Heroes 3 on ios. From the editor
Heroes of Might and Magic III has come to iPad. The most real ones, but now in HD graphics, with your favorite campaigns, heroes, castles, monsters... And it was an event!
I wanted to write not just a review about Heroes, but a whole story. Having played many hours independently and in local multiplayer mode, thoroughly imbued with the atmosphere of fantasy, war and magic. But the material will be different. Not about Heroes of Might & Magic III, but about Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition for iPad. Port overview original game for PC.
The game crashes on iPad mini and iPad 2. At first it was rare, but after 2-3 hours almost every move. You also cannot minimize the game - it restarts. Until the update is released (if there is one at all), we do not recommend purchasing Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition to play on these tablets.
Why do we still play Heroes of Might and Magic III today?
This is an introduction for those who have not played Heroes of Might and Magic III, but are still interested in the game. Experienced warriors can skip this section - you already know all this.
Third part Heroes series of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia was created by New World Computing in 1999. The game represents the genre of turn-based strategies, includes multi-stage campaigns, single-player scenarios, local multiplayer (playing on one device at a time) and online.
The gameplay of the game is completely non-linear. Each scenario has a specific task - destroy all rivals, capture all castles, find an artifact. In a typical scenario, you start with a Castle and a Hero. The castle needs to be developed, increasing the flow of money, unlocking combat units, magic and additional features. This requires resources. Heroes are the breadwinners and combat units. They grow in levels, acquiring new skills and improving characteristics, and are able to lead troops.
Graphics of the original Heroes of Might and Magic III
The game is turn-based. On one conventional day, each Hero can walk a certain distance, and one building can be built in each castle. And after seven days, warriors grow in castles and in special buildings on the map - they replenish the player’s armies.
Battles in Heroes of Might and Magic III are also turn-based. They take place in small locations, the move is passed from opponent to opponent. Warriors have different characteristics: there are shooters, flying units, slow-moving but well-armored units, badgers, and magicians. The Hero himself does not participate in battle, but strengthens his troops and uses magic - defensive and offensive.
Battle mode of the original Heroes of Might and Magic III
The passage of the map can last 30 minutes or ten hours, even the same scenario is played differently. Heroes of Might and Magic III has a lot of dependencies, there are several tactics for winning, you can bet on different abilities of players, develop for a long time and accumulate strength, or quickly rush into battle. At low difficulty levels you play relaxed, at higher difficulty levels it is much more difficult to win, especially on small maps.
Heroes is not a simple superficial arcade game, which modern game development is increasingly accustoming us to. This is a game-universe, thought out to the smallest detail and opening up wide possibilities for tactics. That is why thousands of players, 15 years after the release of Heroes of Might and Magic III: Rebirth of Erathia, are still devoted to this game.
Read full story games, as well as a detailed description of Heroes of Might & Magic III can be found in the Wikipedia article.
Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition for iPad
Apparently main bet Ubisoft's reincarnation of Heroes of Might & Magic III has been enhanced by graphics. All game elements executed in high quality, from the menu to the last tree on the map. And although the charm of Heroes has been slightly reduced, it is very pleasant to look at the clear, “polished” picture on Retina screens. Apart from the image quality, everything remains the same: sounds, animations, controls, menus, balance.
Crop 630 x 630 px
The original Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia was given new life, although the game was deprived of a map editor. And this is a very significant flaw. The collection includes 6 campaigns and 48 scenarios (maps): 8 small, 23 medium, 11 large and 6 very large. There is local multiplayer with the usual limit of 8 players.
Since the game is a PC port, and not a significantly redesigned variation, the implementation of touch screen controls raised many questions. We were “lucky” to test Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition on the iPad mini, and, to tell the truth, I was not pleased with the controls. I will describe the main problems.
Moving around the map occurs in the same way as on the PC - the first tap on a cell creates a route, the second tap on the horse icon sends the Hero on his way. But while it’s quite easy to perform a trick with a mouse, it’s sometimes difficult to hit a shallow area of the screen with your finger twice. My Hero kept running in the wrong direction, accidentally attacked creatures that were too strong and died a couple of times. With the imitation of a click on the right mouse button, everything is fine - a long tap on the display.
In battle mode, it’s not easy to understand the controls - you need to watch training slides (in the settings, section “Training”). There is no single logic: shooters shoot at a target after a quick double tap; to attack foot soldiers, you need to tap on the target for a long time, and then select an attack sector. Two taps in a row with a pause show information panel unit. Why not use one tap for shooting and melee, and a long tap for accessing characteristics?
Finishing with the control features, I’ll say about the game interface. Preserving the appearance of Heroes of Might and Magic III in its original form from the perspective of perception is a big plus. But when it comes to the gameplay, you experience inconvenience every now and then. Many buttons are very small. Choosing castles and heroes at the start of the game is a real pain, and determining the exact number of units or resource to purchase is also a pain. I was pleasantly surprised that they retained the ability to set an exact digital value in the menu where values are supported. But a) try to hit a small number and b) the graphical input is implemented terribly.
