The ATMOSPHERE of HOMM2 is PEAK Heroes!
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- Heroes of Might and Magic 2 is an iconic title, a classic game with great importance in my life. But can it still stand up to an objective analysis 20-something years after its initial release? It is a bit odd talking about Heroes 2 now, considering that it’s been out for 22 years. The length of time isn’t the issue, I’ve reviewed even older games on my channel, but none of those games has had the number of further sequel entries that the Heroes series has, and as a result they haven’t had that long-lasting of a continued footprint in the gaming industry.
GameTales Podcast Episode 1: • GameTales #1: Heroes o...
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And for those of you interested, I have made a video about Heroes of Might and Magic 3! -> ua-cam.com/video/sB6GpCTxv-A/v-deo.html
Stefa I'm eager to share my perspective, partly because it counters your framing of Heroes as beginning in the collective mind at HOMM2 (although my case is no doubt a rare one). I grew up playing HOMM1 (never knowing HOMM2 existed). I discovered HOMM3 as a teenager, and fell in love with it, but eventually burnt out on the game.
Later in life, I discovered HOMM2, and it quickly became my favorite, which I still play today. From my perspective, you can imagine how incredible it was to see both skills from HOMM3 and the art style from HOMM1 together, to see a necromancer and wizard along with the old school castles. HOMM2 is a gem of a game.
Oh yeah, I'm sure there are many people who actually started with HOMM1 but at least as far as I was aware of, the circle of gaming humans I knew at the time, the Heroes franchise started at 2 :) Glad you found the video and thank you for watching, I've covered HOMM3 and 4 in the meanwhile, sometime later this year I'll cover 5, so stick around.
This is my favorite one because of it's music and art style. I don't think those graphics will ever go out of date. I think someone could redo the whole thing in modern pixel graphics for an "enhanced edition" for modern systems.
There is a HOMM3 that transplants the entirety of HOMM2 into HOMM3. I haven't tried it yet, but I think I will cover it for later this year :)
In terms of play, H3 is stronger. But I like H2's wonderful comic style much better, too. Compare the H2 bone dragon, which looks really nasty, with the featureless bone dragon from H3.
Btw, in the intervening years I have played that HOMM3 mod and it's really dope :)
I always preferred to visual style of this one instead of Heroes 3's style. Pre-rendered doesn't tend to age well; pixel art almost always does.
Heroes 3 looked hella dope, at the time, clearly an upgrade over HOMM2. But with hindsight, and with the industry and art form of video games itself developing over the past two decades, pixel art has proven to age much better than most graphics from the transition into 3D in the 2000s. Less is more :)
I get why a lot of people regard Heroes 3 as their favorite, but for me the only one I'll always keep coming back to is Heroes 2. It's like an enhanced chess game: well balanced with differently powered factions and units that is genuinely challenging and the AI is still formidable. The feeling of finally getting black dragons is unmatched.
Later games in the series are fun but they have a lot of bloated and unnecessary or confusing features. Heroes 2 is lean and in my opinion is the definitive Heroes game.
Here-here, Bear! I dunno how "plugged into" the HOMM community you are, but there is a fan-made rebuild of HOMM2 called fHeroes2 been worked on for quite some time and it's getting close to its 1.0 release - besides making the game easily playable on modern systems, it also fixes bugs, improves AI and adds in a bunch of Quality of Life features that were not present in the OG. (rest assured I will cover it once it reaches 1.0) And then there's also a mod for HOMM3 called HOMM3: Succession Wars, which imports Heroes 2 into Heroes 3, offering a very different and super nice experience. Check both out if you want different, fresher HOMM2 experiences. Thanks for watching!
@@StefaNonsense I'll keep an eye on fHeroes2. I've been happy with the GOG version but it doesn't always play well with Linux. I'm an OG in that I don't like modernization other than bug fixes, and I think the base AI is already hard enough 😂
You should check out the fheroes2 project which is a faithfully remade Heroes 2 engine. It just recently got some initial Romanian translation support making it the first time this game is in Romanian.
I will, am actually a Patreon supporter of the project ;) I use part of my Patreon money to support other indie projects, be it on Patreon or other crowdfunding platform, recently I backed Zoria and Foolish Mortals on KS, for instance.
@@StefaNonsense Oh nice! Then let's hope the translation gets worked more on, should you be interested in it 👍
@@StefaNonsense I'll check out those other projects you mentioned too!
I love your video of this game. My all time favorite game. Please keep doing more reviews of games
I played this game so much as a kid... Thanks for the video so many memories :)
Glad you enjoyed the blast from the past :)
HoMM3 is my winner (vanilla, I haven't played all of the expansions or story packs, and I haven't played past 4). 2 was a tremendous step up from the first entry though, absolutely wowing my brother and I back in the 90s. Hours and hours pf solo and hotseat play for us. The random maps and scenario editor really blew us away too. Unlimited play
This game is so important for me, I have a tattoo dedicated to it ;)
I played the shareware version of this game like 10 times at my dad's job lol. I appreciate that it was a full map :)
I had no idea there was a shareware version of this. Thanks for sharing that little it of info and for watching!
