Title: Might and Magic: Heroes 7
Developer: Limbic Entertainment
Status: Closed Beta
Release Date: September 29th, 2015
Official Site: http://bit.ly/1ig9Tal
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1L0oM7n
Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a
look at the Turn Based Strategy Game, might and magic heroes 7 developed by
Limbic Entertainment, the same guys behind Might and Magic 10 Legacy and might
and magic heroes 6. I’ll only be covering the single player skirmishes and
multiplayer as that was the only content open during the beta phase.
It’s been 4 years since the last Heroes of
Might and Magic, a game that was evidently crippled by Uplays always online
DRM. While Heroes 7 is still based on Uplays platform, the always online DRM
seems to be a thing of the past and rightfully so too as the game does feature
a single player skirmish mode. The games mechanics haven’t received any massive
updates to the point where the game has changed significantly it has however received
some graphical updates though with a much cleaner look to it.
If you’re new to the franchise, Heroes of
Might and Magic has you leading a kingdom and army with the primary goal of
taking out all other kingdoms in the area. Heroes act as your armies’
commanders, able to cast spells to give your units advantages in and outside of
combat. These heroes can gain levels allowing you to allocate skill points that
can provide pretty important bonuses not only to your armies but to all aspects
of the game. The skill tree is divided into different play styles so choosing a
certain strategy at the start of the game is a good idea so that you can level
your heroes accordingly. Scattered around the map you will also find hero
equipment that gives extra bonuses and Relics that will give each visiting hero
a permanent bonus. If you have enough gold and want to expand your army you can
hire another Hero at the Heroes Hall. Each hero will come with a couple of
faction units to get your new army started and again its best to pick the hero
that suits your play style or what you are wanting to do with the new army.
As for your actual army, it will be
composed of units that you enlist at one of your castles. Each week a certain
amount of units will be trained and ready to recruit, the unit types and amount
depend on what building upgrades you have invested in at your castle. Due to
the weekly production you do have to use your units efficiently or you could
end up fighting the other kingdom with half an army. There is a chance that neutral
camps will want to join your ranks but there is only a very small chance of
that happening. Neutral camps are what you will be attacking early on for
resources, items and bonuses. The closer the camps to your castle the easier
they will be to defeat with your chance of success denoted by difficulty
descriptor like Severe, moderate and trivial. As time goes on these camps will
get harder and harder so taking them out early is definitely the way to go so
as not to waste too many resources on harder fights. Larger maps contain a lot
more interesting objectives that you can fight for, for instance there are
elemental keeps, neutral garrisons and juts a whole lot more. There are
underground sections of each map that you will most likely have to use to get
to your enemies base. Discovering new areas of the map, removing the fog of war
also gives you a tactical advantage as you can see any enemy forces moving
through those revealed areas so revealing parts of the underground pass can
give you an early warning as to when a large scaled attack is heading your way.
The combat in game is obviously turn based
and takes place on rather small chess like battlefields. Your units of the same
type stack and are represented by only one physical unit on the battlefield
while also acting as one unit. You can split these stacks outside of combat but
unfortunately you can’t during the set-up phase just before the combat phase
which is a little unfortunate but you can move them around the first 2 rows. In
combat there are only really 3 things you can directly control outside of just
moving units including defensive stance to increase a unit stacks armour,
Flanking to gain a damage bonus on enemies and finally using your heroes’
abilities and attacks to your advantage. I would have liked to see some more
abilities for units to use, there are some that come from upgrading them but it
still doesn’t feel quite like there is enough utility or different things to
consider while in combat. There are also 2 passive elements that will take
effect on every round and that is the war machines. Once researched at your
castle you can purchase 2 different war machines, 1 offensive and 1 supportive.
The offensive machine is more aimed towards sieging being very effective at
taking out fortifications however it will still fire upon enemies if there are
no fortified structures on the battlefield. You aren’t able to control where it
fires though which is a bit odd and the same thing rings true for your support
machine that will heal a unit stack at random. Why you can’t designate targets
for the war machines doesn’t really make sense and can make it quite
frustrating when you want a certain unit stack healed but another less
important stack gets healed instead.
Outside of the gameplay there are 3
different game modes, Story Mode, Multiplayer and Singleplayer. Currently the
game supports up to 8 players in the one game however unless you have a lot of
time spare I would advise against it for both multiplayer games and single
player games. It may be a bit more lenient on Multiplayer games if you enforce
a short turn timer but in singleplayer games versing the AI, the AI can take a
very long time to make its turn feeling like a minute or 2 pass by before you
can make your next move and that just playing with 3 AI. Playing with 7 AI
players takes even longer and is a massive problem with the game at the moment
that needs to be fixed before the game releases. Speaking of the games release there
will be 6 different classes available to play on release including the holy
empire of Haven, the Wizards of the academy, the necromancer of Neropolis, the
Barbarians and Orcs of the Stronghold, The Elves of Sylvan and finally the Dark
Elves of the Dungeon. Each faction has their own unique soundtrack that suits
them and is adequately epic. The waiting music however is rather odd and I’m
pretty sure it is free to use music from somewhere else as I’ve heard it in
another game called Coffin Dodgers. It doesn’t fit the theme of the game at all
and while you are waiting an eternity for the AI to take its turn it is really
noticeable, it would have been better to just have your faction’s soundtrack on
loop.
Other Features of the game that will be
included at release include a couple of map and modding tools. You will be able
to create your own maps for the game along with your own custom campaign. If
you don’t want to get to technical but would still like some different maps
there will be a random map generator available. Being an Unreal Engine 4 game
you will be able to access the finer parts of the game allowing you to create
your own heroes, your own units, your own towns pretty much you will be able to
edit anything in the game as long as you have the skills and knowledge of the
Unreal 4 Engine. Sharing these mods hasn’t really been discussed though and I
doubt Ubisoft would want to take advantage of the Steam Workshop due to Steam
being their competitor.
Altogether Heroes of Might and Magic 7 is
more of the same, is that a bad thing. Well not really and the graphical update
really does help bring the game franchise forward as you can see here with the
left being footage from Heroes 6 and the right footage being from Heroes 7. I
can’t help but compare this game to Age of Wonders 3 and while comparing the
two titles, Heroes 7 comes out lacking a lot of depth however I think Heroes 7
is aiming for much quicker games as opposed to extremely long play sessions
played over multiple days. This is made even more apparent in the combat mode
were Age of Wonders 3 has large tactical maps with cover and elevation
mechanics were as Heroes 7 opts for a much smaller battlefield providing only 1
or 2 pieces of half damage cover. So it really comes down to whether you want
to spend a couple of hours to complete a mission or a couple of days, if you
are after that couple of hour experience then Heroes of Might and Magic 7 may
be what you’re looking for plus take into consideration that I was unable to
take a look at the campaign but I have a feeling it will be much the same.
Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Heroes
of Might and Magic 7. The game is currently in closed beta with a release date
set for the 29th of September on both Steam and Uplay for around $53
or your regional equivalent. If you want to find out more about the game check
out the links below. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.
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