Contents:

The Intro

The Game

The Replay

The Verdict

The Intro

Title: Hard West

Release year: 2015

Developed by: CreativeForge Games

Genre: Turn-based tactics

Platform replayed on: PC

Wild. Style.

Hard West, a turn-based tactics game set in the American Wild West. A game with style.

I first played Hard West a few years after it was first released, but it’s been a few more years since I’ve last spent time with it. What has stuck in the back of my mind since playing it is this word, style.

But what do I mean by “style”? It’s such a subjective term anyway.

Was it the foreboding, monotone narrator that speaks to you as you play? Was it the narrative itself, a violent Wild West tale of struggle and revenge, with a supernatural twist? Was it the visual style? Or was it the luck-based mechanic and poker-style character upgrades?

Perhaps it was the overall presentation of Hard West that conjures up these recollections.

But style without substance does not a good game make. It’s got to have good gameplay, and it’s got to be fun to play.

Is Hard West the complete package? Does Hard West deliver on the substance, as well as the style?

It’s time to grab your six-shooter and saddle up as we head west into Hard West.

The Game

Hard West is a turn-based tactics game at its core, but before you get anywhere close to guns blazing, this is the Wild West, and there’s a tale to be told.

The story is ever present in Hard West, with a narrator not only introducing the story and missions, but providing commentary throughout.

Hard West begins with a six-year-old Warren on the Oregon Trail with his parents.

Life is a struggle, and Warren’s father ends up on the wrong side of a band of outlaws and the whole family is captured. Breaking free, Warren’s father sets out to find his wife. This is where the tutorial mission begins, and you get your first opportunity to load up and let loose some rounds on the tactical map.

Hard West splits its time between the tactical map, where the gunfights take place, and the strategic map, where you can explore locations and undertake side missions. Anyone familiar with the XCOM series will feel at home with Hard West.

You have the standard action points when on the tactical map, and for the most part, it’s all about movement, cover, shooting, and reloading.

Hard West differs from other tactical shooters with its shooting mechanics. Where other games take into account conditions such as range, shooter skill, weapon type, and cover of target to determine the chance to hit and then randomly generate the result, Hard West takes out the randomness by using a target’s luck.

Wait, luck?

Intuitively, this doesn’t make sense at all, until you understand how luck actually works.

Basically, each time a shot is fired at a target, the target’s luck total is reduced by the shooter’s chance-to-hit percentage. But you don’t know what the target’s luck total is. You just know that if you keep shooting at the same target, their luck will run out eventually. When luck is reduced to zero, the shot hits.

As a quick example, if you have a 75% chance to hit a target, but their luck is 80, you’ll miss. But their luck will be reduced to 5, so anyone else shooting at the same target that turn will hit them.

It seems counter-intuitive, as you see your percentage chance to hit, but then the success of the shot doesn’t depend on a randomly generated result at all. Once you grasp this mechanic in Hard West, it drives your strategy, as luck can regenerate. As a target, you can’t stay in one place for too long, as if the enemy is able to see you, they will hit you eventually. Once a target is hit, their luck total is significantly replenished, and the cycle starts again.

Taking cover is still a good tactical decision, as the lower the chance-to-hit percentage, the lower the hit the luck total will take.

Visually, I like the look of the tactical missions in Hard West. You can rotate your view, and zoom in, which is most useful when planning your moves to ensure you click the correct square on the map grid.

Gunfire produces great sounds and smoke effects, and the hits are suitably bloody.

Tactical missions in Hard West are usually last-person-standing affairs, where the aim is to take out all of your enemies.

There is variation in mission design though, where some missions don’t start out in combat mode. This leaves opportunities to move your team into good positions, search areas, attempt rescues, and subdue enemies prior to guns being drawn.

The strategic map in Hard West moves the story along, as you explore the territory you’re in by visiting places of interest.

Essentially, these excursions provide you the opportunity to develop your characters by acquiring new equipment. Better equipment will provide boosts to character statistics such as health, luck, movement, and aim.

Character statistics are also impacted by boons and afflictions, which can come about from actions taken during the side missions on the strategic map.

