and Magic Heroes 6 is a set of rules, carefully rewritten from one very good, but old game. Heroes, battles, castles - all this is driven into the tight framework of template, poor, boring cards and, according to the authors' idea, should somehow entertain in itself. In the story campaign, this is all complemented by a merciless Russian fantasy, and all the cut scenes resemble a YouTube parody of the film Mortal Kombat , where everyone first looks angrily at each other for three minutes, and then comes running together for a righteous slaughter.
This is the city development screen. Seriously.
Even “non-linear editing” (played a couple of missions for one faction, then another, then another, then returned to the old one) does not save the situation: not a single level tries to be anything more than a tedious tutorial. You need to do the same thing all the time. We capture the nearest mines, save up funds for barracks of all types, wait three weeks and go for a serious conversation with the enemy hero. Just like ten or fifteen years ago. For some reason, the authors of the revived, domestic King’s Bounty were smart enough to build a magnificent role-playing adventure based on the old mechanics. In the sixth "Heroes" there is no clear story, no interesting tasks, no characters, no world. Only endless collection of resources for speed. This looks especially strange against the backdrop of a mature RPG system. You can, for example, raise a power hero who does not use spells at all, and magic itself, firstly, is divided into branches, without any unnecessary schools (as well as all other skills), and secondly, it is divided into classes and two subclasses - the magic of blood and the magic of tears. That is, there are really a lot of development options, and the outcome of the fight often depends on whether you can summon any deadly winds or not.
Hero from Hell
But there is no place and no need to use all this in the campaign - the main tests fall on the shoulders of the multiplayer, especially since “Heroes” has always been mostly a sociable game. Only here, instead of tactics, there are boring runs from mine to mine. Although the first two or three matches are at least something to gawk at. New race underwater monsters, for example, is very funny - there are even anthropomorphic sharks. And in general, the most pleasant experience of Heroes 6 is when you try something for the first time that has not been seen in the series. To an outsider, of course, it won’t be very clear why the ability to hire all the creatures from one castle or rebuild an enemy fortress for your own faction (so that you can replenish your own army) is interesting, but against the backdrop of all the self-repetitions and general creative impotence it really seems a bold decision.
Heroes 6 is a bright but poor game.
But neither castles, nor the capture of territories, nor the abilities of the characters (and almost every type of army now has them), nor even the impoverished set of weather resources do anything. All tactical schemes, balance and methods of pumping are from the evil one, and whether you win or lose depends mainly on whether you manage to collect the blue crystals in time. For many years, fans have debated whether their favorite game is a strategy game or an RPG? The sixth part puts an end to the disagreement: it is neither one nor the other.
Heroes of Might and Magic should not have lived to see today at least for reasons of humanity. This is a clumsy, cumbersome, slow, completely unnecessary dinosaur strategy, unable to adapt to modern realities. At least under the supervision of Black Hole. Ubisoft should have taken a closer look at another Hungarian studio, Neocore, where people make absolutely magical wargames for mere pennies. Or entrust the development to the authors Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes- at heart this is a modest puzzle on the scenery of Heroes 5, but for some reason it plays a hundred times more fun.