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Table of Contents
- About Heroes V
- Introduction to the Review
- The good things
- The bad things
- – Essential game mechanics aren’t explained inside the game
- – Game feels clunky, even laggy at times
- – Misleading, nonupdated tooltips
- – Certain parts of the game are almost impossible to mod
- – Multiplayer requires third-party software
- – Not all campaigns and scenarios available in the default game version
- The Verdict
- Read my other reviews
About Heroes V
Heroes of Might and Magic V is a turn-based strategy game released in 2006. It is the fifth game in the Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM for short) series, and the first one released after Ubisoft bought the rights to the franchise.
The game has two expansion packs – Hammers of Fate, also released in 2006, and Tribes of the East, released in 2007. The packs, on top of adding new playable factions, units, artifacts, and campaigns, also tweak many gameplay mechanics, aim to balance the game, and even change its visuals (for example, allowing to play in a 16:9 resolution). The second expansion, Tribes of the East (TotE for short) is also a stand-alone game, which means that there is no need to buy the original game or the first DLC to get access to everything, including content from Hammers of Fate.
The game doesn’t differ from other HoMM games significantly – pick a hero, gather an army, pick up some artifacts, upgrade your town, and fight the enemy. Both the adventure map aspect of the game (town and economy management, map movement, capturing mines, etc) and the combat aspect are turn-based, with simultaneous turns available in multiplayer games to speed things up.
Heroes V introduces a completely new world with a fresh storyline, unrelated to the previous HoMM games’ lore. The story takes place in Ashan – a large world created by dragon gods and with a very detailed timeline of its events, wars, and other important events. The world also appears in subsequent “Might and Magic” games: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Might and Magic: Heroes VI, Might and Magic: Heroes VII, and Might and Magic X: Legacy.
Introduction to the Review
In this review, I will go over all the good and bad things in comparison to other parts of the HoMM series, as well as other turn-based strategy games, specifically:
- Adventure map
- Combat
- Hero progression
- Story, lore, campaigns
- Game visuals, sound design
- Overall game feeling, smoothness
- Map Editor
I will also try to be as objective as possible, despite the game being an important part of my childhood – I first played Heroes V when I was 9 years old! I also played this part of the series far more than any other, because I always liked it so much. However, I will try to review the game objectively, praising it for its good parts, and judging its downsides.
The good things
+ Combat
One of the most important parts of a HoMM-like game is the combat, depth, and mechanics. Heroes V does this really well.
First of all, the battleground in this part of the series is filled with squares, instead of hexagons. This is a much more important detail than it might seem – it creates multiple opportunities for certain strategies, such as body blocking (blocking the movement of larger units with smaller ones) or Summoning Magic manipulation (controlling where our summoned units are placed, or the placement of Fire Trap mines, etc.).
Secondly, the so-called “initiative bar” at the bottom of the screen. It displays exactly the order of the units’ movement, which changes dynamically throughout the battle. Compared to previous Heroes of Might and Magic games, this makes it much easier to track what’s coming – there is no need to manually check each unit’s speed anymore to see who will move first, and it’s also easier to track effects such as Haste or other initiative-increasing bonuses. You can mouse over each unit to see where it currently is, and clicking on its portrait will show its current stats and bonuses affecting it.
Third off, before a battle begins, there is a “Tactics Mode”, where we can distribute our units, or even choose not to deploy some of them, for this specific battle. You can also split unit stacks in this phase.
On top of that – something I’ll touch on later as well – there is creature uniqueness. There aren’t many units without any special abilities, and special abilities mean there are many decisions to consider during a fight. Should I attack? Use a special ability? Cast a spell? Or wait for a better opportunity?
Additionally, the namely Heroes aren’t passive watchers anymore. Their spells are meaningful, there are tons of special abilities, and they can even attack directly too! This adds an additional layer of depth, which in this regard is similar to Heroes 4, and is different from the previous HoMM games, where the Hero himself wouldn’t have that much to do during the battle (outside of casting Mass Slow, maybe).
What’s also important, is how easy it is to check specific hero or creature information during the battle. By right-clicking a unit on the “initiative bar”, we can bring up a screen with all its stats, effects, and special abilities.
+ Skill design
The skill design of Heroes 5 is really good. There are a lot of skills to choose from – each faction has 12 unique, impactful abilities to choose from, coming in three mastery levels – Basic, Advanced, and Expert. Each of those skills also has talents – you can learn one talent per Skill mastery level, so up to three talents at the Expert level. They offer unique, powerful bonuses, ranging from simple damage increases to game-changing abilities or new spells. Each hero can only have 6 different skills, with one of them always being their “racial ability”.
