So is this game worth buying?

[Banedon]

I completely missed that this game's been released. Seems like right now most reviews have been mixed (~6/10), and looking at the screenshots I'm quite surprised at how much MMH7 looks like MMH6. I've yet to buy it and I'll pretty soon have many other games to play, although I'm quite busy in real life right now too, so even if I start playing this game it'll be in several months.

What does Celestial Heavens think?

[gourley4p]

My vote is yes. I think this ranks just under V as the best in the series at launch. With patches, bug-fixing, and expansions, I think it can surpass V.

Issues to consider:

• Skill Pizza. If you think it the skill system is too generic and/or restrictive, that impacts the game a lot.
  System requirements. This takes a beefy machine to play well. If you try to play it on the minimum requirements, you will experience sluggish performance and long loads. That will make you dislike the game.
  Fan service. You will see a lot of nods to previous games that can break the 4th wall in the sense that it is clear those nods are there for you as a player and not simply to advance the story. If you like that idea, all is well. If that annoys you, all is not well.

Already, this is a better launch and product that VI. The changes are mostly good, and I am enjoying the combat and skills. If I were a player who thinks Heroes III is the pinnacle of gaming, I might be disappointed, though.

[Kalah]

I don't know yet. The official CH view will only be clear after playing it for some time, as well as trying the editor.

[crislevin]

It's hard to say, l love homm series so I always bought it whenever it came out.

H7 has great potentials, but as of now, I'm literally spending more than half of my time in front of the loading screen, terminating the process, foce rebooting my computer.

This game also runs extremely buggy, laggy, even on my desktop with arguable best graphic in the market, 295x2.

It's so freaking sad. It's so much worse than h6 in terms of performance, it's unbelievable.

Sorry, as you can see, the more I tried to play this game, the more disappointed and infuriated I become. Lol

EDIT: It's a YES for me after patch 1.2, game breaking bugs are patched, now its so much easier to appreciate the graphic, story, and fun!

[gourley4p]

Already, this is a better launch and product that VI. The changes are mostly good, and I am enjoying the combat and skills. If I were a player who thinks Heroes III is the pinnacle of gaming, I might be disappointed, though.

It's so much worse than h6 in terms of performance, it's unbelievable.

Notice the contrasting viewpoints here. Neither of us is lying; our feedback is based on our experience. And if you cannot get a game you just shelled out $50-60 to run, you'll have every right to dislike it and be disappointed.

So, I should have added to the list of considerations:

• Windows 10. If you run Windows 10, it seems to be a complete craps shoot based on reports from users. Officially, the game is not yet designed to support Windows 10. Unofficially, it works for some people with certain workarounds that Ubi/Limbic have broadcasted widely. Still, if you want a sure thing and you run Windows 10, it might be better to wait.

[BB Shockwave]

Same here. I played the beta on my brand-new PC built for gaming:
AMD 8-core 83-20 processor
Asus Sabertooth 9-90FX motherboard
SSD Kingston Z/X 120 Gb
RAM 16GB Kingston HyperX
Asus Geforce GTX970 Nvidia 4GB

On this config, graphics on highest - took me 2-3 minutes every time to wait for the darn AI's turn. Loading screen for about 10-20 seconds before EVERY battle. Also, very long saved game loading times - and worst of all, during AI's turn, the game got so terribly laggy, I could barely look around on the map.
I honestly doubt they could have improved this in just TWO WEEKS.

[Panda Tar]

What does Celestial Heavens think?

This humble panda won't try this one. As for now, I'm feeling worse about this game than I felt after playing H6 for a couple of hours. H6 failed to me. H7 seemed not to fail for a while, and as it unrolled the last months, it did exactly the same thing as H6 did, generally speaking, so I felt sort of hoodwinked somehow after I concluded that it would not meet even my lowest expectations. At least the Council served the purpose to point me out to stay away from it rather than lose time playing it, as it happened with H6, which I didn't had much clue how bad it was upon launching.

My general advice, probably my most optimistic advice (so brace yourself), is to wait a couple of months, after they fix some more troubling issues which affects the game technically; bugs, crashes and whatnot. Specially if you are a Multiplayer player.

I cannot also point which things this game failed to me because it's based on my preferences, but suffice to say that nothing in this game appeased me. Nothing. Some improvement was expected – and welcomed –, but too few to bend my will in any meaningful way. Even things that usually don't bother me such as menus and graphics started glaring back at me in a bad tone. I wouldn't mind if this game was completely different from the others, as I'm a huge fan of H4 myself, as long as it pleasantly surprised me, either with old things made new and new things made intelligently new (my choice of words are mainly based on my perspective and expectations, so it's not intended to offend anyone).

