|
|
Kalah
Hired Hero
Celestial Heavens admin
|
posted September 02, 2012 03:14 PM |
|
|
Heroes VI Review
Another shameless plug:
I have just posted a [url=http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=812]review[/url] of Heroes VI. 
The lowdown...
Campaigns: 4/6 – Really not bad, but nothing legendary.
Editor: 1/6 – a powerful, useless tool.
Gameplay: 2/6 – In some ways mysteriously enjoyable, but bugged, unbalanced and suffering from poor infrastructure for online play.
Graphics: 5/6 – Excellent.
Music: 6/6 – Considering the team responsible for it, you kinda knew it would be great.
The Conclusion: Rating: 3/6.
____________
More tea, anyone?
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 04:07 PM |
|
|
|
Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 04:08 PM |
|
|
Two things (personal opinion):
-The graphics are good but the artstyle is meh. Particularly the demon designs.
-The only memorable music are the remixes of the predecessors.
|
|
Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 04:41 PM |
|
|
When considering the fact that I would not judge the editor (due to the fact that I do not use it) I would probably give it 4 out of 6 but after reading through your review I have to say I agree with almost everything in it.. it was nice to read.
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
|
|
Berein
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 05:28 PM |
|
Edited by Berein at 17:32, 02 Sep 2012.
|
well, that is really a high score for campaign. if you ask me, i will only give 1 out 6 for the campaign...
it is undeniable that the music is nice, but the problem is almost all the music simply copied from HV,dark messiah,clash of heroes, and even HII
but it's true that it is a really nice review to read
____________
|
|
Minion
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 05:36 PM |
|
|
|
I agree that graphics are good, but I don't like the artstyle either. The units are not personal enough...
|
|
Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 05:47 PM |
|
|
Well on the topic of the campaigne.. Kalah rather well pointed out the the Initial idea of the story is rather very good.
Just compare it to older games
H-I: An untaimted land and 4 lords who want to control it. The winner takes it all. Nothig special but ok for that time.
H-II: The King is dead and his two sons fight for the crown. Chose your lord and win in his name.
H-III: The King is dead and the neighboring lands want to take as much of his lands as posible. His daughter has to come back and fight them off and find out why and how her father died.
H-IV: No comment. Do not know the story.
H-V: The demons attack in order the capture the future human queen. The young king is killed and a grupe of 4 heroes has to save her.
H-VI: For generation some of the last survaving angels have breede human nobels to carry the souls of their fallen brethren. Now they plan to use these humans in the upcamming lunar eclipse to attack and disable their ancient enemy.
I did not put in the story of any expasions for a reason. So now which of these sounds the most promasing? Yes we should compare it to the time they have been created in, but nevertheless think about it.
On the other hand how the story has been presented is another thing. Even if the general story could be understood and it had some depth in it. The view the player whitnest it from was.. well bad... very.
I Think a common fan could write a more interesting presentation of the same Heroes VI story from different points of view. Expecialy if he would focuse on the Angels/Sveltana/Faceless. It would be nice to see how Michael fights with Pavel's ghost in him. How Mukao and Jorgen communicate with each other on great distances and even if sharing their thoughts each beeing an idividual.
Sometimes I wounder how people can even get paid for such products (Talking about writers) when a random person could do the same or even better job for a lot less or almost no money.
Edit:
Just think about the potential of Michael/Pavel. An ancient general that has been killed fighting his sworn enemy and held captive for hundreds of years in the hall of heroes is brought back in the body of an imperial duke. He has but one goal in his existence, to revange himself and all of his kind, and he does not care about the ways he can do so. But the soul that lived in that body befor is not dead yet. It is alive. silent but present. He can see what is happening and can talk to the angel that lives now in his body. He is forced to see how his young son growes up, without beeing able to help him. He sees his grandchildren, he knows about them, sees them grow up, knows them, but can never talk to them and realises that they have never knowen him, only from stories.
