So I was replaying Heroes II and Heroes III after work for the past while, and I've been thinking to myself about the series. IV in particular. I always remembered how uneasy I was with it during the first while, put off by several of the new things, like the hero units basically rendering armies obsolete, and the artistic direction that seemed a tad of a let down compared to 3, and especially 2, which I still consider the best to look at.

And yet I vaguely remember that the campaigns were actually really good, the hero units had their charm in fighting as a group, and some of the adventure map features always seemed like a nice touch.

What are your thoughts/memories on IV?

IV was an interesting game

It got a lot of flaming and hate when it first came out which I think was unjustified

It also tried and did a lot of new things in the series some people like that, some people don't. I personally do, I think it took a lot of risks and many of them payed off even if some didn't

One of the most memorable things about the game is the soundtrack: Heroes IV without a doubt has the best music out of any Heroes of might and magic title

Even if the game has a lot of shortcomings I still regard it as a worthy sequel and taking into consideration the fact that 3DO had serious financial problems and the game was rushed by New World Computing it's amazing that the game turned out well the way it did

I would love to see IV here on gog.com with all expansions

I immediately took a dislike to it. Compared to the third one, which i played a lot, i thought that the map graphics were far too busy and cluttered, and whilst the HoMM games have always been a colourful fantasy world i thought a lot of the games character had been lost with the new graphics.

When i finally got around to taking another look at the game and gave it a fair chance i found that it was a really good game. I still prefer the hero units to be in the background rather on the field but i think the gameplay is among the best the fantasy-strategy genre has to offer.

Heroes IV had a lot of neat ideas, but they weren't always executed well. Heroes are kind of worthless at first, but high level heroes can decimate entire armies. There was usually a clear-cut choice between two different units, and yeah, the Art style is pretty bad.

Nonetheless, I think the game is perfectly enjoyable with the equilibris mod, and some of the campaigns are pretty good. However, the expansions are kind of half assed due to 3DO's financial situation at the time and the AI is always fairly retarded.

I disliked it at first, but picked it up again a few years later and realized that it's a great game. Really good campaigns (original, not expansions), and a lot of new ideas that work quite well. It's not really worse than the other games, just different.

I still like the Heroes Chronicles though ive only been able to pick up Conquest of the Underworld though I gather there are about another 8 or so.

When it came out, Heroes fans (at least in Hungary) seemed to be absolutely thrilled by it, but I was rather "meh"; I just didn't feel I *have* to play it. A few years later I picked up the gold edition, and I found it to be very good, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
I really don't think it deserves the "the most horrible game in the series which we should quickly forget" mentality many people (for example, video game reviewers whose Heroes 5 articles I've read) seem to have regarding HoMM4.

Yes, the original campaigns are nice mini stories. Also some community made RPG maps are examples of good work. And with the Equilibris mod the game becomes less unbalanced.

Exactly. Felt kind of embarrassed I had that mindset during the first few months I had it.

My original reaction was that the game had some interesting new ideas and mechanics, but that the main problem was the pacing - both in a meta sense (your turns take too long) and in an in-game sense (units don't move far or fast enough, the scenario develops too slowly, and so on). It otherwise seemed a decent and enjoyable game, but I just never got into it.

Loved it, as I love every HoMM game so far (yes, including the Ubisoft ones, the V and the DS one).

But I must admit I'm scared by what I heard about the new episode currently under development: come one, only ore, wood and gold????

In Heroes VII there will be just one resource to make it more accessible. There will also be just two factions, angels and devils.

Sargon, you forgot the dragons faction. Those fucking dragons who were top-tier unit in 4 out of 8 towns in Heroes V (even though magma/lava dragon from Fortress looked like burning lizard). Also the gods were dragons.

God that sounds so horrible...and only 3 resouces as well, VI so far sounds like a pile of wank


V was extremely good, just as good as III

the DS version however was crap, and believe me - it's not just about how the game looks