A look back at: Heroes of Might & Magic III, expansion packs, and Chronicles

 

Well what do you know. It's been quite the long while since I last left off on some RPG stuff, but that's cause I was doing things in consistent tandem. I definitely knew Heroes of Might & Magic III was gonna be a big one, and it truly was a big one in this regard. So big, I had to allot time to figure out how the hell I was supposed to do the expansion packs. Eventually I settled on Shadow of Death first, the Restoration of Erathia second (this is the main campaign), and finally Armageddon's Blade last. Oh, and Chronicles too, don't forget that.

From what I can tell, this is the peak of HoM&M as a franchise. The games before it have a system that was in the works, slowly becoming what it ends up being at the climax of this. And people really did appreciate it all alongside the scenario-based war battles. The hex grid is still a favorite, and there's just lots of customization options even if you are dealing with some level limits during these scenarios. It can be a bit too much at times considering you have to do some town building, recruiting of new and strange units, customizing their equipment, customizing your hero generals so their regiments are strong to go up against contenders, finding treasures, and trying to allot your time during the game so that you don't spend too much time in some scenarios.

Plot-wise, I am always sold on the idea of playing as one person or group, and then the focus ends up shifting towards a different main character. For this reason, I consider the Shadow of Death to be my favorite of the main episodes of HoM&M3. I mean, the first few campaigns all have one main hero each, but they then start coalescing, even the main villain you get to play as in his own campaign, and everyone gangs up on the guy. Restoration of Erathia provides some neat continuity to the canon storyline of HoM&M2, since Catherine is the wife of Roland and wants to find him, and then Armageddon's Blade serves as a more interesting continuity to Restoration of Erathia by then, and I love continuity a lot. Don't really care much for fighting necromancers a lot, but Restoration of Erathia provided a strange plot twist to it all. And then there's Chronicles, where while Tarnum is the only person you have as the main hero, his job class changes between campaigns, and the poor guy is looking towards just having a nice afterlife only to never get it. And honestly, going through all of these gameplay, expansion packs, and Chronicles, it can take a lot out of you, but I managed it. If you're a true die-hard for the series, this really ended up being the peak.