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HoMM: Olden Era

Short review of demo version

Last week, the demo version of new Heroes of Might and Magic game appeared on Steam.
The game was announced to be a close successor to the most successful part of the series, HoMM 3.
You can feel it in almost every aspect of the game, except a few moments, when it feels more like a HoMM 5 :)

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Familiar look of the adventure map

This appears to be a good choice, since these were the most successful ones.
Later parts were trying to bring something new, but eventually were't able to repeat the success of the third game.

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...

The demo version introduces 4 factions, from which 3 should be well known:
Temple - which is a new name to old Knight castle with soldiers, gryphons and angels,
Necropolis - obviously it's a necromancer's castle, which remains almost untouched since Succession Wars,
and Dungeon - this time it feels like a mix of HoMM3 and HoMM5 Warlock's caslte, with dark elves, medusas, hydras and dragons.
But beware - there is one more faction and it's brand new: The Schism.
This one consists of some twisted elves and has some lovercraftian feel.

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Cthulhu-like creatures of new faction, Schism

There also two more factions announced to be included in the final version: Sylvan (elves) and the Hive (insects).
So in total, 6 factions does not look that much honestly.
I don't really like the new faction ideas, but I understand this may have some lore-wise explanation.
Anyway, I miss the old barbarians and wizards. Hope they'll return in an explansion.

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Knight's Castle, and later Haven, is now called Temple

As in the classic, there are 7 types of creatures in each castle. Each with two alternative upgrades. Creatures design reasebles me more the fifth part of Heroes. They lack the visual clarity and uniqueness of the first three games. Instead, some of them are very similar, especially blueish tentacle-like creatures in Schism or insects in Hive. GFX

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The town screen My only complain is that some buildings are hard to spot.
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Quite complex tech tree, isn't it?

Heroes - another classic implementation: stats, skills and inventory strongly reaseble the third game.
Worth noticing that you won't find any familiar faces from previous games - it's Olden Era after all.

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4 main attributes, 8 skills, morale and luck - classic

Demo version let's you play several scenarios in two modes: classic and single-hero. As name suggests, in that mode you are not allowed to recruit any more heroes and you lose, if your starting hero is defeated in battle.

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On the right - the fountain of beer!

There are a couple of familiar objects on the map GFX

Dragon City didn't change too much in the past 30 years

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Warlock's army on the battlefield

Finally, after years Heroes try return to their roots, by imitating both gameplay and the atmosphere.

Now, we again have 6 resources to gather, hexadecimal battle field and familiar mechanics.
Also a lot of map objects and units appear as in third game - just look at this picture below:

UI is also not very good - it lacks the details and richness of the old HoMM games, it is very 'flat' and again mobile-like. The in-game control panel also don't make a good impression - the buttons appear to be randomly placed all around the screen,

Summary:
I would say, the overall impression is quite good. The game really feels like another Heroes, but...
Its real problem is that original HoMM3 is rich in features, multiple factions and even new content made by fans.
There appears to be no reason, beside the modern graphics, to play Olden Era instead.
I believe it will be hard to imitate that success but the game may have it's own fans, especially when they add the promised features, such as two more factions and a map editor in the final release. I really hope the final number of player factions will also be higher than 6, with wizard (Tower) castle as a must!