In popular opinion: HoMaM4 is freaking awesome!

[u/KinzzaBadd]

So I've recently bought HoMaM4 off of gog for $2.49. and I can honestly say I can't get enough. It's a little poor in the quality, but the game itself is a masterpiece. Don't get me wrong, it has nothing on heroes, or the classic heroes2 gold. But this game gets way to much hate from everyone for being as awesome as it is.

Please I wanna hear everyone else's opinions on this. This game is underrated.

[u/doto_Kalloway]

• :
• the rpg dimension of heroes is very fun. Advanced classes can be extremely fun to play around, although sometimes hard to commit (e.g. the vampiric touch of life and death magic is OP but useless if you don't also have combat. But for it to be effective you need combat and melee to be high level, so you need life and death even higher, so an absurdely high level hero before it works)
• music is s tier
• scouting ability is extremely fun on big maps
• efficiency can be insane if you micromanage lots of troops.

• artifacts are fun because they add abilities to your heroes which can be hilariously broken. I love broken things and my main goal when playing homm4 is to build an op hero and raid the whole map with him alone.

• :

• the game isn't finished. All the tiny great mechanics of homm3 like external dwellings giving you additionnal growth are gone. Castles don't shoot arrows, so citadel is almost useless on its own. The list is unfortunately quite long.

• no upgrades on units

• no real choices between tiers as there is always one clear winner. E.g. vampires vs poison creepers ?

• ai is a joke

• mana management is far less problematic than in 3 as heroes get lots of spell points every day

• some units are hilariously bad (leprechauns? Nature globally ? ) and units are globally weak

• no chaining means large maps are even more a pita.

[u/HLPIMP → u/doto_Kalloway]

Right, I used to just play heroes 4 as an adventure game with a group of heroes going around leveling and exploring like the first person Might and Magic games

[u/Normal-Oil1524]

It's good, and I actually liked the fact that you had you hero in the field. Dunno why but always seemed appropriate and they can be absolute beasts too

[u/Ignimortis]

It is amazing. Funnily enough, it solves A TON of HoMM 3 problems, but since it was such a radical departure from the established series focus, it was blasted pretty hard. Oh, and the AI is pretty dumb =| But it is still very fun and easily has hundreds of hours of gameplay in it. And the campaigns in the core game are written pretty well.

[u/Legal_Weekend_7981]

The greatest failure of HoMM 4 was not featuring random map generator. This is something that greatly extends replayability and something that fanmade mods will struggle to create.

Apart from that it was fairly good, it just wasn't well-polished (to be fair, homm 3 wasn't a shining example either) and took away things people were attached to - some of the towns, unit upgrades, hero specialties.

[u/ElementalistPoppy]

Agreed - I personally never understood the hatred. It's colourful, music is awesome, there's a whole lot of units, each item has a description as you pick it up, big maps are actually big. AI kinda sucks but besides 6th entry (where I feel like AI is cheating), its not uncommon.

No, units being capable of running solo is not a drawback.

Sure, lack of unit upgrades and heroes being just different portaits, lacking specialisations does kinda suck, but enough as to disqualify it? It's a great game and it's also a great HoMM.

A masterpiece or a cultural milestone? Definitely not. Lots of fun though!

[u/Simbertold → u/ElementalistPoppy]

I think a lot of people were expecting basically a slight upgrade to HoMM3, but 4 is very distinctly different in a lot of ways.

It was also kinda rushed iirc (wasn't there a thing with money troubles or something like that), so it was pretty buggy on release, and still has a bunch of issues and balance problems.

It would probably have done fine if it didn't follow 3.

[u/Bu11ett00th]

HoMM4 is probably one of my biggest disappointments in gaming. And I don't want to say it's a bad game - because it definitely isn't. I was even open to the changes it made to the fundamentals.

BUT

I personally hate how it looks.

With pretty much all prior Heroes games - and especially Heroes 3 - being so aesthetically pleasing, I just couldn't get into the visuals of 4.

The landscape, the unit models, the animations, the castles, it's all just so... awkward. I also hate the top-down view of combat arenas, and how there's no proper grid. I know there are ways to enable it but again it looks and feels so awkward.

WITH THAT SAID

I'd never ever claim that it's a bad game. It objectively isn't - regardless of my or anyone else's expectations of it based on previous entries. But I couldn't get into it despite multiple attempts over the years.

[u/Imaginary_Hunter_412]

I love homm 2, and 3 and 4. It's hard to argue against 3 as the greatest. But 4 has a certain something, you feel an ambition ahining through it.

But... It is also broken as hell with the heroes. Bjt then again I never minded game being a bit broken navk in the days. So yeah, I think 4 is cool.

[u/blind_blake_2023]

The problem of 4 is that heroes are too strong, so there's no reason to even have creatures from early midgame forward, just run around with 3 strong heroes in a party. Fun in itself for a while but it's not HOMM gameplay. They also missed the mark with the magic system.

HOMM 5 on the other hand is a great game, and most of its features have been incorporated into the fan expansions and remakes (except for the caravans, sadly)

[u/AeonQuasar]

The only thing that 4 beat 3 on is the music. The wanderer and mountain song is S tier game music.

Just look at the towns. Looks like they just threw multiple buildings in at random.

[u/Commercial_Area6021 → u/AeonQuasar]

I just listened the wanderer and i dont remember it from the game. Do you know when it « occurs » in game ?

