Heroes of Might and Magic 5

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 (also known as HoMM5 or Heroes 5) is a turn based strategy game developed by Nival Interactive and published by Ubisoft.  The game was released in May, 2006 and since that time has seen two other expansions released as well as no less than seven patches!

The game has a diehard fan community and there are a number of player designed maps and missions available as well as two content expansions called Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Tribes of the East and Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Hammers of Fate. Ubisoft has also released Heroes of Might and Magic Complete Edition in 2008 which includes all of the first 5 games and their expansions.

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Heroes of Might and Magic is a fantasy medieval type of battle game.  Each side in a battle moves in an alternating order until one side is victorious.  The basic game has six factions which are Academy, Haven, Dungeon, Sylvan, Necropolis and Inferno.  Later expansions add another two – Fortress and Stronghold.  Unlike earlier games in the series HoMM5 takes place on a new and previously unheard of world called Ashan.  The central character in this new world is Isabel Greyhound, the Queen of the Griffin Empire.

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Gameplay

Heroes of Might and Magic 5Heros 5 uses a time and resource model of strategic planning in which the most important resource is gold.  Gold may be used to buy most of the units in the game and is raised from the population of the towns under a player’s control.  If a player loses control of all their towns the game is over.

Combat takes place on a battle map that employs a square grid type overlay to enable a player to see how far a given unit can move or the area of effect of a particular spell.  The combat screen is true 3d and is graphically appealing.  Each creature has their own animations and special attacks and abilities.

Heroes of Might and Magic Gameplay Video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBB9A3HDNHM[/youtube]

The heroes in HoMM5 almost take the game into being a RPG game as they have individual statistics, racial abilities, spells, equipment and back stories.  Combining these attributes with the excellent sound and graphics in the game and it becomes a really great overall experience.

Anyone who has played and enjoyed Heroes of Might and Magic 3 will enjoy this version too.  It is definitely and improvement over the much maligned Heroes of Might and Magic 4, which many consider to be the poorest game of the franchise.  Although the magic system is different in this release it works just fine.  It is different, not better or worse.  Here it may actually be an advantage if you have not played the game before as you will have no preconceptions.

Thanks to the patches that Ubisoft has made available Heroes 5 is a solid game with no outstanding stability issues that I experienced.  Some players on Ubisofts forums have complained that the game was not stable on their systems, but this seems to only happen on “bleeding edge” type PC’s.

Can We Recommend Heroes 5?

If you are a fan of fantasy turn based battle games the HoMM5 is one of the best games available in this genre and we would definitely recommend it to you.  If you want a more fluid real time game then perhaps other games would suit you better, such as Age of Empires.

Fans of the original games will undoubtedly play and enjoy HoMM5, especially if you liked HoMM3 as they play similarly in many respects.  When combined with the two expansions and the map editor this game offers endless hours of on and offline fantasy battling fun.

After some initial difficulties at time of release Heroes of Might and Magic 5 is now (when patched) a reliable and fun game that we can recommend to anyone interested in this type of fantasy battle genre.

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Limited EditionDVD  includes HoMM3 and HoMM4.

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