There is also a thematic system for improving character statistics through the use of poker ability cards. Having up to five poker-card slots available, you can further boost the impact of individual cards by forming poker hands.

There’s a lot to like in the implementation of the strategic map in Hard West, with the wide range of firearms and stat-boosting trinkets and consumables on offer, to the branching choices of locations to visit and explore.

Hard West does explore some challenging themes, as it’s not purely a classic Wild West tale of revenge. I played through the first two scenarios in Hard West (out of eight, which you don’t have to play in order), and by the end had come across the occult, the undead, human sacrifices, and cannibalism (those latter two being optional).

Hard West appropriately falls under the “Weird West” genre, which mixes traditional Western stereotypes with horror and science fiction.

But before we get weird, I think it’s time we rejoin Warren’s father as he sets out on his own to find his wife and bring about some frontier-style justice for his family…

The Replay

The first scenario mission is a tutorial mission, but it doesn’t hold your hand long. Once you’ve learned how to move, take cover, and shoot, you’re on your own.

You lead Warren’s father through the outlaws’ camp and teach them that they messed with the wrong guy today.

Unfortunately for Warren’s father, there’s a grim discovery awaiting him once the last outlaw standing has breathed his last.

There’s also the foreshadowing of the horror to come, as before the last outlaw died, he was rambling about some unholy obligation.

More than a decade passes, as Warren and his father continue the struggle for survival. They turn to mining, as a gold rush comes their way, in the hope of making it to Oregon.

This leads to the strategic map, as you purchase some prospecting operations from “The Masked Man” who controls the mining in the area.

Mining allows you to build up some cash reserves to purchase better equipment and engage with other side missions.

It’s an interesting experience traversing the strategic map, as you never know when you might need cash or what you might need it for. For example, following an attack on the homestead, you can opt to build an escape tunnel in case of further raids. If you don’t have the cash, you can’t build it, and even if you do have the cash, you won’t know if or when you’ll need this tunnel and what benefit it might provide.

And speaking of the attack on the homestead, this becomes the second tactical mission. Warren is also further invested in protecting his territory, as he has fallen in love with a woman named Florence.

So there’s a love story in Hard West. From a tactical perspective, Florence becomes part of the team. Turns out she’s pretty handy with a firearm.

The homestead mission sees you starting inside your house as bandits swarm in. It’s a claustrophobic encounter with nowhere to hide. It’s a tricky balance of moving from window to window, reloading, and taking out the invaders when you spot them.

Following this homestead defence, Florence discovers her parents didn’t survive the attack. It’s at that point she decides to fight back.

Warren also has other concerns, as his father has been persuaded by a mysterious and charismatic man to buy a lucky amulet. Warren’s father is sick of the struggle, and has succumbed to the supernatural.

But Warren’s father’s frustrations will have to wait. The local Mexican crime lord has been demanding more and more of your gold mining profits the more successful you have become. Florence chooses to secretly parley on your behalf, and is promptly captured.

It’s time for a rescue mission in Hard West.

This mission makes use of the subdue command, where you can use stealth and force enemies to “stick ‘em up”.

Using this to your advantage, subduing a guard frees up the other member of your team to sneak into The Mexican’s compound and steal the jail key.

This not only allows you to free Florence, but also lock some guards inside an area of the compound, thereby reducing the numbers in the final shootout.

And there is a shootout, as soon as you free Florence.

Here’s a gameplay video of the Florence rescue mission:

Following the mission, and to no one’s surprise, Warren’s father’s amulet doesn’t work and soon disintegrates. This leaves Warren’s father distraught, and he soon spirals and ends up cursed. Eventually, he leaves.

It’s just Warren and Florence now in Hard West. And there’s smoke on the horizon.

The homestead has been set on fire and it’s a final defence.

It’s very similar to the earlier homestead mission, except bandits are already in the house. If you built the escape tunnel mentioned above, you can start the mission inside the house.

It’s a repetitive affair.

And following the final shot, it’s also the final affair in the first scenario mission.