[u/AeonQuasar → u/Commercial_Area6021]

Isn't it one of the overland songs?

[u/Deerdren]

I just don't like the combat :/ give me hexagons :(

[u/livinglitch]

Honestly my big issue with it is the fog of war and a lack of controllable town portal.

Having your hero fight and take damage was a great addition to the game.

[u/Specific_Spirit_5932]

I played the absolute crap out of Heroes 3 and I literally could not wait for H4 to come out. In fact I remember having to upgrade our family computer's RAM from 64MB to a whopping 128MB just to play it. 😂 So my perspective is from the anticipation of it being released back in the day.

First off, I will say the gameplay and upgraded features is absolutely awesome. The way you can class out your heroes was amazing and brought tons of great gameplay options.

However, it was clear from the beginning that the game was rushed so 3DO could cash in and try avoiding bankruptcy. It was released a few months before scheduled and didn't have multiplayer functionality at first. Also, it had a noticeable memory leak that you won't notice now on modern day computers, but at the time I could only play for like 2 or 3 hours before the game became so incredibly slow I had to restart the computer. I literally learned how to shuffle cards in between turns because they took so long. 😂

Now the major problem to me was the AI. I never had friends that would reliably play with me or an internet connection capable of playing online. So even on the largest maps I would have a blast conquering everything then finally find the AI huddled in their own area barely having even cleared their mines. Disappointing.

The graphics were ok, but to me the battlefield was a disaster. With the perspective at an angle it made the battlefield weird and cramped. The animations were just awkward to see the units changing directions. They tried to do too much and it wasn't polished. The castle sieges were just....dumb. 3 towers that you had to put your own units in and destroying the gate and hitting units through the walls was just weird.

One other minor complaint was they combined inferno units into Necro. Cool now I go to use spells that Necro units are immune to and hurt my own living units.

Oh and there wasn't a lot of maps to choose from. All this combined and I quickly got bored of the game. If they had more time to polish it and test and such maybe it would have been another classic, but ultimately this is why most went back to playing 3 and all future games used that formula.

[u/MazerphAcker]

Right with you mate. H4 is super fun and feels amazing to level up your hero to godlike levels. It add a bit of role play to the classic heroes formula.

What are your favorite maps? Me and the boys usually do Xanfa’s Challenge, although the starting areas are a bit imbalanced.

[u/Ballsackmcdick]

Yeah its fun! But when it came out after 3 had so much great stuff taking a step backwards was super disappointing which is why it gets all the hate.

[u/MemeEditsReturns]

Nice try, Homam4 seller!

[u/Outrageous-Feed5667]

Heroes 1: Awesome

Heroes 2: Awesome

Heroes 3: Awesome

Heroes 4: WTF!!?

[u/argleksander]

I have not played it in ages, but I seem to remember the AI being completely broken. Like they would just hang around their City and do fuck all

Oh, and vamps were absurdly OP

[u/Key_Success7423 → u/argleksander]

Army of 20 vamps would decimate everything lol

[u/the107]

It's mostly pleasant but nowhere as good as HoMM3. Slower pacing, poor balance, and too many small annoyances. I'd call it a 3/5 with a 5/5 soundtrack.

[u/AnnArchist]

Its my favorite of the series. I like the heroes in combat. It's wild when you get 7 heroes who can take on literally anything

AI is too dumb though

[u/Kotskuthehunter]

I enjoy the game well enough, but for me it changes too much about what I like the series in the 1st place.

[u/Apkey00]

Mechanically speaking H4 did some really exciting stuff - like RPG elements with abilities and potions etc no hero armies or 3d fighting. It wasn't just upgrading of good ol' stuff with giving it some nice graphics like they did with H3 and H2.

They did ruined graphics tho - but h5 tried to remedy it.

[u/annoyingkraken]

My favorite features are being able to roleplay as the Power Rangers, and have creeps roam around the map.

[u/AleksejsIvanovs]

I absolutely loved the music! I hated the idea of using hero in combat and the square tiles. Magic system seemed boring. It's a good game but 3 is better.

[u/Theletterz]

The music is phenomenal

[u/FunFoot6382]

It's not bad, but I never could quite get hooked on it.. never could quite understand why the sauce didn't catch just as well as with HOMM3.

I did love a few elements, like how the heroes is part of the action, the classes.. but I hated the potions! So much junk to manage in inventory!

One thing that definitely put it below HOMM3... The graphics in 3D are ugly. I tried to replay it a year ago, and it hurt my eyes !

[u/DemeaRisen]

Oh it's so so good. It came out when I was a kid and blew my mind. I've also really enjoyed #5

[u/HumaTheLegendary]

Magic system could be exploited to no end. I haven't played in years, but I remember doing silly things with quicksand and the spell that moved stacks a few spaces in whatever direction you choose. I'd win battles I have no business winning early in the game (though that could be said of HOMM3 as well using strategic exploits the AI could never pull off). And if I'm remembering correctly, IV was the first to allow saving in the middle of combat.

[u/7C89]

I remember playing as a kid and spending too much time making creatures walk around the map just to see how weird the walking animation was. The devil was a good one

[u/Labriciuss]

Most people on this sub agrees that it's great gameplay wise and brought great ideas.

The graphics makes it unplayable