14 DAY TRIAL // 
I thought the fourth installment spelled the end of the endearing series, especially with the demise of New World Computing and 3DO shortly after. How wrong I was! However, the news of Ubisoft's meddling with the license was received with a large dose of skepticism, even though Nival Interactive, the Russian developer behind Etherlords was in charge of the actual development. A year passed since the announcement, a year filled with very little news of the development process and a few screenshots that only managed to fuel the general skepticism, and then the open beta started... Even though full of bugs, poorly optimized and highly unbalanced, I was charmed. Was Nival the right choice for developing Heroes of Might and Magic 5? The answer is yes and no. Read on to find out what I mean.
Story
With the change of publisher and developer, a completely new history for the Might and Magic universe has been developed. But while having a wealth of new lore to draw from, the game's story, played out in six lengthy chapters over the course of the single-player campaign, is the classic fantasy clich?: a great evil emerges to (surprise!) destroy all creation, and salvation lies in the hands of some very unlikely heroes, a mere medieval soap opera in six acts, with a handful of forgettable characters and some really bad acting.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, Heroes of Might and Magic 5 goes back to the roots, as if the fourth game in the series never happened. It's basically a greatly improved Heroes 3, which is certainly going to put off those who hoped to see more radical changes, but it's bound to cause an irresistible attraction for fans of Heroes 3 everywhere.
The number of factions has been reduced to six: Academy (the Tower from Heroes 3), Dungeon, Haven (Castle), Inferno, Necropolis and Sylvan (Rampart), however they are more fleshed out than before. Each has its unique history and place in the world, and their menageries of creatures have been completely rethought, both in terms of creature selection and creature abilities. Most creatures have at least one ability, some passive, some that require activation, and there are quite a few more abilities overall, not to mention that all factions have spell-casting units now, with limited mana and some with a selection of spells to choose from. There are even a few creatures that gain new abilities with up-leveling while losing the old ones. The Archers from Haven for instance have the Scatter Shot activated ability that allows them to deal damage on an area, while upgraded into Marksmen they lose the area attack but gain the Precise Shot passive ability that causes them to ignore armor when they are at less than three tiles from their targets.
There are no more might and magic oriented heroes, and instead all factions have just one type of hero that fits into their particular theme: Wizard for Academy, Warlock for Dungeon, Knight for Haven, Demon Lord for Inferno, Necromancer for Necropolis, and Ranger for Sylvan. However the entire skill system has been drastically improved. All heroes start with a special skill that is unique for each faction: Wizards start with Artificer which allows them to create "mini-artifacts" for Academy creatures, with a variety of effects, Warlocks have Irresistible Magic that allows them to do deal spell damage to otherwise immune or resistant creatures, Knights have Counterstrike that allows them to upgrade human troops up the tier, and increases the damage dealt by their troops on retaliation, Demon Lords come with Gating which grants most Inferno creatures the ability to summon reinforcements on the battlefield, Necromancers have Necromancy which allows them to raise fallen enemy living creatures as skeletons after battles, and Rangers start with Avenger which allows them to choose a number of favored enemies against which their troops have a chance to inflict double damage.
Heroes can only learn a maximum of six secondary skills now, unlike in Heroes 3 where they could learn eight, and like in Heroes 3 these skills can be thrice upgraded. There are twelve secondary skills in total: Dark Magic, Light Magic, Summoning Magic, Destruction Magic, Attack (the Offence from Heroes 3) increases damage dealt by your creatures, Defense (Armourer) decreases damage dealt to your creatures, Enlightenment (Learning) increases experience gained from combat, and increases one of the primary stats by one every few levels, Leadership, Luck, Logistics, Sorcery speeds up hero's casting in combat (more on it later), and War Machines increases the Attack and Defense primary skills, as well as damage of the Ballista, increases Catapult's damage and chance to hit, the First Aid Tent receives increased healing power, and the Ammo Cart increases the Attack primary skill of ranged creatures. However all secondary skills, including faction-specific ones, have perk-like sub-skills associated to them that heroes can choose when up-leveling, up to a maximum of three.
