Od Studios -- Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
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Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes -- by sector24, 2010-01-11 |
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Developer: Capybara Games
ESRB Rating: 10+
Genre: Puzzle RPG
Platform: DS
Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
Release Date: 12/1/2009
What is Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes?
Clash of Heroes is a role playing game with puzzle based combat set in the world of Heroes of Might and Magic. The story events take place before HOMM V and the heroes and units are from the Might and Magic universe, however no familiarity with the series is necessary and the connection between the two games is extremely small.
The game is broken up into five chapters, and in each chapter you play as a different hero with a different army type (elves, humans, undead, demons, and wizards). The five stories all converge in the final chapter. Finishing the campaign unlocks heroes and units for use in quick battles against the computer and for multiplayer.
What does this game do well?
The meat of the game is the puzzle battles which I'm pleased to say are utterly fantastic. Puzzle Quest is still a great game because of how accessible it is but it is prone to streaks of luck-based cascades and stun locking through turn deprivation which diminish the effect of player skill. These pitfalls are largely avoided in Clash of Heroes and I feel like it is the best puzzle RPG on the market to date.
The 8x6 game board is mostly filled with units of three different colors. You can only move the units at the very back of the board, so if you want to get to someone in the front you have to "dig" them out so to speak. To attack, you line up 3 of the same units vertically. This creates a "formation" in which the units charge up their attack at a future date. Charge times range from 1-3 turns, so a 1 turn charge time means the unit will attack at the beginning of your next turn. Also, a unit formation will push themselves to the front and your idle units will be thrust to the back where you can pick them up and move them.
Alternatively, you can line up 3 or more units horizontally to create a wall. The units used to create the wall disappear and instead a wall piece pushes itself to the front of the board. Walls have no offensive capability but will absorb damage from enemy attacks. Each faction has unique walls, some of them with special effects. For instance, the sylvan walls used by the elves will regenerate 2 hit points each turn and the walls used by demons burn units that destroy the wall, dealing damage over time.
The first player to go receives two turns to pick up and place units and set up formations. After that each player receives three moves per turn. Going first can be a huge advantage, but having only two moves somewhat offsets this. In order to make the most of your turn, you have to utilize chains. For instance, if you move a piece to a position where it creates both an attack formation and a wall formation, that's called a chain and you receive an extra move, effectively giving you back the move you spent. Another way to make chains is to delete units from the battlefield. By pressing the B button on a unit, you can remove him from the battlefield and place him back in your reserves, and all the pieces above him will move forward (hopefully making a formation if you planned ahead). It's actually possible to use 2 turns setting up your pieces, and then use your last turn to create a huge chain that gives you all your moves back plus more. So the gameplay is simple, but strategy plays a big part in winning.
Every attack formation has a number in the corner that represents its power and acts as both its attack damage and its hit points. This number goes up when an attacking formation's charge time goes down at the beginning of each turn, making the formation more powerful over time. When the charge time reaches 0, the formation moves into enemy territory, hitting everything in the way until it hits the enemy player in the back of the field or the number reaches 0. So if a unit's attack power is 10 and it runs into a strength 8 wall, it will destroy the wall and its attack power is reduced to 2. If the next thing it runs into is a charging formation with a strength of 6, it is destroyed and the charging formation is reduced to 4. If there is nothing in the way, it will deal 10 damage to the enemy player. There's no random factor involved and you know exactly what is going to happen so it's all up to player skill to block incoming attacks and make sure that your attacks land.
There are a few ways to make your attack formations more powerful. One is called linking, where units of the same color that are going to attack on the same turn receive a bonus. The units don't have to be the same type, you can link your knights with your spearmen as long as the charge time on them is the same and they are the same color. Another way to boost your power is with a fusion. A fusion occurs when you create two attack formations right on top of each other. In this case the 6 vertical units will combine into 3, and their attack power will be added up into a single powerful unit. This is usually more difficult because it means you can't have a wall in that column, but is great for busting through enemy formations to the player in the back. Fusions need to be the same color and the exact same unit.
The game board consists of 48 squares (8x6) but there are only 20-30 units on the board at any given time. As you delete units to make formations and they charge across the field, your side of the board begins to look a little sparse. However, every unit that leaves the board goes back into your reserves. At any time you can spend one of your moves summoning reinforcements, which will fill your side of the board with random units. However, unlike Puzzle Quest, you cannot make any matches in this fashion. The game intentionally drops units that do not make attack or wall formations, once again eliminating the luck aspect of the game. That doesn't mean you can't get a good drop, it just means that it's up to your skill as a player to take advantage of the situation rather than letting the number generator win for you.
Throughout the campaign you will also unlock elite and champion units. Elite units are 2 squares tall, and need two core units behind them to change into attack formation. Elite units are typically twice as powerful (or more) than a core unit and many of them have special abilities and longer charge times. Champion units are 2x2 and require four core units behind them to change into attack formation. Champion units can be as much as 10x more powerful than core units, but they have long charge times up to 6 turns. Each hero also has a spell meter that fills up when they deal or receive damage. When the spell meter fills up completely, they can use their special ability. These are typically very powerful, but are not always game ending.
