Reviews
- by Angelspit
There is a detailed preview of Heroes Kingdoms at Multiplayer Online Games Directory that explains how the Heroes series expanded to the Web. Screenshots are included to show some of the most common interface screens.
"Empire sims are one of the most prevalent genres when it comes to free-to-play MMOs. In a lot of cases, most of them play exactly the same, with the only difference being a new coat of paint and a few different rule changes. Besides being based in the popular Might & Magic mythology, Might & Magic: Heroes Kingdoms also succeeds by approaching the genre in a fresh way."
But unlike what the article says, the game is already available in North America. You can start playing here.
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- by Kalah
Celestial Heavens' resident reviewer, Qurqirish Dragon, has reviewed the latest game from Ubi's M&M franchise: Clash of Heroes.
With no further ado: here it is
Big thanks to Xhane for sending us a copy of the game.
You can also have a look at our reviews page for more reviews on earlier games.
- by Qurqirish Dragon
Celestial Heavens Review: Clash of Heroes
This latest entry in the ever-expanding Might and Magic franchise is a very nice puzzle-based RPG for Nintendo DS, along the lines of Puzzle Quest and (in my opinion) its superior follow up Puzzle Kingdoms. Although I have only completed what I believe to be about 60% of the game as of writing this, I can safely say that this game does raise the bar for this style of game.
Gameplay
As with other games of this style, you take the role of a new hero, and battles are resolved through a puzzle game. Unlike the others, however, you only have access to one half of the board, and you fight your opponent’s forces on the other side. Battles involve not only making the usual lines of 3 or more items, but there is a lot of strategy on how, where, and when you make them.
The story is what you have come to expect from an Ashan storyline. The time of an eclipse is nearing, and the demons of Sheogg are once again planning an invasion. At a secret meeting to discuss the protection of a demon-controlling artifact, the guardians are ambushed and killed, leaving their heirs to barely escape (guess who your heroes are?). The story unfolds through campaigns focusing on each faction. Each one takes another of these heroes, and follows his or her quest to recover the artifact and repel the demon invasion before it is too late. Meanwhile, the demons are fomenting war between the allied nations, and so you need to expose this plot as well.
You find gold, ore, and gems in caches, through winning battles and completing quests. Use these to purchase those elite and champion troops. Many quests will also award you with an artifact. These give all sorts of abilities, sometimes even fundamentally changing one of your unit’s special abilities. You can only equip one at a time, however, so choose carefully.
Let’s take a closer look at the battle system.
Battles take place on a twelve by eight grid. The bottom six by eight is your staging area, while the top six rows belong to your enemy. Although some battles start with a preset army configuration, your units will usually be placed randomly. You have three types of units. There are basic units, called “core” units, advanced or “elite” units, and master or “champion” units. You always enter battle with three basic units (you may have duplicates) in the three colors for your faction. These units are unlimited in supply. You can also have up to two different units from the elite and champion levels. These units, however, need to be purchased from dwellings on the map (so at the start, you don’t have any of them). Next, your hero has a leadership skill. This tells you the maximum number of units you can have on your field at one time. More units are usually better, as you have more to work with, but congestion on your field can also be a problem.
All units automatically move as close to the middle of the battlefield as they can while staying in their column (so your units move up, the enemy’s move down). On your turn, you are given a certain number of moves to work with your troops. Usually, you get three moves, but there are exceptions, and you can earn more for forming combo. A move can be any one of three actions: First, you can take the bottom unit from any column and move it to another column, provided that there is space for it, and it is idle. Second, you can remove any wall or idle unit from your battlefield. Third, you can call for reinforcements, which calls out as many random creatures as your leadership allows.
Now, you might ask, what is an idle unit? Basically, an idle unit is one that is not preparing to attack the enemy. Once a unit is given attack orders, you cannot do anything else with it. You put a core unit into attack mode by lining up three of the same color vertically (note that units of different colors will not match, even if they are the same unit). There are special configurations needed to have an elite or champion unit attack, but the same principle applies - you need core units of the same color as the stronger unit. Once a group of units are set to attack, they move in front of any idle units, and begin to charge their attack. The stronger a unit is, in general, the more turns it takes before it reaches full strength and can attack. For example, elves can attack quickly in one turn for minimal damage, while an angel can unleash a devastating blast, but takes six turns to shoot. Once a unit attacks, it is removed from the battlefield (even if it survives the attack). When a unit is done charging, it crosses the battlefield to the enemy. When (if) it encounters an enemy, they fight, the stronger getting weakened, and the weaker being destroyed. If the attacker survives, it continues to the next defender. If it gets all the way to the other side of the battlefield, all remaining strength is used in an attack on the enemy commander. Note that all elite or champion units that are killed while idle or defending are lost from your supply, and will need to be replaced - and they usually aren’t cheap!
