Clash of Heroes Announced

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 13 May 2009, 23:11

<img src="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/images ... cement.jpg" align=right vspace=10 hspace=10>Today, Ubisoft announced Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, a puzzle RPG for the Nintendo DS that will be released in August 2009:

<i>"Through five unique and epic quests, players will alternate exploration and turn-based puzzle battles in the game to save the world of Ashan from demonic chaos. Might & Magic Clash of Heroes also adopts a brand new manga-style art design that is perfectly suited to Nintendo DS. In a world populated by knights, elves, wizards, necromancers and demons, gamers can manage their own hero, customize their army and lead campaigns in the mythic Might & Magic world.

"Our fans have always appreciated the depth and richness of the Might & Magic universe," said Romain de Waubert de Genlis, senior producer at Ubisoft. "The teams at Ubisoft and Capybara were inspired to extend that universe in a unique way onto the DS, creating an engaging new game experience."

Created for Might & Magic fans, while also attracting new audiences, Might & Magic Clash of Heroes can be played in solo mode or shared with a friend in two-player peer-versus-peer mode."</i>

The game is being developed by Capybara Games. Head to <a href="/http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php ... playing</a> to see a few screenshots.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1242256305

Metathron · Unread postby **Metathron** » 14 May 2009, 00:12

Angelspit wrote: "Our fans have always appreciated the depth and richness of the Might & Magic universe,"

Yeah, your fans on the PC, ya dingbat!

valtor2 · Unread postby **valtor2** » 14 May 2009, 00:35

Everyone and their mom is getting a DS, you should join in, it's gaming paradise! so there's no heroes-like game, it's still a pretty good platform. I would kill for a Heroes 3 port on DS!

Asheera · Unread postby **Asheera** » 14 May 2009, 00:49

valtor2 wrote:"Everyone and their mom is getting a DS, you should join in, it's gaming paradise!"

Sorry I hate consoles, I'll pass

evilp · Unread postby **evilp** » 14 May 2009, 00:57

cute！

hobowu · Unread postby **hobowu** » 14 May 2009, 01:18

"Our fans have always appreciated the depth and richness of the Might & Magic universe"

should probably be reworded to "Fans have always appreciated the depth and richness of the Might & Magic universe created by NWC and 3DO"
--> stares at ubi's crappy HoMMV and DMoMM

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 14 May 2009, 05:27

Heroes V and Ubi's "Mighty Magic" meet console styled manga?

Good grief! I'll definately pass this one. *heads back to finishing his Heroes III: SoD map called American Civil War*

theLuckyDragon · Unread postby **theLuckyDragon** » 14 May 2009, 06:22

It looks ... bad

TheRider · Unread postby **TheRider** » 14 May 2009, 08:30

Is this homemade or it is actually created by paid designers and programmers?

Marzhin · Unread postby **Marzhin** » 14 May 2009, 09:21

Guys... Don't you think you should actually wait a bit before bashing a game on 4 screenshots ? If Ubi doesn't expand the Might and Magic franchise and bring new players to the fanbase, Might and Magic will die, it's as simple as that.

Besides, it's not as if those were screenshots of a true MM or Heroes game : it's "only" a spin-off. As far as spin-offs go, I think the MM franchise have seen far, far worse than this one. I actually seen the game in play a few months ago at Ubi. The graphic style of the game is perfectly suited for the Nintendo DS, and the gameplay seemed deep and clever. Which, I think you'll all agree with me, the most important thing for ANY game, more important than the graphic style IMHO.

ThunderTitan · Unread postby **ThunderTitan** » 14 May 2009, 09:30

Better dead then crap...

But yeah, it's on the DS, which is a damn pocket calculator... of course the graphics look like an 80's game... it's the gameplay we need to be seeing...

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 14 May 2009, 13:35

Wow. Unique AND epic. Cool.

Nice screenshots, though. Reminds me of those old arcade games.

HodgePodge · Unread postby **HodgePodge** » 14 May 2009, 15:52

ThunderTitan wrote:Better dead than crap...