However, what’s even more interesting – is the abilities form a skill wheel, where skills are shown with their corresponding, possible talents, as well as the connections between them. For instance, some talents can only be learned if you meet the requirement of having learned other talents first.
What’s even more, is that each faction has a slightly different version of the skill wheel available to them -while the difference between some factions can be quite minor, represented only by a couple of different talents, some factions are entirely different – Stronghold for example, which does not have access to conventional magic, but instead has a range of “Shatter” abilities that counter the opponent’s magic instead.
As previously mentioned, the skills and talents are quite diverse – let’s look at a couple of them:
Attack (skill) – +5/10/15% Damage for all creatures.
Battle Frenzy (talent, Attack) – +1 to the minimum and maximum Damage for all creatures.
Retribution (talent, Attack) – +5% Damage for all creatures per point of Morale (up to 25%).
Corrupted Soil (talent, Dark Magic) – Any time an enemy creature moves, it takes damage based on the hero’s level.
Arcane Omniscience (racial talent, Wizard) – Hero instantly learns all spells and can use them at an Expert level.
Overall, this creates a very friendly system, which not only makes each level-up impactful (through the powerful talents), but also enables multiple interesting build choices for each game, each faction, and even each hero.
+ Hero progression systems
There are multiple ways to progress a hero in HoMM 5 – from simply leveling up, which not only increases their stats, but also gives access to the aforementioned skills and talents – to gathering artifacts, learning new spells, or visiting special locations on the map that give certain bonuses.
The bonuses are very meaningful – each point of Attack and Defense greatly improves the entire army’s strength; each point of Spellpower makes all spells more powerful; and each point of Knowledge not only increases a hero’s maximum mana, but also its regeneration.
Then, there are also Artifact sets, which grant additional bonuses if several pieces are equipped. They are often much more interesting than simple stat increases. Some of them even have additional bonuses depending on the hero’s faction. Let’s take a look at a few examples:
- Archer’s Dream
Unicorn Horn Bow: Negates range penalties for all shooting units in hero’s army.
Treeborn Quiver: Adds +4 to the Attack of all shooters in the hero’s army and grants them unlimited ammo
Set bonus: (2) All shooters move backward along the ATB bar 30% less than usual while shooting.
Set bonus for Ranger: (2) Ranger moves backward along the ATB bar 30% less than usual while shooting.
- Runeforce
Runic War Axe: Increases hero’s Attack and Spellpower by +2
Runic War Harness: Increases hero’s Defense and Knowledge by +2.
Set bonus: (2) Adds +1 to all hero’s parameters.
Set bonus for Warlock: (2) Doubles Warlock’s “Elemental Vision” ability effect.
Of course, that’s not all – there are about 90 artifacts in the game of varying strength.
Overall, these systems encourage progressing one hero, over using multiple low-level heroes, which in my opinion is a very good thing, and it’s making the game much more fun and the progression – more meaningful.
+ Faction diversity
Heroes in HoMM V aren’t there just to increase creature stats – they also have very powerful racial abilities, which affect only units from that same faction. Each hero starts with that skill already learned, and each skill comes with 4 talents, supporting the faction’s identity.
The fourth talent is called the “ultimate” as getting it is hard but game-changing for each faction.
The racial abilities support each faction’s identity, and are as follows:
- Haven – Improved counterattack, unit training
- Inferno – Summoning reinforcements from hell in combat
- Necropolis – Raising the dead after battle
- Sylvan – Specializing against certain units, critical hits
- Dungeon – Stronger magic, empowered spells
- Academy – Miniartifacts empowering creatures
- Fortress – Runes acting as a separate school of magic
- Stronghold – Blood Rage empowering units in combat
This has several consequences – first off, it encourages you to compose your army using units from the same faction, especially in the late game. On top of that, it makes the gameplay of each faction unique, to the point where playing each one of them is so different that it requires learning the mechanics separately. These are extremely good design decisions and lead to the game being more fun and having greater replayability.
+ Creature uniqueness
Something in Heroes V, that is not so common in the previous HoMM games – almost all creatures have some unique abilities. From simple bonuses (such as taking less damage from shooters, having some magic resistance, or gaining bonus Attack as other ally units die in battle), to powerful active abilities, being able to cast spells, or even synergizing with the hero – most of the units can bring something unique to the table. Combined with the fact that each unit can be upgraded in one of two ways – and often, these upgrades vary in terms of these exact abilities – it creates a very interesting, flexible environment, where each unit in the army matters, and the game is not only about raw damage dealt by units.