If it was a big map with like 4 starting points and 1 small island that had an OP town i had the same one. I remember if the OP town got the teleport spell you had no chance to win at all 😂 anyway for being a demo/shareware version it had huge replayability value
@@lucasoscar I remember as a kid playing the shareware as well. "Broken Alliance". Oh the memories!
Awesome review! I caught the hype and the period of homm3 so i'd love a review for that one as well. Here now, some 20 years later, i just discovered heroes chronicles, same homm3 but different story, and binged-played it till the end. Loved it!
Glad you enjoyed it! HOMM3 is definitely on the list, but it's going to take some time, I have a bunch of other games on my schedule :) Make sure you subscribe and see what I post on a weekly basis, you might find some other things to like. For instance, check out my Fort Triumph video, and I have a bunch of other TBT games I'll be covering starting next week :D
This visual style reminds me of some of the Kings Quest titles.
I can definitely see where you're coming from. The latter half of those were made all throughout the '90s, so they fit in the overall time-frame.
No discussion of the plot or how it interweaves with the M&M series?
Interestingly enough the HOMM story was never of interest to me.
Subscribed to see your video about Heroes 3
I appreciate it and thanks for watching! I'll write HOMM3 into my schedule then :D
CNonsense - Gaming and Geek Culture :)
Make sure to keep an eye on the channel during the second half of February ;)
HOMM 1 still has a warm place in my heart. Whatever you say about the collective mindshare about the game :P
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, man. If that was the first one I had played, it might have been the same, but HOMM2 was the title everyone was playing at a certain point in my history :)
You titled the video "What makes Heroes of Might and Magic 2 the best Heroes? (AFAIC)" yet no where do you make any argument for it. Instead you make a quasi review of the game, only to end with "it's the best game in the series for me".
You are correct, the entire video is the argument. Everything about it makes it the best, As Far As I'm Concerned :)
Disagree about homm3 being 'objectively better.' You can make a game series more realistic and nuanced, all while making it less fun. Take Sim City as an example. You go through the sequels, and you have to worry about ten times as much stuff, making it more realistic and complicated, but less fun. You go from 6 hero classes to 8, and make the powerup item inventory more realistic (and limiting), and soup up every aspect to add nuance, and you just end up bogging down the gameplay. Another analogy: Go from checkers to chess -- "Yay! now each of my pieces has a personality and special abilities!" Go from chess to 3-dimensional Star Trek chess, and add a capture the flag element where you have to get back to your home base, and each playing piece now has a certain number of hit points and an armor class etc., and you've got a way more advanced 'objectively better' game which is unplayable. I think HOMM2 gets the formula just right.
You make a very valid point, Dana. When I say objectively better I'm referring more to things like improved graphics, animations, cinematics, larger scope and a bunch of quality of life features - all of those things are objectively better than HOMM2. Also, everything you describe as less fun, is incredibly fun for me, that's literally why I stopped playing chess, because the pieces didn't have enough abilities and the mathematical max number of possible moves was relatively small - especially when compared with something like GO. So that's why I prefer turn-based tactics games - way more shit to do and keep track of with much better graphics and sound effects than chess :) Thanks for watching, make sure to check out some of my other videos as well!
Dana Coffin 100%! Heroes II has such a brilliant rhythm to it that I can lost in it for hours... the art style has a huge charm to it and the music is amazing. I really enjoyed the Dragon vs. Titan thing a lot more than the Angel vs. Devil thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore Heroes III immensely, but Heroes II is as perfect a video game as you can hope for for my money.
Wow other people on Earth like Heroes 2. I thought it was just me lmao
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Perfect game, wonderful graphics. And then play MM6.
Unfortunately, I never had the chance of getting into the Might and Magic series of games way back when they were super relevant - I know I could give them a try now but in the intervening 20+ years I have amassed my own backlog of cRPGs (and some other genres) I meant to play and finish, and that's what I started doing this year. So I doubt I'll ever get to the Might and Magic-s, despite my love for the OG Heroes games and my affinity towards first person dungeon crawlers. But rest assured I am enjoying myself and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about if you follow the channel :)
I personally think 2 is significantly better than 3. The overall game design is better. The campaigns are more interesting and the cutscenes are better. The art style is vastly superior imo. The music is absolutely phenomenal with the CD audio soundtrack, one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard. Finally, the sound effects are also vastly superior. I remember when I first played 3 how horribly disappointing I found the sound FX. They actually took great sound FX and somehow made them worse. HOMM3 may have a bit more polish in some ways, but it just doesn't match the brilliance of HOMM2.
Heroes 3 sucks. It looks so cheap and there is too much crap. 2nd is the best for sure!