……………

Shad0WeN · Unread postby **Shad0WeN** » 14 May 2009, 16:37

wow this is just really sad

lol at the Super Nintendo-esque graphics.

I don't see any reason why Heroes 3 type graphics couldn't run on a DS. no Might and Magic game should be made into a Manga theme for crying out loud

Avonu · Unread postby **Avonu** » 14 May 2009, 16:39

Especially when quality of these graphics is not good. Even for NDS.

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 14 May 2009, 16:45

The Heroes III graphics would look boring on a three inch screen.

Darmani · Unread postby **Darmani** » 14 May 2009, 21:48

Ack, now I'm really wishing I could find my DS.

It seems they're just cashing out on the brand name, and there's nothing driving this to be in the M&M franchise. Still, if they're going to abuse branding, I'd much prefer they spread the M&M brand than most of their other properties.

JSE · Unread postby **JSE** » 15 May 2009, 03:42

And we used to blame 3DO for franchise milking...

While the game at least seems to be set in the world of Ashan (wow, consistency), the game's style of course is a major break with the quasi-naturalistic and western cartoon/comic book styles seen in all previous M&M games.

The manga style is okay for nippon RPGs -- and there are some good ones of this kind (e.g. Shining Force or the Mana series), but M&M is a brand of western fantasy!

I don't think art styles are interchangeable -- they should fit the overall style of a world. So far, Ubisoft (or rather their developers) have presented the world of Ashan to us in a more or less "western" dress; this drastic change is irritating and is definitely not helpful in making Ashan a more consistent setting.

Marketing-wise of course, it seems like a rather obvious calculation: Take a western brand which is also well-known and popular in Asia, and make it look like the kids' TV shows.

As M&M fans, however, it's not our job to understand (or accept) marketing strategies -- it's the job of the marketing people to understand us!

If we don't complain, Ubisoft might continue to "manga-nize" our favourite franchise to the point where elven antenna ears are the smallest problem!
Edited on Thu, May 14 2009, 23:44 by JSE

Marzhin · Unread postby **Marzhin** » 15 May 2009, 08:47

JSE wrote:And we used to blame 3DO for franchise milking...

No, we used to blame 3DO for making bad games. If Crusaders or Legends had turned out to be great games, nobody would have been complaining at all.

And so far, nobody can say if Clash of Heroes will be good or bad. For what I saw, I believe it will be good, but I agree it is, at this point, only wishful thinking.

JSE wrote:I don't think art styles are interchangeable -- they should fit the overall style of a world. So far, Ubisoft (or rather their developers) have presented the world of Ashan to us in a more or less "western" dress; this drastic change is irritating and is definitely not helpful in making Ashan a more consistent setting.

Even in the NWC era Might and Magic had several changes of art style. MM3 and 4 were cartoony, then MM5 switched to a Kirby-esque comics flavour. Heroes I and II were cartoony, then Heroes III, while taking place in the same universe, had a different graphic style using 3D renders.

And anyway, when Heroes V came out, I remember pages of thread calling the art style "too manga". So, in fact, they're consistent ^^ (I'm kidding you of course)

JSE wrote:As M&M fans, however, it's not our job to understand (or accept) marketing strategies -- it's the job of the marketing people to understand us!

Speak for yourself... I'm a MM fan and I understand the marketing strategy.
Frankly, if Ubi had to listen to the fans (well, the noisier ones, who are not representative of all the fans out there...), they would do only one thing : Heroes III over and over and over again. Which is the best move to kill the franchise, something they obviously don't want to do.

I remember Terry Pratchett once said "If I had to follow the fans' wishes, I'd have done only 20 novels about Rincewind then kill myself." So, not listening to the hardcore fans is sometimes better

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 15 May 2009, 09:10

Who is this Terry Pratchett? Does he work for Nival? *end of sarcasm* Thank you, thank you. *exits the stage bowing to the audience*

The Heroes Round Table