Preview french PC Games (Xmas2010 issue)

[Nelgirith]

Pictures from the French PC Games latest issue (sorry for the quality, my scanner is kinda sucky )

Many screenies featuring the Mother Namtaru boss and the subterrans.










Boss : Mother Namtaru




More infos about the fight against Mother Namtaru.

Mother Namtaru is the incarnation of Asha and controls Death, Time and Space (hence the 3 faces). She's a 4x4 square boss and is followed by hordes of specters that will attack the player's army. These specters are corrupted (plagued ?) by her aura

Each turn, she'll shoot 3 rays of Primordial Magic in 3 directions. She can also jump from one side of the battlefield to the other

She has 2 offensive abilities and 2 defensive ones :
- Her retaliations are poisonned and she has unlimited retaliations
- She can cast a "temporal" web on the battlefield that will block any unit caught in its area (3x3 squares)
- She has an Invulnerability Shield that absorbs 80% of the damage
- She can eat her specter minions to heal up when her health reaches a critical level

When the player will fight her, he will have an artifact that will cancel the Shield for 1 turn every 3 turns.

[Bugle]

I'm not sure I like this yet.

I might... I might not. It certainly sounds more interesting than "this is just a giant dude" and the fact that you can't retaliation steal her helps (I thought this would be a problem with bosses, I hope that all bosses have unlimited retaliations, else they'd be boring). It also makes it feel more like a team on team than 7 on 1 (which just seemed ridiculous to me).

Still, though... reduced damage, poison, eating minions to heal? Surely that's not enough for a boss, is it? Granted, the temporal web is kind of cool (if she uses it with any kind of accuracy rather than just randomly), but otherwise she just seems not too impressive (aside from what I'm sure are absurd stats). Maybe seeing her in action will change my mind.

[Avonu]

She's a 4x4 square boss and is followed by hordes of specters that will attack the player's army. Each turn, she'll shoot 3 rays of Primordial Magic in 3 directions. She can also jump from one side of the battlefield to the other
- Her retaliations are poisonned and she has unlimited retaliations
- She can cast a "temporal" web on the battlefield that will block any unit caught in its area (3x3 squares)

Where I saw nearly identical boss fight? Ah yes, King's Bounty: The Legend Spider boss.

[BB Shockwave]

Exactly. They are stealing ideas...

This... thing, btw, looks really more like something that belongs to Diablo or Doom, not Heroes. But then again, the whole art style is exactly the same as in Heroes V, no surprises here.

[ThunderTitan]

At least they're stealing from a game that has roots in Heroes.



BTW, i do like the fact that it seems that you can zoom out quite well in this game... too many strategy games nowadays have way too little zoom out capabilities...

[MattII]

At least they're stealing from a game that has roots in Heroes.

And Heroes has its roots in the original KB.

[ThunderTitan]

BTW, i wonder if with Lloth in the game we'll also get the Dark Elves... of course if they keep the no-dragon-in-town rule i hope not.

[MattII]

Except that at this point in history Dark Elves ≠ Dungeon since the fire itself is still a couple of years away, and then you have to add in the 'wandering around lost' time.

[ThunderTitan]

Because that's stopped them from having Necromancers even if they are still part of the 7 Cities and shouldn't have their own architecture yet...

Seriously, the Wizard faction, if it ever is in the game better just have a less dark version of the pyramid the necros have...

[Bugle]

So they're going by lore defines gameplay where they like to but the fans don't (dragons aren't recruitable), but ignore it when they don't want to and the fans do (necromancers being a part of the silver cities)?

That seems incredibly backwards.

[ThunderTitan]

Actually the dragon thing is more of a misinterpretation... most of us have asked for less dragons in towns... but we meant that the Blackie should be the only one in a town...

[Bugle]

Ah, well, I agree with you there (and maybe the bone dragon too). I think III actually had the right number of dragons, but it also had 8 factions and 4 of the dragons were outside of town. I couldn't see more than 2 in town with 5 factions, and in that case I really couldn't see it being anything other than Red/Blackies and Bone/ghosts.

[ThunderTitan]

Rampart should have had the Phoenix actually... H4 had the right idea imo (the Faery Dragon at least being very different).

[Variol]

They're mostly all the same anyway. One breathes this, the other that...
Even the Cyclops is the same.

Some of the new units in H5 are actually very creative. The Chieftain is very cool and the Brisk Raider is just nasty. I think if dragons were left out all together from town builds, it would be more fun. Just have them guarding stuff etc.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

Ah, well, I agree with you there (and maybe the bone dragon too). I think III actually had the right number of dragons, but it also had 8 factions and 4 of the dragons were outside of town. I couldn't see more than 2 in town with 5 factions, and in that case I really couldn't see it being anything other than Red/Blackies and Bone/ghosts.

Even better is green/red/black (HoMM2 FTW!) and bone/ghosts

[ThunderTitan]

They're mostly all the same anyway. One breathes this, the other that...
Even the Cyclops is the same.

Some of the new units in H5 are actually very creative. The Chieftain is very cool and the Brisk Raider is just nasty. I think if dragons were left out all together from town builds, it would be more fun. Just have them guarding stuff etc.

Actually the Phoenix's rebirth ability is quite different from the Black's magical immunity... they just share an attack weapon, like every unit that has a sword does... and the Phoenix could always be made more different (like instead of breathing fire it could burn others with it's wings etc).

[Darkström]

Actually the Phoenix's rebirth ability is quite different from the Black's magical immunity... they just share an attack weapon, like every unit that has a sword does... and the Phoenix could always be made more different (like instead of breathing fire it could burn others with it's wings etc).

Or just hack and scratch like every decent bird.

[Mirez]

Or the phoenix could just out-live the opponent. But I guess that would make battles against necropolis kinda boring.

[Bugle]

Ah, well, I agree with you there (and maybe the bone dragon too). I think III actually had the right number of dragons, but it also had 8 factions and 4 of the dragons were outside of town. I couldn't see more than 2 in town with 5 factions, and in that case I really couldn't see it being anything other than Red/Blackies and Bone/ghosts.

Even better is green/red/black (HoMM2 FTW!) and bone/ghosts

Touché!

Rampart should have had the Phoenix actually... H4 had the right idea imo (the Faery Dragon at least being very different).

Hmm, good point. At least the phoenix came in later, but then again at the expense of Forge...

And yeah, I loved the faerie dragon in IV as it was very different from the other dragons, but still, 4 dragons in 6 factions? That's too much! Even if there were 2-3 tier 4 units per faction.

[ThunderTitan]

The Phoenix being in the wrong place didn't make it any better for me...