Heroes of Might and Magic V Demo

Heroes of Might and Magic is among the most beloved strategy series out there, especially in the case of the third title and its expansions. After a less-than-successful fourth game and a lot of financial trouble, the original developers had to sell the franchise in the end and Ubisoft were the ones who offered the most to become the new owners. Naturally, they scraped what was already built and started everything from scratch, in order to include a powerful 3D engine and replace the old isometric view.

Heroes of Might and Magic V is the product of Ubisoft's labor and it tries to stay true to the universe as much as possible, although some elements have been changed, tweaked, or discarded entirely in the process. However, the main idea has remained the same and you can definitely see where it all started, whether in the similar graphic design, the gameplay mechanics, or the factions that fight each other for territory.

As such, you start off in the same manner as before, by controlling a hero and his army on an open map, filled with resources, dangerous monsters and various other obstacles, all of which demand you to be as careful as possible when you make a move. Naturally, the turn-based mechanics have remained largely unchanged, which means that your hero can only move a certain distance before running out of action points.

You can also learn new abilities and level up over the course of the gameplay, since every won fight gives you a certain amount of experience, which provides you with the opportunity to improve your skills. Thus, whether you want to inspire more courage to the troops, benefit from certain bonuses out on the map, or just do more damage with the spells, every level you gain is an opportunity to get better at something.

To battle the hordes of demons and monsters that roam the land, your hero requires an army to fight at his side. As in the previous episodes, these units can be acquired at your castle and each castle can provide you with different kinds of soldiers, depending on its type. This time around, the available factions are Haven, Dungeon, Inferno, Sylvan, Necropolis and Academy, all of which have their own campaign and a different hero to lead their armies.

As far as the actual battles are concerned, they do heavily resemble the classic mechanics seen in the previous titles, but they have also been simplified, in order to accommodate new players. While this is not a bad thing in itself, the problem is that the system is not very scalable, which basically means that the fights are easy regardless of your experience with the series. Hence, it can be quite frustrating to go through the missions without meeting any resistance in the process.

Heroes of Might and Magic V is not at all a bad game on its own, but the fact that it's part of a legendary franchise means that expectations were much higher and the developers failed to rise to the occasion. Due to this, while most of the elements are there, they are definitely not used at full potential.