Heroes Chronicles: Warlords of the Wasteland (2000)

(This review covers Heroes Chronicles as a series in general)

Warlords of the Wasteland started the eternal journey and wraps it up with the final chapter being The Sword of Frost. It's safe to say Heroes Chronicles, as a series, is what I consider a rather unique entry in the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. While the main entries of the series up to Heroes III weighs their focus more on gameplay, Chronicles counterweighs it with more storytelling. The overarching plot tells of the barbarian warlord, Tarnum - from his rise to vengeance to journey of redemption, as an immortal, takes us through the history of the Antagarich continent until the point where Heroes IV ties in. Heroes Chronicles is only focused on single player campaigns, chapter-wise, so it caters especially well with fans who have immersed themselves in the worlds that shaped in Might and Magic francise, like me.

The common pattern between the chapters is a campaign with 10 scenarios, with Tarnum growing in experience to compete against his growing opponents as well. Plot-wise, each chapter defines the main faction you are playing as well, so variety is limited in that aspect. Fortunately, the features from the Heroes III expansion packs are included for an optimal gameplay experience.

Ultimately, it's a rewarding experience that I stuck with the Chronicles until the end. The story writer, who also worked on the Heroes games of the New World Computing era, got to stretch her ambition at best on this collection. The story intrigue is helped by having fleshed-out characters that are memorable, varied adversities and clever plot twists. If you fans are looking for further war intrigues and lores to dig in to the old world of Might and Magic, I'm sure that Heroes Chronicles will do a great serving in that aspect.

I love, LOVE the Heroes game, and HoMM 3 is the pinnacle of the series. This first part of the chronicles gives the awesome chance to develop and bring heroes from mission to misson, and develop them far beyond the norm.

While this is fun, and the gameplay itself is amazing, I personally find the Wasteland factions one of the biggest bores in the whole franchise, barbarians with no magic, meh. Unfortunately that is what you get to play with for 8 missions here.

The story itself is campy, cheesy, and very easy to see the end results, but it is still somewhat fun.

I am excited to try the 2nd part of this series and see if a more enjoyable faction gets me more invested in the game.

I have been on the final mission for this for a while, I lost like 5 times, as the computer starts in a much better postion. I think I have managed to gain the upper hand, but the computer is still playing cat and mouse. This level of challenge was unexpected, but makes it really feel like a achievement to beat this segment.

One thing to note, even though the Wasteland faction doesn't get a mage tower, level your main character in magic, one thing screwing me left and right is massed debuff spells like curse drastically hurting my army's abilities, and me lacking higher then level 3 spells to counter this.

I honestly cannot wait to leave the crappy and boring Wasteland faction behind!

Diving into Heroes Chronicles, as a big fan of HoMM 3, I only owned 1 of the Heroes Chronicles when it was new. I decided to buy the collection on GoG and see how they were.

Unfortunately, the first part is all the Barbarian faction, which I find to be the least interesting faction to play. I am on mission 6/8, and am looking forward to beating it to move onto the next segment.

The gameplay of HoMM still stands up, and I like the unique units the Chronicles game brings.