So, I think you should read many reviews on that, good ones and bad ones, balance it out and check some videos later. I'm not going to advice you to be impartial however. Go further into the businesses your think would make you keep faith to this franchise. If they are not sufficient to click in your mind as acceptable, the answer for your question would be, then, clear.

[gourley4p]

.
I honestly doubt they could have improved this in just TWO WEEKS.

I have been very impressed with the change from CB2 to the retail client. I know, as always, performance picks up when they unhook all of the background functions used in betas to track our every move, but the game has exceeded my expectations for launch based on what I saw in CB2.

[Bloax]

This game also runs extremely buggy, laggy, even on my desktop with arguable best graphic in the market, 295x2

The R9 295 is only as good as the crossfire profile for the game; which would be just about nonexistent for a title as new and H7 with AMD's slow as molasses driver releases.

Try disabling one of the two GPUs it consists of if you can and see if that helps.

and if you don't believe me then here's an example of a game where crossfire completely breaks apart

[crislevin]

This game also runs extremely buggy, laggy, even on my desktop with arguable best graphic in the market, 295x2

The R9 295 is only as good as the crossfire profile for the game; which would be just about nonexistent for a title as new and H7 with AMD's slow as molasses driver releases.

Try disabling one of the two GPUs it consists of if you can and see if that helps.

and if you don't believe me then here's an example of a game where crossfire completely breaks apart

lol. as if i don't know anything about my own card.

this game doesn't support xfire, and causes extreme overheating when in xf mode. I asked this a month ago and never used xf since.

btw, even single card in full screen mode was reported to overheat on both NV and AMD cards.

A single 290x is WAY MORE than enough to handle this game at Ultra. Fact is my game runs butter smooth even in borderless window mode (which suppresses xf), 60fps (vsync on) no problamo. Its only when the corrupted saves bug began to hit, it because impossibly sluggish after each lording, that is, if it actually loads at all.

[Steven Aus]

Hmmm, it does seem that the game might have been made to apparently be given the benefit of the doubt at release, but it may still have too many issues for long-term use. It's fine to say something like we will support it long-term but I am sure that if sales start getting poor real soon it will be dropped by Ubisoft like a hot potato.

Games creation is complex. It needs a solid base, which means, qualified developers and enough money and time to create a good first release. Then it needs to be supported by the publisher through patches and expansions. And I don't think changing the developer every game is conducive to finding an acceptable balance point where most people are happy with most parts of the game.

[Danny]

Doesn't seem the game is worth buying unfortunately. On one hand it acts like a Heroes 6 expansion with so many graphics, sounds and music re-used. But it wouldn't be a major problem if on the other hand it didn't show pure regression and simplification, both in presentation and content itself.

The biggest issue is that with Ashan they've written themselves into a corner. Heroes 5 will be 10 years old in just over six months and we're still using the same units and lineups? Gargoyles and Golems in Academy still? It was great in 1999 but nothing new since then? Sylvan took a break from Heroes 6, now it's back in its 2006 incarnation with unicorn replaced by a stag?

How many new units we have that are not variations of Heroes 5-6, nor Heroes 3 nostalgia? Justicar, Arcane Eagle, Moon Doe, Strider. That's only four, way too few. Bringing Troglodyte and Behemoth back don't magically make it a good game and it can make people realize they enjoyed the previous games so much more...

And I thought a sequel was supposed to be improvement, but they made everything simpler: town look smaller on the adventure map, like two heroes together are as big as a town. Town screens looked better in 1999, battle animations are almost exactly as clunky as they were in 2002 in a 2D isometric game that had fantastic graphics outside battles.

Back in 2003 I thought the Heroes series would die due to lack of interest so the Ubisoft resurrection was a surprise to me, while I was not a fan of Heroes 5, I loved Heroes 6 and it was a great gaming experience to me. But looks like the series reached another point of danger, since the performance and bug issues don't really give it a good word of mouth so I don't see a big success here and the people who wanted to have "more of the same" are in the end outnumbered by those who are offended by the lack of new stuff... I loved Heroes 4 because it blodly changed so many things and did not want to act like simply a sequel riding the coattails of its predecessor. Unfortunately Heroes 7 is exactly that and I'd rather play Heroes 3-4-6 than spend my free time on this one...