+ Town screens
Probably one of the most well-known things about Heroes V is its town screens. Let’s start by reminding ourselves that the game was first released in 2006. Each faction has a fully animated, 3D town screen, which not only makes the town feel alive but also syncs up with the music and the camera flying around it, which in turn creates an amazing, cinematic feeling in real-time.
As we upgrade our towns, the newly created buildings are immediately shown in the animation, which only further improves this feeling.
Here is a video (credit: Khalbrae) with town screens of all the factions in the game.
+ Music
The town music is not the only unique piece of soundtrack this game has. Each faction has access to 5 different pieces of music, which you can only hear when you play that specific faction! The themes are Town (playing when entering that faction’s town), Battle (during regular skirmishes), Siege (during attacks or defenses of cities), Waiting for Turn (after passing the turn to the enemy player), and Campaign (heard in the faction’s campaign missions).
Of course, that’s not all. Each terrain, which you can visit on the map, has its own unique piece of the soundtrack as well – for instance, the Grassland theme is completely different than the Desert theme. The Main Menu theme is unique. Even some Campaign heroes also have their own compositions!
On top of that, the music is very well made – it does not reuse commonly available assets from sound libraries, and there is a wide variety of instruments used in the production of the soundtrack. All of these combined create an excellent cinematic feeling.
+ Decent campaigns
The campaigns in Heroes 5 are okay. The story is mostly good, with well-written characters and interesting gameplay, often much more than just “defeat all enemies”. There are 13 campaigns in total – 6 in the base game, 3 in Hammer of Fate, and an additional 4 in Tribes of the East, which is quite a lot of gameplay in total.
What you do and how you build your heroes also matters – as campaigns are grouped, with 4 or 5 maps per chapter, the heroes transfer between them with all their skills, talents, and learned spells.
There are some problems, however. The voice acting isn’t very great – some voices don’t match their characters at all. The cutscenes in the original Heroes 5 campaigns aren’t very well made either, but they improve drastically with the Hammer of Fate and Tribes of the East DLCs. Also, some of the plot points are very weird, or not explained well enough, which raises a lot of questions that cannot really be answered anymore.
A big downside is that in the stand-alone Tribes of the East, the campaigns from vanilla Heroes 5 and from Hammer of Fate are not available without third-party mods. To play them, you would need to install the respective game versions, with their scuffed balance and other technical issues.
+ Powerful map editor
The map editor of Heroes 5 is simply insane. It has almost endless possibilities – from editing essential game mechanics, such as win or loss conditions, to creating beautiful 3D maps from scratch. The map editor lets you easily modify the graphical aspects of your maps – such as lighting or terrain elevation.
What’s even more important – the game supports custom scripting with the popular Lua scripting language. It gives us near-endless possibilities for creating custom map mechanics and events or even changing the map layout in real time. Since Lua is a language popular in other games – such as World of Warcraft, Civilization VI, Dota 2, or Roblox – the entry level for creating unique maps or whole campaigns is quite low for people with experience in modding other games.
Thousands of standalone maps, created by the community, are available online, which makes it an almost never-ending source of content. There are also some bigger projects – for instance, Legends of the Ancients, a mod that tells the unfinished story of Axeoth presented in Heroes IV, first released in 2006 and having its latest update as close as 2019.
The game also has a random map generator, accessible both inside the game, as well as within the Map Editor. It is quite powerful and easily customizable – it’s easy to choose how strong the monsters on the map are, how many resources there are, or what template the map is using (with the option to add custom templates as well).
+ Built-in duel mode
Do you like instant action, without the whole process of upgrading your town, gathering an army, and improving your hero? No problem – Heroes 5 has a built-in duel mode, which is perfect if you just want to jump in and battle.
There are dozens of heroes to choose from in the duel mode, with pre-set army, skills, spells, and artifacts. But what’s more important – it’s very easy to create your own heroes through the aforementioned Map Editor.
This mode is available both against an AI opponent, as well as other players. I will touch more on multiplayer in Heroes V in a bit, but for now – let it be known that duel mode is a viable and fun option to play with friends, or even like-minded strangers.
