Gamer Monday: My Favourite Super-Old Game: Heroes III

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Title: Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia
Developer: New World Computing
Publisher: The 3DO Company
Publication Date: February 28, 1999 (PC)
Source: Purchased (twice!)


Heroes III is the first video game I fell head-over-heels in love with. I grew up in a very limited-video-game home. By the time I was 9, my brothers' Super Nintendo was gone (I'm the youngest by a lot and they had moved out). In my tween years, most of my limited computer time was spent playing play-by-post message board RPGs. Until I discovered Heroes III!

I seriously love this game so hard! When I try to explain it to my boyfriend, I had to put in context.  I love Heroes III as much as he loves Diablo 2 (which is a lot).

Heroes III is a turn-based strategy game, where you control heroes and their armies. Using these heroes, you can gather resources, gather artifacts, battle neutral creatures or enemy heroes and lay siege to cities

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Battles are probably the most exciting part of Heroes III. You command various creature types (infantry, ranges, flying etc.) with various movement speeds and attack/defense strength. Multiple units of the same type stack, so even the lowly pikemen can slay a great dragon, provided you have enough of them.

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But it's not all hack and slash! A major part of the game is resource management. You can build structures in any towns that you control. The main structure types are unit dwellings, which allow you to recruit (for a fee of course) unit that will fight under your command, defences, which not only protect your units during a seige but also increase unit growth, town buildings, which give you gold each day, and various other buildings that vary by city type.

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There are 8 city types (plus one additional type in the expansion). These city types determine the types of creatures you can recruit. The balance here is not bad, but I definitely find the Castle city type to be the strong  The Rampart city type is my second favourite, but I think that's just because you can recruit unicorns.

Heroes III does offer multiplayer, via either hotseat or LAN. However, because turn length can end up being very long, there is a LOT of waiting and I don't recommend it.

Overall, I'm clearly a huge fan of Heroes III, considering that I still love it almost 15 years after it's release (yikes!). My bf did recently gift me the updated version, Heroes VI, which I've been playing for the past couple days. Will it have the same addictive quality as Heroes III. Time will tell I guess.

I purchased my newest copy of Heroes III from Gog, if you want to get in on the old school action!