I can imagine how Pavel sees this as a torture, how he suffers and how he blames Michael for all this. How he asks why did they do this to him, what is the purpose. And this voice is only a fuel for Michael that forces him to go further and further in his hate towards his enemies, because they are the cause and he wants tu justify to the voice behind his mind.
This would be a nice story. But No. We got a story about a texas girl who got raped and rallies a snake army to kill her husband.
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
|
|
Kalah
Hired Hero
Celestial Heavens admin
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 06:34 PM |
|
Edited by Kalah at 18:34, 02 Sep 2012.
|
Quote:
This would be a nice story. But No we got a storry about a texas girl who got raped and rallies a snake army to kill her husband
lol 
____________
More tea, anyone?
|
|
blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 07:52 PM |
|
|
My opinions, here goes:
Campaigns: 3/6 - the story was good, level design was really good. The drawback? The campaigns structure: I had no idea what was going on when I first played the Necro campaign (I played it from start to finish without playing other campaigns). The campaigns should be put in chronological order, one after another (like in H3, where final campaigns were locked at the beginning), because without the a game guide's help I've wouldn't have guessed the order how each map should be played to get the story right...
Editor: ? - I didn't use it so I will ignore it in the review, although I tried it a few times from curiosity and it seemed complicated to use...
Gameplay: 3/6 - as it was said many times before the game has potential, but with so many bugs (the game was basically unplayable from the start, so I had to wait for a couple of patches to play it), save issues, and the most important thing for me: only five factions it cannot get better then 3 points. Lack of factions and poor AI (even with all it's cheating it's still stupid and it's not really challenging even with handicaps like x3 bigger AI army etc.) made the game boring for me quite fast, and the short dlc only prolonged "it's life" for a few days. Nevertheless in terms of gameplay the game is an improvement over H5 for me... And of course the whole online/offline thingy. No comment.
Graphics: 6/6 - I really like the art style, the graphics and the number of little details and motives on each map (especially in campaign) is astonishing. Cudos for map designers. Graphically this game has hit the jackpot for me in every aspect: units, locations, and the overall look and feel of the game. It a shame that this is wasted by other shortcomings of the game.
Music: 5/6 - Very good but not as good as in Heroes 3 or 4. I must say that I like the Sanctuary town music very much, and my favorite one is Stronghold town music - I can get enough of listening to it The remixes are also quite catchy
Conclusion 4/6 - so, a bit higher than in Kalah's review, but still, the game could have been soooo much better...
|
|
blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
|
|
posted September 02, 2012 08:22 PM |
|
Edited by blob2 at 20:23, 02 Sep 2012.
|
Quote:
H-III: The King is dead and the neighboring lands want to take as much of his lands as posible. His daughter has to come back and fight them off and find out why and how her father died.
Well the main story had a couple of twists... you didn't count the expansions, so I will not comment in this matter but I must say that the story-writing got better in them...
Quote:
H-IV: No comment. Do not know the story.
Although each campaign told a different story, so there was no main plot line (only that the old world is dead and a new is forming from it's ashes, or rather survivors) I must say that those campaigns had one of the best stories in Heroes franchise. I think that they actually hired a skilled writer for them. The stories of Guldoth Half-Dead or the pirates daughter (despite the fact they were only presented in text) were really good and made me quite attached to the main heroes.
Quote:
H-VI: For generation some of the last survaving angels have breede human nobels to carry the souls of their fallen brethren. Now they plan to use these humans in the upcamming lunar eclipse to attack and disable their ancient enemy.
Yeah this story is quite interesting but in my opinion it's ruined by the campaigns presentation and structure. All this jumping between each faction made the story really confusing. After I played the Necro campaign (which was first from the left side, so I thought that the order is suggested by devs) I said wtf? The story seemed like it had many holes in it. Only then I read on the forums that you must play each of the campaign's maps in specific order, which the devs didn't bother to signal in any way. Also, a couple of dialogs were idiotic, sometimes they felt totally out of place. I'm probably stupid  , but after I finished the campaign I read the plot overview a few times and only then I understood what was going on...