The bad things
– Essential game mechanics aren’t explained inside the game
A few paragraphs above I explained how good the skill wheel is in Heroes V, and described it as an “excellent, very logical system”. However, there is a catch – this system is never explained anywhere inside the game!
The only mentions of its mere existence can be found in the official Game Manual (which is community-made, by the way, but has been officially approved by Ubisoft) and in the “Skillwheel.exe” software distributed with some versions of the game.
To make it available inside the game, you need third-party mods, which is just atrocious – if you’re playing the base, unmodded game, you won’t have an idea this system even exists, and you won’t know why you’re getting certain skills and talents.
This is just one example – there are more. For example, the fact that Luck and Morale are capped at -5 (for the negative effect), and at 5 (for the positive effect) is not explained either, and there are ways you can go below or above the cap (for example, having your Morale at 7). It makes sense, but this information should be public, and you shouldn’t have to go to third-party websites or look up the Game Manual to know that.
Another important mechanic is the ATB (“Active Time Battle”) stat, which is never displayed anywhere in the game – it’s not even mentioned anywhere in the game! While in reality, a creature’s Initiative affects how fast it gains ATB points (and thus, how often it can move), all in-game tooltips and descriptions only ever mention Initiative.
I do not think it is acceptable to not have such critical information available inside the game and to force people to install mods to even be able to comprehend the in-game systems.
– Game feels clunky, even laggy at times
This is probably one of the biggest criticisms of Heroes V, and I stand by it. The game – despite performing quite well on paper – feels very clunky. There are tons of unnecessary animations in the game, which make even clicking buttons feel very slow and clunky. For instance, when pressing the End Turn button, it doesn’t instantly end your turn and pass it to the next player, but it takes a second or so – this adds up with each thing in the game, which can be annoying.
Another point is that you cannot fully disable creature animations during battle, or hero movement animations in the adventure map – unlike Heroes 3, for example. So even battles which should be an overwhelming victory will take some time due to the creature animations, the hero’s long casting time, and so on.
On top of that, the AI turns are pretty slow compared to other HoMM games. There are ways to help with that – third-party mods, of course – but in the base game, when playing a game with multiple computer players, it can be an unfun experience just waiting that long every time you end your turn.
The adventure map suffers from the same issue – because there is no way to make animations instant, it takes a while to pick up every resource on the map, flag each dwelling and mine, or even just move the camera around.
While on its own none of the above issues would be significant, the combination of all of them is at least annoying.
– Misleading, nonupdated tooltips
A lot of the tooltips and descriptions of creatures or abilities in the game are either outdated, wrong or sometimes even misleading.
The first is probably caused by the last released patch, 3.1, which did a fair amount of balance changes that are not properly reflected in the game. An example could be the “Storm wind” talent in Light Magic, which says:
Storm wind – The hero calls upon the forces of nature to affect enemy flying creatures. Initiative and Speed of all enemy flyers is decreased by one.
That is straight-up wrong – patch 3.1 changed it so that it decreases both initiative and speed by 20%! However, the in-game description is not updated, therefore it’s misleading.
Some skills descriptions are non-specific – for example, let’s take a look at Conscript’s ability, Bash:
Bash – At every attack, creature has a chance to STUN the enemy so they won’t be able to retaliate and lose initiative.
This description raises many questions – what’s the chance? What does the chance depend on? How long is the enemy stunned? On top of that, the last part is misleading – the creature does not lose Initiative, but it loses ATB.
Another example I think belongs in this section is the creatures that can cast spells, such as Academy’s Mages or Stronghold’s Shamans. When you recruit these units, there is no way to instantly know what spells they can cast! The unit’s description only says that it’s a “Caster”, but the exact spells are not written there. The only way to see them is to either go into battle and open their spellbook, or again – use a third-party website or tool. But even then, it’s impossible to tell if Mages cast Cleansing with Basic, Advanced, or Expert knowledge of Light Magic – it’s not mentioned anywhere, and it’s quite important actually!
– Certain parts of the game are almost impossible to mod
As I mentioned before, creating an awesome map is not that difficult with the available tools and the powerful map editor. Neither is making simple changes, such as changing creature stats, their models, textures, names, even some of their abilities, and so on.
However, some parts of the game are nearly impossible to mod – for example, the functionality of skills and talents. They seem to be “hard-coded” into the game’s executable – unlike creatures that are all described in resource files – so to change the numbers on them, one needs to spend a long time locating the right place in the .exe file. Which is a pain.
There are people who have it figured out, and are able to make changes – both small and big – to almost anything in the game. But that is not only hard but also unintuitive.