Storywise, Warren and Florence are now on the run. But from a gameplay perspective, this was an abrupt and unexpected end. There were only four tactical missions, and two of them were quite similar. I know cliffhanger endings build up the suspense, but this was all over too quickly.

But what next for Warren and Florence in Hard West? Do they make it?

Let’s find out.

Where the first scenario only hinted at some supernatural forces, with Warren’s father and the cursed amulet, the second scenario immediately puts the “weird” in “Weird West”.

So Warren has been offered the solution to all his problems in return for his soul. Yep, that old classic soul trading tale.

But Warren doesn’t budge.

But maybe he should have. Gunmen are surrounding the saloon Warren and Florence are in…

You can’t win this fight, and Warren has to watch Florence die, before he gets overwhelmed himself.

But Warren takes the deal with his dying breath.

And awakens in a coffin outside the saloon.

Take a look at the intro to the As Good as Dead scenario:

It’s time for an undead revenge, as Warren takes on the whole town.

Now, you can’t actually take on the whole town, as if you end up with Warren surrounded by too many hired gunmen, you ain’t gonna last long.

I decided to hole up in a building and slowly snipe encroaching targets.

In Hard West (at least on the normal difficulty I was playing on), the gunmen never completely swarm you, but wait for you to make the first move. In this mission, I had to take peeks outside and around the building to spot the targets.

I was never left facing more than a couple of targets at a time, so I easily picked them off. What was strange at the end was finding four gunmen congregating in the next room of the building, just waiting for Warren to show his face.

So the AI was a bit unusual in this mission, as these four gunmen could have just swarmed Warren and made life (death?) difficult for him.

At least if undead Warren takes a hit, he now has the Nightmare Regeneration power, which allows him to recover health each turn when it’s dark or he’s in the shadows.

Following this undead rampage, the stranger who offered you the deal with the devil tells you he can help you find “The Masked Man”, but that he doesn’t want to do so too easily and spoil the hunt.

Warren thinks he can cause enough damage himself to bring “The Masked Man” out of hiding on his own.

In this second scenario, the objective is to cause enough property damage and take your revenge.

There is also an optional side mission involving killing 100 people along the journey of the main scenario. This is where the human sacrifice comes in, as you can offer the companions you come across up at an Indian totem of a despicable god.

I decided against sacrificing my companions, as I preferred them to be breathing and to have a gun in their hands during the tactical missions.

The next mission is another rescue mission, where someone by the name of Old Man Murray is being held captive. Old Man Murray might have some information on “The Masked Man”.

Time is of the essence, as Old Man Murray happens to be a captive on a cannibal farm.

Old Man Murray’s on the clock in the mission, as you need to rescue him within ten turns or he’ll bleed out. Or you can just leave him to die. Ten turns is more than enough time to get to him, and that’s what I decided to do, subduing one of his guards.

Again, I was more interested in whether or not Old Man Murray could handle a six shooter than sacrificing him.

A more disturbing choice is also presented in this mission: Do you allow Warren to partake in some of the meat from the farm?

The more I reflected on this choice, the more disturbed I was by it. I’m just glad it was a choice, and I’ll leave it at that.

It’s not long before you locate “The Masked Man” and prepare for the final showdown. This would only be the third mission of the scenario. Again, it felt like this scenario was ending before it really got started. Or perhaps more accurately, most of your time in Hard West feels like it’s on the strategic map and not in tactical missions, which you might expect given the genre.

You do get one more opportunity at a tactical mission with an optional one involving a rather wealthy demon.

It was a straight-forward mission, ending in a final shootout with the demon.

He was tough, as he had more health than normal enemies, and his health regenerated. It took some concentrated fire from my team of three before his luck ran out.

The riches were worth it, with some more gold, special items, and a handful of poker cards to assist with the final mission preparation.

Like the previous three missions in this second Hard West scenario, there was not much to do in the final mission except take everyone out.

It didn’t always go to plan, but with Warren able to regenerate health, a slow and methodical approach to moving across the map to where “The Masked Man” was holed up.

It definitely helped having two hired guns with me (rather than sacrificing them…), as the guards on the compound were tougher.