Many of the old secondary skills have become sub-skills. For example Archery and Tactics have become sub-skills of the Attack secondary skill, Navigation, Pathfinding and Scouting have become sub-skills of Logistics, and the like. There's also a huge number of new sub-skills, some of which have other sub-skills as pre-requisites, many of which are faction-specific. Necromancers for example have the Dead Man's Curse as sub-skill of the Luck secondary skill, which decreases the Luck of enemy creatures by one, while Warlocks have the Warlock's Luck sub-skill that applies luck rolls to destructive spells cast by the hero, thus allowing chance of double damage from spells, and the Tear of Asha Vision sub-skill which makes it such that digging somewhere around the location of the Grail is more likely to be a success. There's even an "uber" sub-skill for each faction, linked to the faction-specific secondary skill that can be taken at high levels if the numerous requirements have been met.
Concerning the magic system, as I said there are four schools of magic: Dark, Light, Summoning and Destruction Magic, each with its corresponding secondary skill, and Wisdom is no longer a requisite for learning spells. Instead, each magic related secondary skill allows heroes to learn only spells related to it, so in order to learn all spells a hero would have to take all magic related skills. All magic related secondary skills have three sub-skills that improve certain spells when taken, and up to two more that are faction-specific. Here are a few examples of sub-skills linked to Dark Magic: Master of Curses that grants mass effect to the Weakness and Suffering spells but doubles their casting cost, and the hero wastes only half of his current initiative when casting them, Master of Mind does the same thing for Slow and Confusion, Master of Pain does he same for Decay and Vulnerability; Necromancers can also get Spirit Link that allows them to tie their own spirit to the spirits of any creatures on the battlefield, such that if the linked creatures receive damage the Necromancer will gain some mana, feeding upon those creatures' suffering, as well as Corrupted Soil that allows them to call upon forces of nature to affect enemy melee-attacking creatures, such that when they move they receive damage, while Warlocks can get Dark Renewal which makes it such that if a spell is resisted by the target, they get back all the mana spent in casting the spell, and the like.
Unfortunately, there are much fewer spells than before, which is a very big disappointment, especially with the system of learning spells. Among these there are a couple of new spells, such as the level 5 Conjure Phoenix which summons one very powerful Phoenix whose stats are influenced by the hero's level and Spell Power, but most of them are taken directly from Heroes 3, and are a little better balanced than before in terms of level placement - Blindness is a level 4 spell and Resurrect is level 5 now for example. Adventure Map Spells are only four in number, namely Vessel of Shalassa (the old Summon Boat), Summon Creatures, a new spell that summons creatures from the nearest town, Instant Travel (the old Dimension Door) whose range has been greatly reduced, and Town Portal that teleports a hero to the nearest unoccupied town but all its movement points are lost, and they do not require a magic skill to learn like all other spells, but a certain level - level 1, 10, 15 and 20 respectively.
Next to the skill system, the battle system has also been greatly improved. The battlefield itself has undergone a significant change in that it is now composed of square grids instead of hexes, with "small" creatures occupying one square and "large" creatures occupying four, which manages to give battles a more chess-like feel. The round-based system of old is gone, and it has been replaced with a new initiative-based system. Initiative affects the order in which creatures act during battles and how often - a creature with twice the initiative of another will act twice as often, and good moral no longer causes a unit to act twice but sooner -, and it is a distinct characteristic from movement speed which indicates how many squares creatures can actually move on the battlefield. A neat feature that complements the initiative system is the ATB (Active-Time Battle) bar, a dynamic bar that shows the order in which creatures act and greatly helps with decision making.
