The best Heroes game
It is an absolutely great game that was severly undervalued at the release time. The gameplay is super addictive, the music is one of the greatest in video games, even the text-based story in the campaign is good (if you can brace yourself to actually read it).
Comparing to previous entries, it has both breakthrough and quality of life improvements (caravans, heroes taking part in battles, the best in series combat, prestige classes, daily creature growth).
The most interesting concept is the factions and their relations. For example, there is Life faction alonside its magic school, which is like a typical human castle with crusaders and monks, focused on healing and spiritual magic. The Life is somewhat friendly towards Nature and Order factions. This makes sense if you think about it, as its theme could be otherwise described as "nature tamed by humans", i.e. Order + Nature = Life. On the other hand, the Nature faction is friendly towards Life and Chaos, but opposed to Order and Death.
The only downside is somewhat simplistic AI which is no match for a seasoned player. It's not a big problem if you consider this as a theraupitic/ASML kind of game, that sets no time pressure and just carries you away from your daily troubles.
3 gamers found this review helpful