Heroes of Might and Magic Retrospective: Heroes 3
Like I said previously, expect gushing with this one too.
As I mentioned before, the mission failed screen of Heroes II made me unable to truly play the games again until I got into high school, which wasn't until the early 2000s. We still had the third game, since it was released on February 28, 1999, but I always had to watch my brother play. It wasn't until I found a copy of the complete edition with both expansion packs at the bargain bin at the Wal-Mart that I got to really play it again and see what a masterpiece I was missing out on.
Remember what I said about Heroes II being one of those sequels that's even better than the original game it was a follow up to? This game beats even Heroes II's record and is even better than that, which is no small feat. What little errors the second game had, this game ironed it out while further expanding on the gameplay in its own way.
More secondary skills have been added such as the four elemental magic schools, Learning to boost the amount of experience you learn, and some that allow you to control your war machines, to name a few examples. The battlefield has been expanded even further, flying creatures can no longer fly across the battlefield regardless of their speed, and creatures can now wait for a later time to act instead of skipping their turn outright, and the skip command was changed to defend, which gives them a defense boost. War machines can now be deployed to give advantages such as unlimited ammo and healing, though the machines can be destroyed if the enemy targets them. Heroes can now take seven creature stacks with them instead of six, meaning they can now take their entire garrison with them, so now dwarves and hydras will no longer be left behind.
The graphics made a complete change from the fairy tale-esque sprites that was the case with the first two games, instead opting for a more realistic style with a more sub-dued colour pallette, though the colours are still bright enough to have the muted feel the first game did, and the creatures and environments look great regardless. I haven't exactly seen it myself, but I've heard of other fans preferring the previous graphical style, so it's more a case of personal preferrence in that regard. The soundtrack is fantastic as always, and while there were fans who complained that it didn't have the opera singing that Heroes II did, I was probably one of the only people who didn't mind.
The factions have been completely revamed: no longer is a faction tied to a specific hero such as the Knight or the Warlock. Factions are now largely named after town types like the Castle or the Dungeon, there are several new factions like the Inferno and the Fortress, and each faction has a might and a magic hero type associated with it, leading up to 16 hero types. Some of the creatures have been moved around from they were originally assocaited with from the previous games, though they do make sense if you know about Erathia being a different place than Enroth was. They're even better balanced than it was in Heroes II, with the knights finally getting away from being bottom of the barrel rank they had been in for two games in a row by finally ditching the peasants, though there are still holes in it, with the Fortress seeming to take the void left by the knights, even with a few updates in the later versions for slow and less powerful creatures (despite some useful abilities) and a lacking mage guild that only goes up to the third level (at least with the Stronghold being stuck with level 3, that was because of the hero types largely being barbarians and even their battle mages put more emphasis on combat than their peers).
Town construction has been updated as well. You no longer need to have castle walls constructed in order to get your buildings up, that's now done at the village hall, which can be upgraded to increase the town's gold income all the way up to being a capitol (which you can only have one of a time), and many of the buildings that are associated with town production are tied to it while creatures and upgrading them are tied to having the wall providing forts, so you do need those walls up if you want armies to defend yourself with. Sometimes a map might have a town specifically rigged so that it can't build a fort, but at least with the village hall in charge of town construction, the towns can still at least have some purpose.
The magic system has been further organized so that each and every spell falls into the four classical elements. You still need the wisdom skill to learn spells higher than the second-tier, but with the secondary skills of each element, it actually improves the respective spells when you cast them, so learning those skills is not mandatory as it would be in later installments.
The campaign of this game doesn't have the choices to impact a scenario that made the previous game's campaign the best one in the fans' eyes, but it is still better than the campaign in Heroes I. The story follows Catherine Ironfist's return to her country after the death of her father, King Gryphonheart, and the chaos that ensued from it, while there are other factions that taking advantage of the chaos to achieve their own ends that (largely) tie into the plot. The campaign goes into sections where you'll be playing one faction, and then at the next part you'll be playing a different faction, and you do get the opportunity to play each faction once, so it has that going for it rather than being one faction the entire time.
Like with Heroes II, there were expansion packs with Heroes III: Armageddon's Blade (1999) and the Shadow of Death (2000). Both of them offered new maps to play, but had their own unique additions. Armageddon's Blade added a new faction, the Conflux that largely composed of the previously neutral elementals, as well as new neutral creatures (some of which were creatures that had been left behind from Heroes II initially, like the Mummy and the Boar) and new map locations; it's plot is only tied to one of the campaigns it offers, with the rest of the campaigns having little to do with it, outside of a few for future events in later games. Shadow of Death had its story act as a prequel to the original game's plot, showing how four heroes came to stop a necromancer's plans, while it added new terrain types and combination artifacts to the gameplay.
Armageddon's Blade also had a bit of history behind it: since the storyline for III was tied to the plot for Might and Magic 6, which always had some sci-fi elements in its fantasy setting, there were originally plans to have a sci-fi faction instead of the Conflux, and it was originally tied in with the main plot of expansion. Fan outcry against that faction was loud, with some issuing death threats. While I agree that the sci-fi elements would've looked clunky and out of place (with creatures like naga tanks and chainsaw zombies, it would clash greatly with the overall setting even with the rest of the Might and Magic series in mind), I don't agree with sending death threats to the developers! Either way, the outcry caused the developers to scrap it in the middle of development and replace it with the Conflux (I've heard rumors that the Conflux was originally intended to be in the second expansion), which would explain why some of the balance in the Conflux wasn't as good as it should've been (they have an entry on the high tier section of the Tier Induced Scrappy page of TV Tropes for a reason).
Heroes of Might and Magic III is an example of an excellent sequel that takes the foundations that the previous games laid out and rose them to near perfection. It would be very clear that any games following III would have a tough act to follow.
