i'm not much of a gamer but here's where i'll track my gaming explorations :) newest at the top!
trying out the early access. not going to lie - it's buggy. and i'm not convinced at all about the art style. the map is very visually cluttered, maybe something off with the textures? or maybe it depends which land you're on, some might be better than others. there's the option to highlight clickable things but that just makes it even more visually chaotic. that's my biggest criticism so far.
other than that, there's some interesting dynamics with the law and astrology points, upgrading artifacts, specialized skills leveling. leans a bit towards a civ game. the new factions are very fun, so are the various unit upgrades. i admit we've been hotseating on easy so far and haven't yet encountered enemy heroes, so no idea about the AI there, but i find it very engaging and am excited to play more.
i finished my first play-through of the main story-line today! it was very fun, considering i don't usually play "fighting" games (or any stressful games that require quick reflexes etc).
but let's start with the cons - the story was very basic and the writing quite wonky. if it were a new game i'd suspect some of the narrated text was AI generated, the way the sentences were put together. there are also quite disturbing depictions of torture and animal cruelty, it's quite surprising how affecting a few pixels can be. also themes of child sacrifice.
now for the good things - basically everything else! i liked the pixel art style, the music, the dungeon designs. and the game-play itself. there's the main story-line, there are a few side-quests to encourage replaying dungeons. i like the different ways/areas of leveling up - number go up in many ways! i like how you're encouraged but not really forced to play the various types of characters. each one contributes to all other characters' improvement at various thresholds, so it's tempting to use that to maximize the effectiveness of your faves. even the individual characters have enough skills in their skill tree that you can't really develop all of them in one play-through, so it has some replayability in that sense, too - trying out different builds.
overall it had a cool old school dungeon feel and i was surprised how much i enjoyed those finite chunks of game-play. i can just pop in and do a few easier dungeons, or spend 40 minutes on a bigger one, and that's that. it's easy to pick up and walk away at any point.
one more "downside" - my game glitched out pretty badly during the final fight. the screen cut off for quite a bit between stages, making it a bit difficult to understand what's happening when it came back on. the sound glitched out and remained glitched out. but i think that's more to do with my old switch and not being plugged in. granted the game itself is also pretty old, so i'm not sure what would be the best, optimized way to play it. i imagine if i'd lost that fight due to the technical issues i'd have been royally miffed.
i'm having the greatest time playing heroes of might and magic III with the partner, hotseat style. it's so nostalgic! i remember playing it in my childhood home - after school but before parents came back from work, pure gaming time! i was so wow-ed by the graphics. obviously not by their realism but by their effectiveness. the sparkles and twinkles, the foliage of the trees, it all felt very rich and magical. oh, the animations on the spell book, flipping between sections - so good! each of the towns so atmospheric. i used to imagine myself in there. the sound design!
i love exploring the maps, managing resources and towns, only vaguely bothering with each hero and their skills. turn based, low stress fights. and don't you just miss games that were self-contained?
a big element of the nostalgia is also the internet of the 90s. i encountered a lot of the aesthetics from the game on the early witchy and occult pages out there around the same time. the pixel art, the greens and browns, the ever-present celtic music. i wasn't particularly looking at druid stuff but i guess that was the flavor of the internet i managed to find. making a herb pillow for better sleep, listening to the same meditation tape (also for sleep) over and over until the sound got all weird (descending in a kind of self-hypnosis and swimming with the whales!) printing out all sorts of various correspondences and filing them into my witchy binder. wonderful times.