– Multiplayer requires third-party software
The game has been out of development for many years now, which also means that the multiplayer has been shut down long ago.
It is not a big problem for most of the community – you can still play with others using “virtual LAN” programs such as Hamachi, Tunngle, or GameRanger (the most popular option), and you can still play the old-school “Hot Seat” with your friends using a single computer. It is quite annoying, though, having to set up third-party software to even be able to play with humans.
– Not all campaigns and scenarios available in the default game version
I have mentioned this part before – the campaigns from vanilla Heroes V and the Hammer of Fate expansion are not available in the stand-alone Tribes of the East DLC. That’s quite annoying – having to install a separate game version, with more technical difficulties, worse performance, and scuffed balance just to experience the story is not fun.
The same can be said about some scenarios available in the previous versions – basically, there were some maps acting as either side stories or extending the base game’s story, but they are not available in Tribes of the East either.
There are ways to play them without installing a second version of the game – mods, obviously – but again, it’s just a very weird design to not include them by default.
The Verdict
Heroes of Might and Magic 5, by many considered the “last good part of the HoMM series”, is a turn-based strategy game, and the first HoMM game released by Ubisoft after purchasing the rights to the Might and Magic franchise from 3DO in 2003. Did Ubisoft do a good job prolonging the game’s legacy and creating a good, playable game?
I am reviewing the Tribes of the East expansion, which is a stand-alone game containing all content from the base Heroes V game as well as the Hammer of Fate expansion. The only thing lacking is the vanilla campaigns – but they can be brought back with mods, so there is no need to buy any game version other than this one.
To start off – the gameplay is good. The combat is really enjoyable and visually clear. The hero progression systems (skills, talents, racial abilities, artifacts) are meaningful and give a lot of flexibility. The spell system is well done, with each spell school having a completely different playstyle and lots of meaningful spells to learn.
The creatures are more than just “stat sticks” – almost every unit has some unique abilities, whether it’s passives, active abilities, or even hero-like spells. On top of that, each creature has two upgrades to choose from, and most of the time they differ not only in their stats, but their abilities as well. This gives each army a lot of skill expression and a lot of opportunities to do more interesting stuff than just “attack”.
The skill wheel is an excellent system, which gives almost endless possibilities to build a hero. While on paper it might seem like an RNG-heavy system, a skilled player will almost always build a good hero, as its randomness is quite predictable. It gives so many meaningful options, which add up to the build diversity.
Due to the above, the game has almost infinite replayability. Enjoyable gameplay, a good random map generator, an excellent skill wheel system, unique creatures with two possible upgrades each, and just as importantly – a ton of mods, fixing some of the core issues. You will never get bored.
On top of that, the game is visually stunning, especially considering it is 16 years old at the time of writing this. Town screens being in 3D, changing their appearance as you create more buildings, with the camera flying around and showing everything off is still impressive to this day. The creature, hero, and spell animations are very well done. The artifact, skill, and talent icons are quite detailed and pretty. But more importantly – the music is insane. Each faction, on top of the town theme, has a total of FIVE unique pieces of soundtrack that you can hear while playing it, plus different music for all the terrains, and so on. It’s just beautiful, and there is so much of it, that it doesn’t feel repetitive at all.
However, there are some quite serious problems with the game. Important gameplay systems – such as the aforementioned skill wheel, the specifics on how Morale and Luck work, or what’s ATB and how it relates to Initiative – are not explained anywhere inside the game, and you need to use third-party websites or the “official” (a.k.a. community-made, but officially approved by Ubisoft) Game Manual to even learn how such crucial systems work.
On top of that, the game feels very clunky to play. There are unnecessary delays almost everywhere, whether it’s pressing the “End Turn” button, moving the camera around, or picking up a resource on the map. This, combined with the inability to completely remove hero or creature animations (like in Heroes 3 for example), and the very long AI turns, make the game annoying at times.
Just as annoying is having to use third-party “virtual LAN” software to even play multiplayer at all. I get the game is long out of support, but still, it’s just not as convenient to play over GameRanger or Tunngle.
A lot of the above issues can be fixed with mods, but still, I think it’s atrocious that the absolute fundamentals aren’t in the game by default.
Either way, the game is excellent, and in my opinion, the positives heavily outweigh the negatives. If you’re willing to accept clunkier gameplay compared to Heroes 3, and if you don’t mind installing a few gameplay-related mods, you will have an enjoyable experience lasting many, many years.