Good but with flaws (Heroes of Might and Magic IV (PC))

Member Name: Barold

Product:	Heroes of Might and Magic IV (PC)
Date:	19/05/09 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun challenging game

Disadvantages: Inferior to the rest of the series

I'm going to assume anyone reading this has some experience with the series so I don't dwell on the how the game works other than where they differ from the rest of the series. Essentially it's a turn based strategy game where you control armies under the command of heroes fighting for control of towns and resources.
In my opinion this is the low point in the Heroes of Might and Magic series. It's a departure from the others in that your hero is now a member of your army as opposed to being its commander. This means that you can have more than one hero per army, or even an army made up purely from heroes if you so desire. Since your hero is in the army (s)he can attack other units but can also be killed or captured. I'm a huge fan of the rest of the series and I think it was a mistake to make this change. But it's in the game so on with the review.
Another change is the hero skill tree. Instead of having a selection of stand alone skills your hero can achieve each hero can get 5 main skills, each of which come with several sub-skills. This still gives the kind of variety found in the rest of the series but in a slightly different form. Instead of the 8 skills in HMM3 we have 5 main and (5x3) 15 sub skills. While I disliked making the heroes combat troops, the skill change is different rather than bad.
The final and probably biggest change is in combat mechanics. In the rest of the series a creature attacks and is then retaliated against, but in this game attack and retaliation happen simultaneously. This means there is no advantage in attacking, ie my angels attack your dragons gives exactly the same result as your dragons attack my angels. As far as I am concerned it spoils the tactics in the game.
The graphics are a bit old now but do the job, the sound is somewhat weaker than the rest of the game.
These problems aside this is still a good game and I'm sure that if I hadn't played the others in the series I'm sure I'd have been delighted with this one. I still enjoy it for what it is, but its not quite HMM as I know and love it.

Summary: Get Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or 5 before considering this