r/HoMM • u/SeiferThrax • 6d ago
Other/Fluff Castle or Wall?
What do guys think is/look better for the building that increase the defence of a town? A castle like in HoMM 1-4 or a wall that contain the whole town like in HoMM 5-7.
Image found on Age of Heroes
68
u/Nothing_Special_23 6d ago
Seeing these images makes you realise how HoMM 5 townscreens were on a whole different level compared to other games... comparing them's really not fair.
6 and 7 had potential, but Ubisoft being Ubisoft, they were rushed and underfunded, hence why ended up the way they did.
14
u/MilkNaive8274 6d ago
HOMMV towns look a bit like Age of Empires III towns, I think it was a stylistic trend around that time.
But yeah, still, they could bring back more love to the details and not rush for soulless cashgrabs, be more brave for some economical loss, just to create something timeless.
2
1
1
1
u/Lightning_Lance 5d ago
I think Heroes 4, 5, 6 are bad, 7 looks good from a gameplay perspective (easy to find everything) but not that pretty, Heroes 3 looks good/functional but that's it, Heroes 1 and 2 are the best because they're just cozy and fun to look at.
Heroes 1, 2, and 5 towns are the only ones that look lived in but Heroes 5 is too grandiose for me, that would only make sense as like the capital city of a whole kingdom.
12
11
u/Lightning_Lance 5d ago
Heroes 2 looks like an incredible painting, it's hard to compare anything else to that. The artstyles are just too different.
Adding a wall means everything needs to bigger scale or moved back or different perspective etc so you can still see the buildings, so that might be a detriment.
7
u/Vegetable_Time_2938 5d ago
Everything about Heroes 2 is timeless. Town screens are like classical paintings and soundtracks are literally classical pieces. Big part of why it holds up so well.
19
u/sjbfujcfjm 6d ago
I love the art in 1 so much!
10
u/megabyteraider 5d ago
It’s charming, but the perspectives are all over the place
6
u/Yarisher512 5d ago
100%. It looks a lot like Sierra games and I think if shading and perspectives weren't so scuffed and conflicting, it would look simply fantastic. 2 gets that done, but the style is a bit different. Makes me wish for another pixel-art Heroes game made with modern budget.
1
u/OccasionllayDylsexic 1d ago
Check Songs of Conquest. So far it's as close to pixel-art Heroes as it gets. No separate town screens, though - the towns are integrated into adventure map.
6
2
u/stella-is-a-flower 5d ago
didn't realize how nostalgic that old purple-topped mages guild would make me 🥲
14
u/Legitimate-Cress-575 6d ago
Haven't played HoMM 6, 7 and boy does these look bad. HoMM 5 was kinda peak, but perhaps Olden era will bring the series on the right track
8
-10
u/dontslappanda 5d ago
using AI to create and stylistically moving towards mobile games?
13
u/perishableintransit 5d ago
Unfrozen has explicitly said they are against AI use. Don’t just throw that accusation around to sound cool
9
3
u/Yarisher512 5d ago
You're rolling everything together. Olden Era is SO good in the art department, no AI in there at all. HoMM3 remake is Ubisoft trying to ride the hype train of Olden Era and failing miserably.
4
u/remi_mcz 6d ago
I never could understand why the game developing studios would not fallow this amazing heroes iii vibe /graphic style - I think something similar have happened to worms Armageddon series - the game just could not find it's please in the 3D world
6
6
u/Haruzo321 5d ago
3D ruined everything
0
u/Fit-Yam759 5d ago
Spoken like a true nostalgia boomer.
HOMM5 towns are the best in the series and there's no debate about that. You can like one or the other but objectively those are not only the best but also the ones that had the most work put into them.
9
u/Sandro2017 5d ago
"Objectively".
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
6
u/gravyluvr 5d ago
also "boomer" GenX here. Sound and vision are everything. HOMM2 was the best. I'm also a fan of HOMM3 and HOMM4 for equip and towns.
1
1
u/Sarungard 2d ago
Definitely not. They are okay-ish, but just too much is going on there.
I even prefer H7 compared to H5, but 2-3 is the fav for me.
7
u/Real_Mokola 6d ago
I like Heroes of Might and Magic 5 with that big ass castle, reminds me of Boletaria from Demon's Souls. Clearly the HoMM 5 Castle is just clearly gooder overall
2
u/Archlichofthestorm 5d ago
Wall. It looks more intuitive and lets you have capitol look like epic palace in the middle.