Having played Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition on iPad mini (1 and 2) for about 6 hours, I can responsibly say that the controls need serious work. At a minimum, increase touch zones where possible, change the speed of double tap, and provide a unified control logic. Now playing is incomparably less comfortable than on a PC with a mouse.
The localization of the game can only be praised - Heroes are translated into Russian perfectly. Except that you can’t use the Cyrillic alphabet in editable player names, and autosaves are named in a completely unintelligible way.
On modern Apple tablets the game runs stable and fast. Or as fast as it worked on PC - the animations are the same. But the old iPad mini and iPad 2 are a real problem. There are freezes and crashes occur every now and then (and there are more and more of them as the scenario progresses). Probably 512 MB RAM for Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition is not enough.
There are obvious shortcomings. The most unpleasant thing is that there is no way to find out the properties of artifacts in the inventory menu; a long tap simply does not work. Also, the movement of the artifact is implemented somehow strangely, even if it is not so critical. Descriptions of spells are not present in all menus.
Conclusion
Heroes of Might and Magic III came to mobile platforms in its original form (except perhaps without a map editor), and even in excellent graphics quality - every element has been redrawn. This is both good and bad. The advantage of such a porting is that fans received a familiar and familiar game, which they can always have with them. Play leisurely while lying in bed, in transport, or even on the go. The downside is the implementation of control. Where the mouse was good, the touch screen is not so good. It's difficult to move around the map - there are a lot of wrong clicks, it's not very comfortable to fight.
I very much doubt that the game can conquer a user who is not familiar with the world of Heroes of Might and Magic III. Not the iPad version for sure.
Is it worth paying $9.99 for Heroes of Might & Magic III – HD Edition? I don't have a clear answer. If you have a computer on Windows and mobility is not critical, it is better to take the desktop version (or forget about the graphics and go through Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete with all the campaigns, and then Heroes Chronicles). It's not comfortable to play on the iPad mini 2 in its current form. Not impossible or terribly inconvenient, but simply not comfortable. I'm probably too picky, but taking on a 15-year-old game to deliberately sacrifice ease of control is not for me.
Reissue announcement Heroes of might and magic 3 caused an outstanding stir. You bet, my love folk game after 16 years it threatened to come out on tablets, isn’t that a holiday?
Mechanically, the third "heroes" are great for playing on a tablet: leisurely turn-based strategy, lack of high-speed tasks, tabular interface - convenient for mobile game Wednesday.
The mobile department of ubisoft was involved in porting the game to iOS, and copyright problems did not make it possible to transfer all campaigns from the original, so what awaits us only "Rebirth of Erathia". Good news- this is definitely the best "heroes" campaign. The news is bad - the map editor was not delivered, and the custom set for playing outside the plot is modest.
Graphically, the game has not changed at all: all the familiar characters are in place, and the animation of movement and strikes, as it turns out, has not been forgotten over the years. There are no significant differences with the advent of HD, but that doesn't matter - the game looks great.
If you haven't played the original on PC, here's a quick summary. Heroes of might and magic 3 is a turn-based strategy where we need to manage the development of our own castle, explore new lands with our own hero and fight in a turn-based mode. It's important to explain how each aspect works on iOS.
Everything is fine with the "lock" part. The tabular interface is easily transferred to tablets, so there are no problems with management.
Our hero’s movements around the map are also easily controlled. One tap - and we set the moving point, two taps - we confirm the actions.
But you will have to get used to the controls in battles. The point here is that ubisoft is faced with obvious interface problems. So, for a melee attack, we need to tap and hold tap on the enemy, and then indicate the cell from which the blow will be struck. It’s just difficult to get used to this - often instead of hitting, we call up the character’s statistics. With ranged units everything is simpler - to attack them you only need a quick double tap on the enemy. Of course, the PC version of the game is more convenient in this regard. If you're tired of playing heroes, look for new games for PC on the page http://igri-torrent.net/igry_2017_goda/.
The quality of the port raises certain questions. You can forgive the game for being slow on iPad2 and iPad mini, but constant crashes on new tablets are already too much. It is also unclear why the tablet version lacks online access and a map editor. The price is confusing - 749 rubles for a port of a 1999 game, this is strange.
And yet, no disadvantages will outweigh the fact that we have real third “heroes”. You can now take your favorite childhood game with you on the road - for this, Ubisoft can be forgiven for the inflated price, the glitchy code, and the lack of a map editor.
Illustration: "Heroes of Might and Magic III"
The game will cost 599 rubles, as in App Store, and on Google Play. It's a little cheaper than downloading the game from Steam. There "Heroes" cost 799 rubles.
As for the reissue itself, it’s difficult to call it ideal.
Firstly, the graphics, despite all the efforts of Ubisoft, look a little stretched. However, it couldn’t be otherwise: enlarging a picture while maintaining quality and without total redrawing from 800 by 600 pixels to at least 2048 by 1536 pixels is an almost impossible task.
Secondly, management. You need to get used to it. Double quick taps (attack in battle) and just constant confirmations (indicate the target, run - to main map) is by no means an industry standard. On the other hand, Ubisoft consciously sacrificed the intuitiveness of controls in favor of eliminating the misclick that mobile ports often suffer from.