Heroes can collect artifacts through the course of the campaign that bestow special abilities to their entire army. Common artifacts increase link or fusion power by 50%, while the more powerful one may grant 5 moves on the first turn instead of 2, free reinforcements, or special abilities for one unit type. Heroes can only use one artifact at a time, but you can change it between battles along with your unit loadout.
Both your hero and your units gain experience after each battle and can level up. There is a level cap which is not too hard to reach both for the hero and for the units, but each level up provides a fairly significant increase in power. In addition to the main objectives for each chapter, there are also several sidequests which result in extra battles, extra artifacts, and even puzzle battles in which you are given a special game board and have to defeat your opponent in only 1 turn.
The game's graphics and sounds are good for the DS but nothing remarkable. The actual units are pretty small so there is a distinct lack of finer detail. The artistic design is fairly standard and while it's not drab, it isn't very exciting either. The music is above average but the sound effects are generic. The entire campaign takes between 20-40 hours depending on how many sidequests you do, but the game feels short. I got the game for Christmas and had beaten it by December 28th. But in retrospect it wasn't because the game was short, but that I simply couldn't put it down. I had to charge the batteries on the DS at least 5 times in those 3 days. The game is terribly addictive and while reading about all of the game's features may make it seem overwhelming, you are eased into the gameplay quite nicely.
What could this game have done better?
Clash of Heroes is a surpsingly good game, especially considering how little marketing was done to promote it. There are only a couple things that could have made the game better. First is the way resources are handled. One of the major features in the Heroes of Might and Magic series is resource gathering. You need gold, lumber, ore, crystals, etc. to purchase your units and build your upgrades. In Clash of Heroes, if your elite or champion units die on the battlefield, they are killed permanently and you have to buy more. You can pick up gold, ore, and crystals on the map, and also as rewards for sidequests. However, most players will never spend much money on their units. Either they won't lose enough to warrant buying more, or they will reload from a previous save if they don't like the outcome of the battle. For the types of people that lose their units in droves, there's only so much money per campaign. It's just not a very good game mechanic. It would have been much nicer if your elite and champion units were immortal and you spent the resources buying artifacts or something to that effect.
What bothered me the most about the game is that some of the sidequests are impossible without being a certain level. For instance, if your units are level 4 and you are facing an opponent whose units are level 5, you can usually squeak out a victory with some fancy strategy and a little luck. But if your units are only level 2 then even a master tactician has no chance of winning. What's worse is that you cannot see the level of your opponent until after you commit to fighting him, so sometimes you just have to reload. It seems like the campaigns were designed for you to follow the main story right up until the end, then go back and do the optional stuff, because if you try to do the optional stuff as soon as it's available, it will be very difficult if not impossible. I would have much preferred if strategy was the deciding factor in everything, but it's not a game breaking issue.
I also did not like the set piece puzzles. The same concept was used in Puzzle Quest and I didn't care for it there either. As a player, either you get the puzzle right away, you get it after a few minutes of thinking, or you never get it at all and have to go to youtube to see someone else do it. It doesn't strike me as a fun challenge as much as an arbitrary hurdle to progression. Thankfully they are optional, but you usually get a worthwhile artifact from completing them so I use that term loosely.
After the campaign (or in lieu of it), you can play a quick battle against the AI. You can select the faction or leave it random (but you can't choose a specific hero), set a difficulty level, and turn artifacts on or off. After playing the quick battles a dozen times or so on the hardest difficulty I have to say that overall the AI is not quite up to the task. In particular the AI is very bad at using champion units, and sometimes it doesn't know how to use the hero's spell. Findan is a good example, his spell reduces the charge time of champion units to 1, but he never uses it. Even if he has two champion units charging (which in itself is extremely rare) he won't use the ability. You can still force a tough match by fighting Anwen, but only because her spell is ridiculously overpowered compared to some, as are elves in general.
My last gripe is that although all the classes and factions are fun, they are not all well balanced. Elves are quite overpowered, wizards (actually just gremlins) are a little overpowered, and the others seem balanced with each other but weak given the overall picture. The hero spells also need some balancing; Anwen's sniper shot is quite overpowered, as is Findan's (but only for human players), while the demon spells are both weak. The longevity of the game lies in the multiplayer and while you could just play your favorite, you'll probably lose to the elves a lot and be forced to play them yourself.
Should I buy this game?
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is a definite contender for DS game of the year. I think it's head and shoulders above Puzzle Quest, and even though you will blow through the campaign quickly it's because the game is addictive not because it's short. The puzzle formula is very well thought out and quite engaging. The campaigns are only ok, but overall it is a title well worth owning.
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