[Madaxe]

Heroes profile - to know if you should ignore my opinions or not
First Heroes game: Original Kings Bounty
Favorite Heroes: H5
Least Favorite : H6
Favorite Gamemode: Skirmish vs AI
Multiplayer: yes,Co-op
Hours played: 1 skirmish map against 3 ai - 12 hours, plus beta 1&2
Game platform: Windows 7 laptop with 8 Gigs RAM and 1 G Quadro 1000m

Here is just some brief impressions of the game so far. I prefer skirmish over campaign, so if campaigns are your thing, this might not be too useful. Overall I am enjoying the game from a gameplay standpoint. But, I am sad at the state the game was released in and how many people are having issues. As a fan, I will stick through the issues because I enjoy the game and know how to play heroes, but a new player (and maybe even some veterans) will probably leave confused and/or discouraged


Bugs and Performance:
Needs definite work and attention

+ I haven't crashed but maybe once. Reasonably stable for me, though I seem to be in the minority
- Feels very slow performance wise. Slow loading screens and gameplay at times. I think they would solve many performance issues if they would figure out their RAM usage...it is using too much and causing perf and stability issues


Graphics & Sound:
Overall ok

- Graphics still seem too small to me....heroes, units in battle, objects, etc
- Graphics seem a bit washed out looking...dull at times on adventure map
- No matter how much I zoom in/out, I can't find that sweet spot of getting a good view of the adventure map or battle participants, but yet be zoomed out enough to see the right amount of adventure map or battle scene.... frustrating
- Adventure map movements still seem clunky. Heroes move "sideways" at times, slow animations, etc
- Map rotation via keyboard is klunky
+ Some nice effects, such as snowing, etc. Can help set a more immersive mood
- User interface is a bit bland/brown for me, though it seems to be functional/fine
+ Music seems good, though I am not a fan of the AI turn music piece...which of course you hear a lot of
+ Underground looks good, better than surface
+ Town battles look good. Nice touches on battlements, etc
+ Some "Creature" heroes have that as their icon on adventure map


AI:
Needs work

+ On hard, the enemy AI had good sized armies. Had a couple of decent battles!
- Builds way too many heroes. This slows down the game (Ai turns) and risks splitting ai army too much (though, it didn't seem to split it's army too often, so that is good)
- Battle Ai still makes bad decisions on who to attack, what to cast, etc.
- Neutral AI puts it's stacks too close together. If split into two stacks, ai places them just 4 squares apart. So, you can hit them both with one AOE spell
- Ai ignored easy targets (weak towns especially) on adventure map. It's priority process needs some tweaking
- Ai doesn't seem to clear out neutrals well
- I get the feeling it is "cheating" a bit on map knowledge and army/funds. But, I would rather it cheat and present me some fun battles/games then not and be worthless.


Gameplay/Heroes:
I am enjoying the gameplay quite a bit. Has that one more turn feeling for me and is interesting/fun

- Level cap at 30. I was level 25 in a skirmish map and wasn't done yet. I am thinking this cap will be an issue for map makers, especially doing campaigns. With the number of skills and abilities, there seems plenty of room past 30
+ I like the number of skills in the game. And, they seem interesting.
+ I like that the hero has 3 skills that can be grandmaster level
+ I like the skill wheel in the game from a skill presentation standpoint, though it would be nice if it was viewable in the level up screen. But you can exit out, go into your hero screen and pick your advancement from the skills screen.
+ I like the town development. Seems varied with choices to make
- Some of the town prequisites for building dwellings or buildings could use some tweaking
+ Warmachines are back and have a bit of variety per faction as far as what they do
+ Town Govenors, Town Garrisons, Forts all seem like small, but welcome additions
+ Hero classes (6) per faction..though there aren't enough heroes to really take advantage of this at the moment and at this point I am not sure if there is enough difference between all of the classes
+ Random option for skills.
+ I like the variety per hero with their pre-set skill pizzas (though many do not)
+ Spells back in guilds
- Number of spells per school is a bit too low....needs more
---- Simultaneous turns.....GRRR... was very excited this was in the game from day 1. But, you have to wait while your friends are in battle. Ouch. This is not Sim turns then. Battles can take a long time. They need to fix this asap!


Armies and Units:
- Cores seem a bit too strong for how many of them you can get
- Champion units seem a bit too weak for the number you tend to have
+ I like that they have added a strong core and strong elite unit, though I would have prefered the old 7 tiers back. Overall though, this works is varied/fun
+ Battles are fun overall, though I am not sure I like some of the really big battle maps you encounter just fighting neutrals at times (underground at least). Seems to drag the battle out....

[cjlee]

With basic game stability, performance and turn times/waiting issues not resolved for a significant number of players, I find it hard to recommend this game to anyone.

