Recent reviews by SHLYAPA

If you're new to the series and want to know why it has so many fans, go play HOMM5. It's a much better game. Or maybe try some of the older ones, they're pretty good and absolutely hold up in this day and age (the third one's even better than the fifth, if you ask some people).

HOMM6 requires you to use Uplay in addition to Steam. This leads to a whole bunch of issues (Steam not tracking your playtime, game refusing to launch for this or that reason, you get the idea). It also introduces a weird element of meta-progression (called "the Dynasty", essentially a way to get incremental advantages by playing a lot of games. It offers some things like additional equipment and passive abilities for your heroes. Luckily, all this can be turned off in the skirmish mode). IMO, the meta-progression is an absolutely pointless and token addition to the game, as it adds no real depth. Pointless unlocks didn't make HOMM the venerable franchise that it is right now, it was the profoundness and quality of its gameplay that laid the foundation of its popularity.

To add insult to injury, this one's essentially abandonware. The people behind the vanilla HOMM6 went bankrupt after the game's release, and Ubisoft passed development rights from one team to another before finally dropping all support for the game completely. As a result, HOMM6 is still kinda raw and incredibly buggy. Check the forums, there's a sticky thread with a list of major game-breaking bugs that you'll have to try and play around if you dare purchase this one. Personally, I haven't encountered any of those, but that may be just because I wasn't able to play the game for long. It simply stopped launching for me at one point, after hanging up on me for like three times in a row whenever I tried to save. Also, after uninstalling the game, I found a bunch of 1,5- to 3,5-gig files in my savegame folder. Yeah, the game basically crapped into my C drive as a final "screw you". The sad thing is that the game itself isn't terrible, really. Still, probably not worth your money. As I said earlier, go buy HOMM5 instead.