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted September 03, 2012 04:00 PM |
|
|
A fair review though I have always believed that a game's value does not equal the sum of its parts. And at some points Kalah is overly critical, for instance the map editor may not be easy to use but it's still one hell of an editor if you learn a few things first. The scripts are neatly categorized, the items/heroes/buildings are easy enough to find(there is even a filter!) and there are a gazillion options about lighting, terraforming, visual effects, custom music etc that in H5 you could only achieve with an excellent scripting knowledge. Of course there are some unfortunate restrictions too - like having to paint the combat arenas over the adventure map or else you cannot fight there or not being able to ban artifacts from the artifact merchants(though you can for random artifacts). Then there is the gameplay part where Kalah fails to mention the rewarding depth behind unit synergy and combat tactics, one of the game's greatest strengths - even if the skill system is uniform. It is only fair that you would take into account the conflux issues but I wouldn't be so quick to condemn the balance, especially at the time that Kalah decided to write that review. Because the balance is much much better since 1.5, I wonder if he has even played the game recently. But as a single player type his priorities would probably be focused elsewhere.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
|
|
posted September 03, 2012 04:33 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Then there is the gameplay part where Kalah fails to mention the rewarding depth behind unit synergy and combat tactics, one of the game's greatest strengths
I don't feel it. To me, the micromanagement and variables are putting a clamp on the pacing.
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted September 03, 2012 05:35 PM |
|
|
Maybe you haven't played against a good human opponent then
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
|
|
posted September 03, 2012 11:10 PM |
|
Edited by Avirosb at 23:13, 03 Sep 2012.
|
I don't play against people. I was refering to my own limited experience with the game.
Too many unnecessary abilities, cluttered!
There are even multiple abilities with the same function (Battle Ready/Unlimited Retaliation), what's that supposed to accomplish?
Oh yeah, and most of them have vague names so you either have to read what they do every time or memorize them.
|
|
Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
|
|
posted September 04, 2012 07:06 AM |
|
|
Quote:
I don't play against people. I was refering to my own limited experience with the game.
Too many unnecessary abilities, cluttered!
There are even multiple abilities with the same function (Battle Ready/Unlimited Retaliation), what's that supposed to accomplish?
Oh yeah, and most of them have vague names so you either have to read what they do every time or memorize them.
Well...In Heroes I an II you did not even know which unit had what kind of an ability, so you had to find out and memorize them.
I did play hundreds of hours of that game and still did not know some of them.
So you are telling me that you are not only lazy to read but even memorize things.. this is not a downfal if the info is in the game, and that they mad a little creative move to name it in such a way it thematicaly fits the particular unit, but a drowback of people when they are not able to read information they are given acces to.
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
|
|
Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
|
|
posted September 04, 2012 07:14 AM |
|
|
|
It is a problem when the info is badly and vaguely written, and the GUI isn't exactly helping either.
|
|
Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
|
|
posted September 04, 2012 08:01 AM |
|
|
I think they are done the same way as H-IV skills. Small images, with the geral ones like Spirit form, Living, Emotionless, Boss, havin the same icon and the rest that are specific for the creature have an image related to it.
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
|
|
blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
|
|
posted September 05, 2012 12:06 AM |
|
Edited by blob2 at 00:12, 05 Sep 2012.
|
|
I don't know if you agree with me but I think that the best unit info display was in Heroes 4 (and most legible). Also, every unit in that game felt unique (if I remember correctly each unit had a unique ability). I really didn't like the fact that there were no upgrades, but I think, in a way, it made H4 units one of a kind (and I'm not talking about their design, because as we all know, some people like it, some dislike the games art style). There were four slots, so units had a limited number of abilities. I think that in H6 the devs overdid it a little with the number of abilities for some units...
|
| |
|
|