I think the important thing for any product is the BASIC FUNCTIONING. You can always tweak the town growth of core vs cost of champion units later. If some animation looks lousy, or if some skill is found to generate potential for abuse and game breaking, you can produce your patch then.

But you really need to produce a game that runs smoothly and quickly on most commonly available computers. And this cannot be left to future patches. Coming out with a game that cannot even run on Windows 10 already makes it obsolete right off the bat. (I'm using Win7 btw.) My worst nightmares about a Ubisoft product are already coming true...

[Salamandre]

Tried beta, had to wait 1 minute to bring menu screen, 2 minutes between turns, 1 minute to reload save.

Heroes 7, au revoir.

[cjlee]

As perverse as it sounds, hearing Salamandre is quite a relief.

The low quality of H7 will help me give up gaming for good.

[Salamandre]

Meh, why would you go so extreme, there are wonderful games out there, besides Heroes. I play very few games and now being teased by Civilization 5; at release I simply despised it because of the new dumb mechanics, but now with 15000 mods in the shop, I was able to modify all that I didn't like into what I wanted. Now is just perfect. Then there is Skyrim which is a joy for the eyes, then the Witcher seems to be a gem too, though didn't buy it yet.

[Karmakeld]

ouch there's a lot of thumbs down on steam. but if you keep scrolling.. and scrolling.. and keep loading more review, you will find even more thumbs down, and eventually a bunch of thumbs up. But for those I've read, as well as on this forum, alot of the same issues are mentioned. Can't help but fear for the franchise. Sure they can patch it up and it can turn out decent (I'm def. gonna wait, especially with the high price), but as cjlee wrote, it's sad when the basics isn't even working properly. Oh well, good thing H-IV still runs on win. 8 with Equilibris Mod.

[skywyze]

I've been playing it for the last two days and I'm loving it! There are a few bugs, such as some heroes' specialties not increasing creature growth like they should. But beyond that, I haven't had any problems. Not 1 crash about 12 hours of playing. It looks beautiful, the music is gorgeous, and they're really distancing themselves from the horrid atrocity that was HOMM6. This is somewhere between HOMM5 and 6, but closer to 5.

Definitely recommended. There's so much hate out there, people complaining about crashes etc. But I have no idea what they're talking about - I've been having a really fun time.

[Panda Tar]

You would have an idea if you had their same issues, although you cannot ignore that many other people are having problems. If I had bought this game and it worked for me, but I noticed that many awful feedback, I wouldn't recommend it, because I cannot vouch for it entirely.

From everywhere I read reviews on it, I think I have more fingers than the number of people who had it working smoothly.

*****

The reading I have to this franchise is that it is expendable. Somewhere in its path to this release, it has been forgotten it was an award-winning game back in the days, and that the same qualities which made it as it was won't save it for the future. Maybe to this date, the game wouldn't be felt like profitable even if good sales?

And that blasé taking of the franchise dooms it for the tendency that publishers are thinking it's normal delivering unpolished products. This is also the fan base responsibility. Although it's not our fault that the game had this many negative issues, it's fractionally our fault to be patient and understanding, that we can wait another number of days/weeks/months for a released game to be polished etc., or even worse, to be simply playable. In a sense, too much tolerance brings situations like this, when it's normal having unfinished products popping everywhere under the excuse that they'll get patched.

Patching and having this possibility in today's gaming production shouldn't be focused on fixing problems, but providing a better gaming experience through bonuses, improvements, additional content, expansions, thing which would prolong the game, increase its glamour, focus on making greater than it should be already in vanilla. Things are getting normal today when you cannot even launch the game! This is an absurd! Because it's happening all around, with many other companies as well, and Ubisoft's not unfamiliar with that either... And I cannot simply accept this as a normal thing. I can accept that it might have bugs, sometimes even crashing in some specific situations, but not every time, doing very common actions; in resume, bugs and crashes which can render a person from gaming experience, or waiting loading times which can drag on 20%-30% of the total time they are spending playing the game. But I won't simply sit here waiting months to play the game. I'll simply scratch it from my sight.

This game failed completely in my point of view. Failed in being unique in its own franchise, and failed in delivering a working product for a greater majority. This is done. Any future installment is yet doomed by this policy of unfinished business and I don't see it changing any time soon. I stopped kidding myself for a great product representing this franchise.

Diablo 3 made me felt like that. Not that it was crashing or anything, but the designing features were not good. This last expansion, as they say, made the game feel more like I would expect. But now I'm done with it too. Can't bring myself to try it, expend money on it, waste time on it, because I don't feel like I should try this game again after the time it made me lose already with bad gaming experience.

But all that is just my take on how I deal with these things these days.