Review Jevnation 3/5 · May 4, 2021
The story is intriguing but the combat bores me in the end
I found my drive to pick this up after playing through Might and Magic X, considering the lore and story connection they have. The story focuses on the family members of the Griffin Dynasty, caught in a political intrigue along with an ensuing invasion that threatens the world of Ashan. Each campaign focusing on a family member associated with different …
I found my drive to pick this up after playing through Might and Magic X, considering the lore and story connection they have. The story focuses on the family members of the Griffin Dynasty, caught in a political intrigue along with an ensuing invasion that threatens the world of Ashan. Each campaign focusing on a family member associated with different factions, their stories are told in a parallel fashion to build a cohesive plot. To avoid confusing plot holes, it is strongly suggested that you jump between and play campaign scenarios in a particular order as established by the fan community. Heroes VI is what I gather to put the story under focus most in the entire franchise and I am more enticed to follow the story through, even though the gameplay is the main point.
The resource types have been reduced to 4 instead of the usual 7, which dials down the complexity of building management and map strategies. The maps are nicely detailed and introduce a territory system where towns/forts hold influence over buildings, to the benefit of the player that controls them. The hero leveling system gives the player more liberty in choosing abilities that suit their strategies, even though I miss the limited choices that save my thinking bandwidth and add up to the excitement of randomness. Also, the battle gameplay is quite similar to Heroes V, except that the battle flows better here compared to the sluggish nature of the predecessor. However, I end resorting to quick combat by default since I felt watching my superior hero army wipe the floor with weaker enemies often feels like a drag.
As I write this review, I must say that I have not cleared the campaign stories and will drop mid-way. As much as Heroes VI passes off as a decent product of the Ubisoft generation, I feel the time I could have used for more productive activities or other backlog games are not getting its worth with quick combat trumping repetitive combat slaughter and the less-than-engaging hero progression system. I'll leave my review here for you to decide if Heroes VI is your cup of tea, and watch the rest of the story on playthrough videos.