Heroes mostly act as they did in Heroes 3 during battles. Their role is to boost the Attack and Defense attributes of their creatures and to cast spells, but they are more active participants now in that they also have initiative, albeit hidden, and their turn has to actually come for them to act. They even appear on the ATB bar along with all other creatures. The Sorcery secondary skill is the only means to increase their initiative, and it is imperative for most spell-casting heroes who get to unleash their spells more often.
There are also quite a few minor improvements and additions besides the ones I mentioned that add up when taken as a whole. For instance an interesting new aspect is that you can't afford to have as many heroes as before early into the game since their hiring cost increases with each new hero you acquire, or that the troops from one faction have their moral reduced when led by a hero from another faction, or that heroes can carry less artifacts than before and artifacts are less powerful on the average, and so on. The new building system also deserves mentioning. Each structure and upgrade that you build in a town increases its level, and the town level is also a pre-requisite for building most of the structures. The Capitol for example requires the town to be level 15 to build.
Not everything is perfect in Heroes land however; in fact far too many things are not. Its numerous problems come in two flavors: bugs and simply poor design. Where to begin... The AI is a mess. The biggest challenge it can provide is still having a bigger army, but right now it's even more clueless than before - it no longer knows how to retreat from battles, it damages its own units with damage area spells and all sorts of equally depressing feats of ineptitude. The cursor is frustratingly imprecise and the unit numbers occasionally forget to update during battles. You can't load during battles, which is very annoying in the single-player campaign where you can't afford to lose your main heroes, especially when you're under siege, not to mention that you are not even allowed to retreat from battles in the open field all the time for some reason. You can't tell which town is nearest when you're using Town Portal and you have towns both above and below ground. You can't see how much damage spells deal when browsing the spell book outside of battles. You can't put heroes to sleep like in previous Heroes and you have to cycle through all of them all the time. There's no Kingdom Overview, damn it! The list goes on and on...
Also, there's a surprising lack of content. Not only does Heroes 5 not have a random map generator, but it does not even have a map editor! Add this to the little skirmish number of maps available and you're left with almost nothing to chew on after the single-player campaign is over. Well, I could go on about the lack of any in-game help and the flimsy manual that only explains the basic mechanics of the game, leaving you in the dark about everything else - it's as if it did not occur the developers that there actually are people who have not played Heroes by now -, but I think I've made my point.
Video and audio
Visually, Heroes 5 is a (little too colorful) feast for the eyes. Everything is wonderfully detailed, from heroes and creatures to the environments themselves, and animations are equally impressive. Also, the cities for all the game's factions are downright gorgeous. You can rotate them at will which is a very nice feature and I only wish I could hide the interface to be able to better admire them.
The main problem with the fancy 3D graphics however, is that it quite often comes as a detriment to gameplay. Yes, it's nice to be able to rotate the camera, but the initial enthusiasm inevitably vanishes when you discover you really need to rotate the camera so that you don't miss anything, whether it's a treasure chest or a vital pile of resources, and the Underground fares worse still. The interface looks ugly and generic, and more often than not the information you need requires too many intermediary steps to get to. Could we get just one window with all unit statistics during battles instead of having to cycle through three please?
Aurally the game is a major disappointment. The music is forgettable, and the enchanting sounds that gave life to the overland map in the previous games are gone, and with them much of their charm.
Multiplayer
The crux of the Heroes experience has always come from playing it against another human opponent, and multi-player is as addicting as ever despite a few balance issues. It can be played in either hot-seat or LAN for some good old fashioned fun, and it can also be played online, but at this state it's choke full of connection issues that are a major source of annoyance.
As a novelty, there's a Duel Mode that allows you to engage in tactical battles against other players, without the strategic side of the game, and an option to enable a "Ghost Mode", which gives players something to do when the opponents are taking their turns. The Ghost Mode is an interesting idea, but its gameplay implications are pretty insignificant.
Conclusion
Heroes 5 retains much of what I loved about the series, and while it is hard to ignore its numerous issues, gameplay shines through and that's what really matters. Does it mark the rebirth of the venerable series? Most definitely, yes! I highly recommend it.