Finally, “The Masked Man” revealed himself.

After trading long-distance snipes at each other for a few turns, “The Masked Man” soon came up close and personal.

But by this stage it was three versus one, and Warren and his little posse prevailed.

While a satisfying revenge for Warren, to avenge his death and Florence’s death, what of Warren’s soul?

And what of the voice in Warren’s head telling him that Florence can still be saved, with her soul trapped in purgatory?

Well, that’s a tale for another time…

The Verdict

So is Hard West more style than substance?

To put it this way, I think the greatest strength in Hard West is also its greatest weakness, and that is its pace.

Hard West is a fast-moving experience. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on what you’re looking for.

The visuals, the sound effects, the narration, they all draw you into Hard West. But scratch beneath the surface, and you might find yourself wanting more out of this Weird West experience.

I found myself wishing both scenarios were longer. You start to invest in the characters and the storyline, and then it’s over after several tactical missions and you have to start again with a new scenario. Following the first scenario, it’s a non-linear progression, with three branches to choose from.

The tactical missions themselves are short and repetitive affairs. The effect this had on me was I felt like I was spending more time on the strategic map than in shootouts.

The narratives that accompany the side missions on the strategic map are well done, and it’s almost like a choose-your-own adventure story. They add depth to the stories, but are very tangential to the tactical missions—I wondered how much they actually enhanced the overall tactical experience.

And should you want to experiment with choices made in either the strategic or tactical maps, the save-game system prevents this, as Hard West autosaves for you. Once you make a decision on the strategic map, you’re locked into it. If you want to try a different approach, you have to start the scenario again.

Likewise, on the tactical missions, Hard West autosaves at the start and at the end. There are no mid-mission saves available. So, you have to complete each mission in one sitting. If you fail a mission, you don’t fail the scenario, and can reattempt it.

While it was sometimes frustrating not to have the flexibility to save my game whenever I wanted, the short tactical missions and short scenarios work well with this save-game system. If you find yourself needing to restart a mission or a scenario, you’re not losing hours of effort. I found myself in both situations, and it wasn’t as much of an annoyance as I thought it would be.

It was a nice change of pace from mission-based games where you can save at any time, as it forced me to not just think out my next move on the battlefield and the strategic map, but it forced me to accept the consequences and follow the story through to the end.

Hard West scenarios are short and deadly affairs, and this fits the Wild West theme. If you go in knowing what to expect (and what not to expect) the overall experience will be more enjoyable. To do so, you need to embrace the abundance of style Hard West brings with its visual presentation, narration, and Wild West-inspired mechanics (such as luck and poker cards), and be forgiving of the repetitive missions and fast-paced scenarios.

Hard West may not have the deepest gameplay, and I didn’t care for the more extreme themes in these Weird West vignettes. But Hard West is one gaming experience where style over substance actually works.

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The post Hard West appeared first on Present Perfect Gaming.

Contents:

The Intro

The Game

The Replay

The Verdict

The Intro

Title: Heroes Chronicles

Release year: 2000

Developed by: New World Computing

Genre: Turn-based strategy

Platform replayed on: PC

Just one more turn.

As I wrote in my replay of Heroes of Might and Magic II, it wasn’t the Civilization series that introduced me to the “just one more turn” syndrome.

I also wrote that the third entry, Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999), was probably my favourite in the series.

I played countless hours in the early 2000s, and have considered featuring it here on Present Perfect Gaming for a while now. The decision to actually do so was brought about from my recent discovery that the expansions to Heroes of Might and Magic III, Armageddon’s Blade (1999) and The Shadow of Death (2000), were not the only expansions…

Heroes Chronicles was a series of campaigns released in eight standalone instalments through 2000-2001, following the release of The Shadow of Death.

It appears these instalments were designed as a lower-cost entry point to the main Heroes of Might and Magic III game. They don’t feature multiplayer, single-player non-campaign scenarios, or the map editor function.