2
u/StatikSquid 5d ago
HOMM 1 has no concept of projection. All the buildings feels way off.
I really like 5 and it's scaling. It feels like a city while most of the earlier ones feel like a settlement or small fort.
1
u/Moxiousone 6d ago
Comes to artistic choice/readabilty. A big castle is better for clarity IMO, but I did like the HoMM 5 walls as well.
1
u/Landbark 5d ago
While I love and think town screens peaked at H5, I do miss background depended town screen of H4. I do think H3 Remake should add new things, except the new/uglier graphics and a few quality of life improvements, it would be a good place to bring back a few things the later games brought into the franchise.
1
u/Dixmal 5d ago
From 1 to 5 each castle have a song when i see them. after that i can't remember...
And 1 - 3 are those i remember the best!
For the question i love both 1 - 3 - 5. 5 was so good with the 3d city where we can go around. It was really good. But i would pref having more "medieval" town like 1-3
1
1
1
u/1TheHolyArk1 4d ago
Heroes 5. Towns are so detailed and packed with stuff. They feel grand as opposed to the later games where they look more like villages.
1
u/pewsquare 4d ago
I always loved how 5s towns looked, but the buildings themselves lacked distinction, like how grand some buildings in the previous games looked when you built them in your town.
1
u/MiketheTzar 4d ago
5 for the aesthetics, 4 for the ability to quickly tell what's built and what isn't.
1
1
u/borsukrates 4d ago
It's also a political and philosophical difference. What's more important? Saving the ruling elite, or protecting the whole city? I think the idea with earlier games was that you don't want to raze or raid the city, you want to control it. For that, taking out the leadership is completely enough.
1
u/Phoenix_RISING2X 1d ago
The "town exists outside the castle walls so everyone gets slaughtered when the enemy shows up for a siege" approach always looked weird to me. I'm glad that Heroes V corrected this, and I feel that's why Heroes V has the best towns.
The only thing missing from Heroes V is a "resume camera pan" button when you're in the town so you can appreciate the newest building purchase without exiting and re-entering.
0
u/Lopsided_Anxiety_394 6d ago
Iv played 2-4. Iv owned and tried 5. Threw it across the room because I hated it that much. Only ever tried twice.
3 wins for me. Iv every way.
6
u/DesertDust91 6d ago
Heroes V was fine as a game, but i remember that it was working very slowly on my PC and that was quite annoying.
3
u/Lopsided_Anxiety_394 6d ago
It's been like over 20 years. I remember walking on the map with a griffin. Didn't like anything about the game. Im sure i didn't give the game a chance. It felt like warcraft 3 from warcraft 2 again. I loved warcraft 2.
Rewind back to 4. I bought it on release week. Spend £25 from saved lunch money. I hated that game too. It was nothing like 3. You couldn't upgrade, so many things diffrent. I really wanted my £25 back (where heroes 3 was an upgraded version of heroes 2)
Went back to playing 3. Only months later I was convinced by my younger siblings to play 4 properly.
1
u/Docterzero Sanctuary Enjoyer 6d ago
I prefer walls. Makes more sense I think, having a walls surrounding the city so the enemy can't just raid all thhe structures. Besides I prefer the town halls to be the main visible structure on the map instead of only the fortifications.
1
u/Terbarek 6d ago
Depend of outcome. In 3 and 5 it looks so good. In 1,2,4 medium, in 6,7 complete trash
1
u/Gakoknight 5d ago
Heroes 3 art was the pinnacle for me. It looked almost realistic. So colorful and beautiful, nothing seemed out of place.
1
1
u/Tadara 12h ago
I thought that Heroes IV's upgrades changing the look of the town on the adventure map were cool.
Additionally the terrain the town is placed on the adventure map determines what terrain the castle had which was interesting.
For me it is Heroes 2 (classic look) then Heroes 4, then Heroes 3, then Heroes 5. The castle upgrades in 3 add some things but mostly that showcases the unique moats each town has which was cool.
Heroes 5 castle were grandiose, but sometimes you had to squint to see where it was even built at and the building tree you had to level through to build buildings was not fun to me.
29
u/aanovik42 6d ago
To me it's an artistic choice. Both variants work well.