As I mentioned before, the mission failed screen of Heroes II made me unable to truly play the games again until I got into high school, which wasn't until the early 2000s. We still had the third game, since it was released on February 28, 1999, but I always had to watch my brother play. It wasn't until I found a copy of the complete edition with both expansion packs at the bargain bin at the Wal-Mart that I got to really play it again and see what a masterpiece I was missing out on.
Remember what I said about Heroes II being one of those sequels that's even better than the original game it was a follow up to? This game beats even Heroes II's record and is even better than that, which is no small feat. What little errors the second game had, this game ironed it out while further expanding on the gameplay in its own way.
More secondary skills have been added such as the four elemental magic schools, Learning to boost the amount of experience you learn, and some that allow you to control your war machines, to name a few examples. The battlefield has been expanded even further, flying creatures can no longer fly across the battlefield regardless of their speed, and creatures can now wait for a later time to act instead of skipping their turn outright, and the skip command was changed to defend, which gives them a defense boost. War machines can now be deployed to give advantages such as unlimited ammo and healing, though the machines can be destroyed if the enemy targets them. Heroes can now take seven creature stacks with them instead of six, meaning they can now take their entire garrison with them, so now dwarves and hydras will no longer be left behind.
The graphics made a complete change from the fairy tale-esque sprites that was the case with the first two games, instead opting for a more realistic style with a more sub-dued colour pallette, though the colours are still bright enough to have the muted feel the first game did, and the creatures and environments look great regardless. I haven't exactly seen it myself, but I've heard of other fans preferring the previous graphical style, so it's more a case of personal preferrence in that regard. The soundtrack is fantastic as always, and while there were fans who complained that it didn't have the opera singing that Heroes II did, I was probably one of the only people who didn't mind.
The factions have been completely revamed: no longer is a faction tied to a specific hero such as the Knight or the Warlock. Factions are now largely named after town types like the Castle or the Dungeon, there are several new factions like the Inferno and the Fortress, and each faction has a might and a magic hero type associated with it, leading up to 16 hero types. Some of the creatures have been moved around from they were originally assocaited with from the previous games, though they do make sense if you know about Erathia being a different place than Enroth was. They're even better balanced than it was in Heroes II, with the knights finally getting away from being bottom of the barrel rank they had been in for two games in a row by finally ditching the peasants, though there are still holes in it, with the Fortress seeming to take the void left by the knights, even with a few updates in the later versions for slow and less powerful creatures (despite some useful abilities) and a lacking mage guild that only goes up to the third level (at least with the Stronghold being stuck with level 3, that was because of the hero types largely being barbarians and even their battle mages put more emphasis on combat than their peers).
Town construction has been updated as well. You no longer need to have castle walls constructed in order to get your buildings up, that's now done at the village hall, which can be upgraded to increase the town's gold income all the way up to being a capitol (which you can only have one of a time), and many of the buildings that are associated with town production are tied to it while creatures and upgrading them are tied to having the wall providing forts, so you do need those walls up if you want armies to defend yourself with. Sometimes a map might have a town specifically rigged so that it can't build a fort, but at least with the village hall in charge of town construction, the towns can still at least have some purpose.
The magic system has been further organized so that each and every spell falls into the four classical elements. You still need the wisdom skill to learn spells higher than the second-tier, but with the secondary skills of each element, it actually improves the respective spells when you cast them, so learning those skills is not mandatory as it would be in later installments.
The campaign of this game doesn't have the choices to impact a scenario that made the previous game's campaign the best one in the fans' eyes, but it is still better than the campaign in Heroes I. The story follows Catherine Ironfist's return to her country after the death of her father, King Gryphonheart, and the chaos that ensued from it, while there are other factions that taking advantage of the chaos to achieve their own ends that (largely) tie into the plot. The campaign goes into sections where you'll be playing one faction, and then at the next part you'll be playing a different faction, and you do get the opportunity to play each faction once, so it has that going for it rather than being one faction the entire time.
Like with Heroes II, there were expansion packs with Heroes III: Armageddon's Blade (1999) and the Shadow of Death (2000). Both of them offered new maps to play, but had their own unique additions. Armageddon's Blade added a new faction, the Conflux that largely composed of the previously neutral elementals, as well as new neutral creatures (some of which were creatures that had been left behind from Heroes II initially, like the Mummy and the Boar) and new map locations; it's plot is only tied to one of the campaigns it offers, with the rest of the campaigns having little to do with it, outside of a few for future events in later games. Shadow of Death had its story act as a prequel to the original game's plot, showing how four heroes came to stop a necromancer's plans, while it added new terrain types and combination artifacts to the gameplay.
Armageddon's Blade also had a bit of history behind it: since the storyline for III was tied to the plot for Might and Magic 6, which always had some sci-fi elements in its fantasy setting, there were originally plans to have a sci-fi faction instead of the Conflux, and it was originally tied in with the main plot of expansion. Fan outcry against that faction was loud, with some issuing death threats. While I agree that the sci-fi elements would've looked clunky and out of place (with creatures like naga tanks and chainsaw zombies, it would clash greatly with the overall setting even with the rest of the Might and Magic series in mind), I don't agree with sending death threats to the developers! Either way, the outcry caused the developers to scrap it in the middle of development and replace it with the Conflux (I've heard rumors that the Conflux was originally intended to be in the second expansion), which would explain why some of the balance in the Conflux wasn't as good as it should've been (they have an entry on the high tier section of the Tier Induced Scrappy page of TV Tropes for a reason).
Heroes of Might and Magic III is an example of an excellent sequel that takes the foundations that the previous games laid out and rose them to near perfection. It would be very clear that any games following III would have a tough act to follow.