So it turns out that the gift received from Ubisoft is a product built on compromises.
Could the remaster (and then port) have been made better? Probably yes, only in this case it would be a different game, with completely different graphics and interface. Moreover, most likely, with other maps, since a radical change in the first one would require editing the design.
You can download the version for Google Play.
P.S. Screenshots from the PC version of the remaster.
Ubisoft is a French multinational company founded by the five Guillemot brothers in 1986. Its 29 studios scattered around the world employ more than 9,000 people, and its annual income has long surpassed 1 billion euros. In the mobile market, the company prefers to release games based on console projects released at the same time.
Firmware: iOS 5.1.1 and higher
Compatible Devices: iPad (3/4/Air/Air 2nd generation), iPad mini (2/3) + partial support for iPhone (4S/5(C)/5S/6/6 Plus)
Supported Resolutions: 1024x768, 2048x1536
Description
“Heroes of Might and Magic 3” in HD has finally appeared on the shelves of the virtual App Store. Enjoy cult game Anyone can use the new “mobile” format by purchasing the new product for only $9.99 (or 599 rubles).
Heroes 3 HD Edition for mobile devices It justifies its name a little more than fully: on small tablet screens the picture looks really impressive. In this sense, Ubisoft coped with their task excellently. But getting used to the unusual controls in the new “Heroes” can be difficult even for experienced players (for this case, the game provides Training). Things are a little worse when it comes to playing online. Since only content from Erathia Rising has undergone an HD remaster, players will only have access to 20 multiplayer maps from the original third Heroes (and this is without a generator in the game random cards!). The situation is aggravated by the fact that for some reason the ability to play Heroes 3 HD Edition over Wi-Fi simultaneously from several devices has not yet been implemented. In short, the multiplayer in the new “Heroes 3” still needs some improvement.
Another unpleasant surprise for owners of Apple devices was the news that it will not be possible to play the new “Heroes” from a smartphone: the game is currently available for download from the App Store only for tablets. But there are almost no restrictions here - Heroes 3 in HD works without problems on all iPad models, starting with the second, including the iPad-mini.
This afternoon the long-awaited release of the strategy took place "Heroes of Might and Magic 3", which gained a huge audience in 1999 when the regular edition was released. About 16 years have passed since then, and the game now has support for touch controls and Full HD graphics that look great on iOS And Android.
So as not to change too much game mechanics, Ubisoft I had to abandon the idea of scaling the interface, which means that only owners of tablets with Android And iOS, as well as the owners Windows computers. We were able to install "Heroes of Might and Magic 3" on iPhone 6 Plus, but it became almost impossible to play. The interface has become so small that the text has become almost unreadable.
Development team Ubisoft promised not to touch the general game mechanics, but the team still broke their word. In three hours of testing this game on iPad Air, several annoying moments were identified at once, but otherwise it’s all the same "Heroes of Might and Magic 3" 1999 with updated graphics.
It's quite strange, but the game balance has been disrupted. It is possible that this is only a temporary bug, but it is very upsetting. In a normal battle, 5 forest dragons of the second level cannot kill 4 endovs of the 2nd level with one blow. According to our memory in classic version this did not happen, which means Ubisoft changed something in the game mechanics.
The second drawback of the game was the inconvenient controls on touch devices. It is not so much inconvenient as it is unfinished. In order for troops to attack someone during battle, you first need to hold your finger on the enemy unit, and then click on the cell from which our warrior will attack. This decision destroys any desire to play battles, because if, out of habit, we tap twice on an enemy soldier, our unit will simply stand next to him and not hit him.
IN iPad And Android version of the game has a mouse, and your finger acts as a mouse. The game was not fully rendered, so finger touches are not always perfectly accurately recognized, and this is also disappointing. Of course, perhaps this is a matter of habit and you need to practice this for a couple of days, but the fact remains a fact.
In our case, the game proved to be stable, since no slowdowns, freezes or crashes were detected during testing. This is good because lately App Store And Google Play There are games coming out that are very slow even on the iPhone 6, not to mention older devices.
Otherwise it's all the same "Heroes of Might and Magic 3", which is commonly called the “Golden Series”, is a line of games. You can still change the speed of movement of heroes and units on the map, change the color of the interface, and save the game anywhere. Russian language and voice acting are also present.
The graphics haven't changed much from previous years. The supported resolution has changed, so at 800 by 600 pixels the game looks roughly the same as the 1920 by 1080 pixel version. In fact, there was no point in waiting for anything else, because Ubisoft promised to release an HD re-release of the game, which implies the release of the game with support for larger and higher-quality displays.
Game "Heroes of Might and Magic 3" costs 599 rubles in the Russian app store App Store, which is quite a lot for such an “old” game. Of course, this price was due to the sharp drop in the ruble, almost halving, but even 329 rubles per game for iPad quite a lot, because it doesn’t even have a map editor and the ability to add your own scenarios from the computer version of the game to the game.