HOMM2 vs. HOMM3

[klaymen]

Heroes2 without a a doubt

H3 si for me only a upgraded H2 (but with some good ideas)

[Chorus]

Vote I/II: qualitative subtlety makes fun strategy.

Heroes II contained qualitative improvements over Heroes I. Heroes III merely provided quantitative improvements over Heroes II. Although I still don't like upgrades, they at least served the purpose of originally balancing factions in Heroes II (those poor Knights).

Heroes III dowsed the game with stuff: more map objects, everything gets upgraded willy-nilly, tons of factions, and tons of secondary skills and special abilities with some markedly better than others. At least with Heroes II, less skills meant a lesser likelihood of being gummed up with crappy ones. The skill system also gave the player a chance to compensate for what his/her hero lacked because the Heroes I heroes' special abilities weren't too balanced.

The newest reason I prefer I/II to III is that with 16 hero classes, there was no real way to distinguish them for strategic purposes except based on Might/Magic, and even that wasn't obvious. In the earlier games, the player had a purpose for hiring heroes based on the secondary skill they came with, e.g., "There's a lot of snow here, so I'll hire a Barbarian to clean it out and save time."

In Heroes III, the player stumbles into the tavern, looks at the two heroes there, weighs them against each other, and then hires one ad hoc over the other. The classes were indistiguishable and gave less strategy.

[Metal Wolf]

HII is my fav game of all times... some people here, on this thread, had said some pretty wise things, and I totally agree:

Heores 2, even if I played it less than 3. It had this special feeling to it that H3 kinda lost.

I agree with many players that in many cases, H3 has much more potential, offers some advances (which were good enough to put them to H4 without big changes) BUT I just love H2, and despite it's "more primitive" in mechanic than H3, has it's unique atmosphere and all H2 game elements fit each other perfectly.

I daresay Heroes 2 will always be my favourite game.

I liked in particular this one (by gravyluvr), which is simply BRILLIANT:

The look, the feel, the music. I truly felt like I was in a different place. Like HOMM1, it changed me. HOMM3 did not change me.

Many thousands of game were created since the late eighties but, IMO, only a handful or so can CHANGE you... H2 is among those few.

IMO, those who palyed H3 first and only later H2 - all they saw in H2 was less towns, less creatures, less options, etc. So of course they'll like it less - for them, its a drawback (and thats legitimate). But this is also the reason why they fail to feel the atmosphere of H2 - and this amazing feeling is what H2 is all baout... (H3 devotees who are getting angry at me with every passing moment, feeling that I've catagorized them - dont get mad! its just my opinion )

[Alamar]

H2 is hands-down my favorite HoMM game. The music is STILL superior to anything that I've seen so far in ANY HoMM game. The original Succession War Campaign is easily the most fun campaign that I've ever touched.

IMHO the cartoony graphics give H2 a lot of flavor that the technically better but somewhat soulless H3 graphics couldn't touch.

Oh and who could forget "BLAH" ... vampires must go BLAH!!!

[Metal Wolf]

The original Succession War Campaign is easily the most fun campaign that I've ever touched.

Yeah, and its funny because on the one hand H2 campaign had almost no ingame story-related text (I mean that the story was told only BETWEEN one scenario to another, and there were almost no scripted events, unlike H3) but on the other hand H2's campaign was much more fun playing at! I dont think its nostalgia - that was a really well-designed campaign - though its hard for me to put my finger on the reason which made it so good....

IMHO the cartoony graphics give H2 a lot of flavor that the technically better but somewhat soulless H3 graphics couldn't touch.

Agree.

[ByteBandit]

Now, the question is stated as which OOB did/do you prefer. I never played H3 OOB itself. I started H3 with SoD. So by default it's H2. And beside, H2 had the perfect ambience, balance, everything. Simplistic, yes, graphically speaking. But the gameplay was outstanding! No Heroes game has better music than H2. The Vampire "Blah" is just classic. I could go on and on.....
But give H3 it's due credit. The introduction to the underground, for instance. A much more refined Map Editor. And the ability to add WoG.

[stijn]

voted h3, h2 had something special, but h3 was just the better game imho

[Ya5MieL]

At the time each of them went out, i would say h2 was better. but H3 has huge advantage of being released after h2 (who would guess that ) so its basicaly just an upgrade in numbers of h2.. Its just a bigger version of h2 so it gets my vote.

[St0rmB0lt]

Vote 2!

Heroes 1 is the first i played in the series (and i still play it to this day) so nostalgia is the driving force of my vote. I prefer 1 and 2's graphical style (10 years later they are still easy on the eyes) and musical compositions. 3 is a great game, but for me, i will take 1 or 2 over it almost any day.

[Chorus]

But give H3 it's due credit. The introduction to the underground, for instance. A much more refined Map Editor. And the ability to add WoG.

Personally, I haven't been thrilled with WoG, but I found problems with the underground. Some maps overuse it, so it gets tedious. "Oh, now I have to crawl all the way across the map this way..." I preferred the straightforwardness of Heroes I-II in that regard.

[asandir]

i have the fondest memory of playing beltway as my first ever map of Heroes .... and it still sits well with me today

H3 is a great game too, but that memory tips H2 over for me

[Sherpa]

I vote homm2... Why? It was the only game that worked on my old computer... And i had that computer for 2 years...