Ok... MY review on H6's campaign plot *spoiler*

[ywhtptgtfo]

This is only about the story and thus I will not talk about bugs (although the game's really unprecedentedly buggy and I am not even exaggerating!)

OKAY, so my campaign order:
Sanctuary I-IV, Stronghold I, Haven I-II, Inferno I-III, Necro I-III, Haven III-IV, Necro IV, Inferno IV, Final Campaign (Anastasia); Didn't finish Stronghold campaign because I went Tears and game bugged out at map II.

Character development

Irina: She comes off as someone who doesn't like to be controlled and likes to do things her way, but that's only conveyed when she whined about Gerhart and in that short dialogue with Anton at Haven III. Her thirst for independence (which is central to her character concept) could've been gracefully emphasized if the plot had her taking the initiative in revolting against her naga boss rather than making her an unwitting rebel. The fourth map could also had dialogues with her defying the holy emperor and capturing her husband's duchy.

There are other plot elements that could've been done better. For example, her allegiance to Shalassa is too abrupt and comes off as a convenient switch of loyalty. There should've been some intermediate dialogues that nudge her towards appreciating the Sanctuary faction.

Lastly, her voice acting is by far the worst in the game. Her default character class also does not match (I played her as might but she was defaulted as magic).

Sandor: Can't comment. Didn't get to finish his story.

Anton: He's much better written than Irina, but there's a very sharp and poorly explained transition from a zealous intolerance to other faiths to acceptance. I thought it was pretty abrupt when he suddenly became tolerant to Ylath at Haven III when he was just very happily killing Ylath worshippers in Haven II. Sure he did fight through 3 sets of opposing elementals in the end of Haven II and got a lecture from mom, that still felt very rushed.

Kiril: He seems like some kid with a non-distinctive attitude. I suppose Inferno IV has him as some one thirsting for control of his own destiny, but that's not really properly built up in the previous maps. The feelings he had for Xana and Sarah were also not quite well developed. Sure... Xana followed him around but they just talked (and not like Kaspar had feelings for Anastasia... for all that talking they did). His little rebellious act of moving the Invisible Library is clever though.

Anastasia: I'd say she's the most developed character. Necro I had her learning to be assertive, Necro II had her exploring herself in a dream, Necro III hardened her view on life, and Necro IV brought closure to her story.

Sveltana: We know almost nothing about her. Her relationships with any of the main characters were not explored.

Cate: She simply pops up and nothing was really known about her too. Interestingly, Sveltana said she was an able mother even though she abandoned her children and did almost nothing to help them in the campaigns (except for maybe giving Anton a tutorial on religion).

Pavel: His name was brought up but he never actually had any consequence. He should've been completely left out of the plot.

Uriel, Michael, and Sarah: All very undeveloped antagonists. I would've expected Michael to be quite fully explored since Ubisoft whipped up a hype about him with all these plastic figurines and stuff. Same for Sarah, since she was supposed to be some Fallen Angel who was doing something sinister with Kiril on the loading screen (when, in fact, she was just a dumb rabbit who had may be a few lines).

Elisabeth: The whole love affair thing with Slava was not really discussed. Perhaps she does feature in the Stronghold campaign, but I did not get a chance to go past Stronghold II because of that sweet bug.

A couple of things that could've made this even better would be:
- Have her struggle with her faith transition from Elrath to Asha (she was a devoted priestess) and gradually learn to accept commanding undead (which, after all, are affront to her upbringing)
- The dream sequence is a bit confusing. The end of it spoke of a revelation about the comb and how she got manipulated but I don't think it was really clearly communicated in the dream itself (she simply said "Aha [insert revelation]", which is a big Deus Ex).

Narrative (Campaign-wide)

I largely played the campaign in Marzhin's recommended order and still found lots of gaps in story-telling. In general, the Sanctuary campaign was okay because it's pretty much separate from the rest. The Inferno and Haven campaigns had a number of "huh" moments. I didn't really understand how the eclipse occurred at Inferno II until Haven IV talked about how Sarah caused it in Inferno I. Jorgen's capture was not shown. He popped up at end of Haven I to tell Anton that he's a faceless and then Necro I already had him captured (wtf?). Anton executing Anastasia was also not properly communicated. The motivation was only told in Haven IV and Haven II's scenario description.

Then there's also the thing with mom popping in from time to time with the kids not really caring all that much in general. Uriel's death was strange (I suppose his brain got killed by Anastasia and then demons chopped him to piece?) and the portal that led to his mind in Necro IV was even stranger... The dragon-vein-granted visions were also not really written into the narrative and I had to find that out from the quest log.

The final campaign was also a bit strange... Michael claimed he threatened [insert hero] but he didn't even say anything until the final battle. Mom's death was also not communicated. Sure, you had some ambiguous sword slicing sound with no cinematic, but it's weird to find out about that only in the ending when auntie gave her funeral eulogy. Besides, one would've though she'd be well-protected (and Michael's an easy boss anyway...)...

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Plot-elements:

A number of things don't make sense or are just bad:
- Celestials are hybrid beings that are fusions of humans and dead angels. That's just morbidly weird and unnecessary.
- Sveltana's capture. Rather than handing her over to Uriel, Miranda waited months in her castle to be defeated
- Grandpa is fused with Michael. That's just bad
- Guardians of the Invisible Library. Just elementals and no Faceless. That just doesn't make sense...
- The motive behind killing Slava with Anastasia is forced and not very well-explained
- The war with the faceless was not very much described in detail and thus it's very hard to be sympathetic to Uriel
- Cate's act of awaking the faceless is pointless because she already knew Jorgen's awake and the faceless are actually active.
- Final map has only one hero fighting Michael when at least 3 other should've taken part
- The Falcon blood-line logically shouldn't be so easy to wipe out since there are many generations of descendants even if only a few of them are recognized royalty. It would've also been logical for precautions to be taken in breeding them for a bit of insurance.
- The description on the Sanctuary talked about there's tension hidden beneath the surface of tranquility due to fears of war with demons, but the actual campaign showed none of it. By and large, the naga didn't think much about demons at all
- The need for a ritual to Ylath didn't seem obvious. All that did was to reveal a stack of water elementals. It would've made more sense to let the army fly over the gate (it's not hard to script a fly effect anyway...) for dramatic purpose.






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Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... The story's still better than Heroes 5's, but I'd give it a C+ because it is not a job well done. It is still miles away from Heroes 3, Heroes chronicles, Heroes 4 (Order, Life, and Chaos), and even a couple of ToTE campaigns in terms of quality...

By the way... it seems like the expansion will be about Elves vs. Dark Elves, as implied by the little dialogue between Raelag and Jorgen at the very end.

[mr.hackcrag]

By the way... it seems like the expansion will be about Elves vs. Dark Elves, as implied by the little dialogue between Raelag and Jorgen at the very end.

Damn, I was hoping we would be rid of H5 factions from this point forward.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Added a few more

[cjlee]

The storyline really sucks. I can't believe it. I was writing better stories at the age of 10!

Ubihole really went all out to create a ridiculous tale.

[XEL II]

But even if you consider H6 story to be rubbish, you gotta agree that it's still better than that of H5