Of course, there are advanced techniques, which involve getting multiple same-colored units to attack simultaneously, and identical units in one column. Although these techniques often require wasting a move, they are usually worth it. Damage done to the enemy commander, or taken by your hero also charges your spell meter. When it is full, you can cast a powerful spell. This doesn’t even cost an action to use! Keep an eye on enemy heroes, though - they have a spell also. If you line up three or more core units of the same color horizontally, they are replaced by a wall, which generally has much better health, but cannot attack. Walls move to the front of their columns, and weak walls combine to form stronger ones. Note that walls count towards your leadership limit, so if you play too defensively, you will find it hard to pull off an attack - but you can always use a move to remove a wall segment.
Most battles go on until you defeat the enemy or are defeated, but there are also special cases. Also, many core units (and all elite and champion units) have special abilities. This makes for an enormous range of possibilities, and strategies do need to change based on the units being used.
Factions
There are five factions in the game: Sylvan, Haven, Necropolis, Inferno, and Academy. Each faction has its own theme for abilities. For example, many haven troops heal units or the hero when preparing to attack. Most necropolis troops have combat abilities that weaken or outright destroy enemy units. Knowing the strengths of the units is important to defeating enemies and defending yourself. Each faction also has distinct hero abilities. The type of wall formed by defensive units is determined by this. Also, the magic spell you can cast varies by faction as well.
Winning battles earns experience for both your hero and the units you brought into the battle. When a unit gains a level, it gains points in attacking power and/or defensive power. When a hero gains a level, he/she gains maximum health, leadership skill, and sometimes wall strength.
So, who will enjoy this game?
If you loved Puzzle Quest, or any of this style of puzzle RPG, this is a must-buy game (if you own a DS, of course). I won’t quite go so far as to say this game justifies buying a DS just for it, but it is close. The varied styles of play needed for each faction, as well as the problem solving needed in some of the side quests makes this a very enjoyable game. So far I have put in about twenty hours, and it is not feeling repetitive at all. This is helped by the fact that random encounters can be avoided, so you don’t need to fight them if you don’t want to. If you enjoy this type of game, then it is a bit heavier on the strategy side. If you like a lighter game, this may be at your upper limit, but it is by no means an overly hard game. (although the boss battles might be a bit hard on you).
What about the Might and Magic enthusiast? The story continues the current world setup. If you liked the story, this is more of the same. However, I find that the events are well done, and the story is quite interesting. There are interspersed bits of levity that serve to lighten the tension, and during the necromancer campaign, I actually caught myself laughing at some of the events (in a good way). You will not be disappointed in this. The strategy level, in my opinion, is higher than in other games of this genre, so if you are more a Heroes player than Might and Magic this would go nicely for you as well.
In summary:
This is a title that anyone with a casual interest should try, and fans of the game style should almost certainly get a copy.
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- by Angelspit
The Qurqirish Dragon went back to map reviewing recently and played through the following Heroes of Might and Magic III and IV maps:
Age of Legends
Discoveries
Chameleon
The land or Arylia
Growing Nations
Disenchanted Forest
A Narrow Divide
Oceania
You will find them all in the Map Review section. All articles contain ratings, gameplay information, bugs and a bottomline. More reviews will be published in the near future.
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- by Kalah
There's a Clash of Heroes preview and trailer available on GameSpot, along with some other stuff.
What other stuff?
Images!
Trailer!
Preview!
Excerpt from the preview:
The game’s story starts with a bang. A link to the parallel demon world of Sheogh has been opened during a recent lunar eclipse, and it has plunged the peaceful Ashan into darkness. The forces of good once held a powerful weapon known as the Blade of Binding, which bends the will of demons to that of the sword's master. However, in the game's opening sequence the blade is stolen, and it's up to you to find it before it's too late.
The world of Ashan is well realised on the DS, and Capybara has put plenty of detail into the heroes, villains, and environments. The main characters all have their own unique personalities and expressions, while the colour palette is vibrant and the graphics are crisp. Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is due out on August 25.
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- by Angelspit
There is a short developer diary about Clash of Heroes on the Ubisoft Web site. The two developers, Romain de Waubert and Erwan Le Breton, barely mention the game at all and instead talk to us fans about expanding the Might and Magic franchise on other platforms. They credit the community for their work during the past years regarding maps and mods, and nod to the largest Heroes sites across the world (thanks!).
Elsewhere, on G4TV, there is a short preview of the game along with screenshots. Here is a description of how battles will be handled:
"What sets this apart from most games in this genre, however, is how when you get to the aforementioned turn-based combat, the game becomes more of a puzzler. The idea is that you have to line up three of the same color units, with three vertical matches resulting in an attack, while three horizontal matches form a defensive wall. These matches are made by moving characters with the stylus, kind of like you would in Bejeweled. Not that you can just move your units all willy-nilly; you can only move so many per turn, though there are occasional special attacks -- such as a magic arrow -- that don’t count as a move."
We didn't hear much about Clash of Heroes during E3. Let's hope Ubisoft will manage to generate a little hype before the release in August.
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- by Angelspit
Ubisoft allowed IGN to take a first look at Clash of Heroes for the Nintendo DS, as the company gets ready for the E3 show (thanks Eternor). We finally get to learn what gameplay will be like:
"The meat of Clash of Heroes resides in the battles, where players act as commander and give orders to their troops on the field. From a top-down view you can see your army on the bottom screen and the enemy on top. There are various colors of troops and players must arrange like colors into lines of at least three. A horizontal line will act as a defensive unit and a vertical line will attack the enemy. Your stylus is used to drag troops around the field, but you only have a limited number of moves per turn. At the start of each turn reinforcements will be added to your army in random locations. As the battle rages on your spell meter will fill up, and once it's full you can unleash a devastating attack."
And producer Erwan Le Breton explains the reasons behind the new art style:
"Being a DS game, we also wished to explore a different art style, something more 'Anime' that suited our gameplay and platform. The game's narrative focuses on heroes during their younger years, so we wanted to find a representation of the environment that properly speaks to their age. At the same time, we kept the bright, colorful, fairy flavors and tone associated with M&M."
Expect a lot more info when E3 starts.
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- by Kalah
There wasn't much official business for us to write home about this year. In fact, 2008 can be described as one long "slow news day". Heroes V kept rolling along at a decent pace, selling fairly well and getting OK reviews. Tribes of the East got decent marks back in 2007 (IGN 7.9/10, 1UP B-, GameSpot 5.5/10), and fans were also relatively happy. The biggest Heroes news this year was the long-awaited release of patch 3.1 on August 19th. While addressing a host of issues, it left the fans dissatisfied with the inability to fix the game's balance problems. On the same date as the patch release, Fabrice Cambounet announced he was stepping down as Heroes producer, with Erwan le Breton (the TotE producer) taking over while Fabrice would focus on Heroes Kingdoms.
By far the biggest development in 2008 as far as we're concerned was the success of King's Bounty: The Legend. GameSpy was the first major site to publish a review of the game, giving it a score of 4.5 out of 5 back in September. Reviews of a surprisingly high grade kept ticking in (IGN 8.1/10, EuroGamer 9/10, GameSpot 8/10) and news of an expansion called The Princess leaked in early November. And that's not all. With the end of the year, various awards and rankings for 2008 have now been released.
For 2008, King's Bounty: The Legend received the coveted Strategy Game of the Year award from Voodoo Extreme, a 33rd place on EuroGamer's top 50 games (ahead of games like Saints Row 2, Mass Effect and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning), as well as honorable mentions from Gamasutra's Top 5 PC Games awards.
I'm sure more sites will issue their 2008 highlights in due course, and that bigger games will most likely overshadow little King's Bounty. Still, there can be no doubt that (from a quality standpoint at least) Katauri Interactive have come up with a very good little game.
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- by Angelspit
Another day, another positive review of King's Bounty: The Legend at Eurogamer. The game gets a 9 out of 10:
"Right now, King's Bounty feels like a 10/10 game wriggling inside a slightly-too-wonky 8/10 game engine. None of its flaws are enough to dull the many pleasures of its impressively varied world, and the more time you sink into its meandering delights the more surprising the experience becomes. Rare are the games that have you muttering "Well, I didn't know that could happen!" after more than 30 hours, and the fact I could have written another 2000 words describing weird and wonderful moments you're best discovering for yourself is all the recommendation you should need."
I cannot resist quoting a line from the game, spoken by the hero's mentor: "You were almost like a son to me - young, hot and certainly talented." Translation errors with kinky results, I never get tired of those!
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- by Angelspit
There is a good review of the Xbox 360 version of Dark Messiah, or "Elements", at GamersMark. It is a little more forgiving with the final score (7.5 out of 10) even if it identifies the areas where the game is lacking:
"I witnessed nine goblins kill themselves as I lay hidden in the shadows above. All I did was kick one into the fire and jump away once its brethren shouted and gave search. Their method of scrutiny impressed nothing on me but their utter stupidity as they all ran up to their charred comrade and every one of them, in succession, caught fire themselves! I reveled in the hilariousness of it all until I realized how cheap it felt. Unfortunately this was not a rare occurrence or a glitch as there were several times I gained experience from a kill that had nothing to do with my actions whatsoever."
The reviewer suggests renting the game first, something that's unfortunately not possible with the PC version.
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