To me it looks like an early form of episodic content, which I became familiar with in the mid-2000s with games developed by Telltale Games (such as the Sam & Max series). After all, if you bought all of these Heroes Chronicles releases, I’m sure you would have ended up spending much more than the cost of the main game and its two sequels…

But I digress. How did I not know that there was more to Heroes of Might and Magic III?? It’s also been on GOG.com for over ten years and I’ve never picked up on it.

My only defence is that the “Might and Magic” phrase doesn’t appear in the title of Heroes Chronicles. (I’ll admit that’s a weak defence…)

Having just discovered the existence of Heroes Chronicles, I thought it was a good opportunity to revisit an old favourite, but be able to experience it through a new campaign.

The Game

Heroes Chronicles continues the fantasy turn-based strategy tradition established with the release of Heroes of Might and Magic (1995), and is essentially a series of standalone expansions to Heroes of Might and Magic III. 

The first instalment, or chapter, in Heroes Chronicles is titled Warlords of the Wasteland. It’s actually set before the events in Heroes of Might and Magic III, and follows the rise of Tarnum, a barbarian hero. Throughout this first chapter in Heroes Chronicles, you lead Tarnum through eight campaign missions.

Gameplay is the same as it has always been in Heroes of Might and Magic. From the strategic map, you control Tarnum and any other heroes for hire you acquire. From this view, you move your heroes and their forces around the map. Each turn is one day, with heroes having a limited amount of movement available to them each day. The strategic map is all about exploration, acquisition of resources, and conquering territory.

To build your forces, you need to control and maintain your towns and castles. These bases serve to generate military units. Building new structures provides access to new units.

But to build these structures, particularly those generating more powerful units, you will need those all-important resources.

Often, to gain control of resource-generating structures, you’ll need to fight for it. This brings you to the tactical map, where you control your hero and their forces on the battlefield.

You’ll also need to head out onto the battlefield when you come across enemy heroes and towns.

It’s often the familiar formula of securing your resources, building up your forces, and taking out your enemies that will bring success in Heroes Chronicles.

There are roleplaying-game elements, as Tarnum and any other heroes you recruit can level up, mostly through experience gained from combat. Hero levels provide primary skill increases, which predominantly aid you on the battlefield.

Levelling up also provides access to secondary skills, which your heroes can utilise on or off the battlefield depending on the skill. For example, the Logistics and Pathfinding skills provide more movement and make it easier to traverse difficult terrain, where the Leadership skill provides better morale to your units on the battlefield, making it more likely they’ll gain bonus attacks.

Levelling up is important, as you lead Tarnum in each campaign scenario, and usually carry your other heroes forward as well. It’s a lot better bringing experienced heroes with you into a new mission than recruiting new ones.

Another roleplaying element is inventory management. Tarnum and your other heroes can acquire artifacts, from exploration as well as from defeated enemy heroes. These artifacts can be equipped on the hero, and can provide bonuses such as increasing primary skills in combat or increasing resource generation.

If you’re new to the Heroes of Might and Magic series, I provide a more in-depth overview of the gameplay in my replay of Heroes of Might and Magic II. Though a different game, the underlying engine is similar.

With that said, I think it’s time we join lowly Tarnum the Barbarian and see how he became an immortal king…

The Replay

The Heroes Chronicles intro video is shorter, and much less epic than the intro to Heroes of Might and Magic III. I also found it slightly confusing.

The video shows Tarnum being slain on the battlefield, before appearing before a council of ancestors in the afterlife. This council decides Tarnum isn’t ready for eternal rest just yet, and sends him back to the land of the living.

I assumed this would be the start of his journey, but the narration then addresses the audience and suggests we want to know how Tarnum rose to become a great hero. Basically, it’s one of those stories that starts at the end. I just found it out of place, and would have thought the intro video could have been used to better effect introducing the actual story.

Apparently, it is important, as the first campaign mission states that knowing where it all began for Tarnum will aid in understanding him…

Perhaps it will all make more sense once I’ve played through this first chapter, or perhaps the entirety of Heroes Chronicles. It’s an intriguing start from a narrative perspective. I know Heroes of Might and Magic III is a great game, but can Heroes Chronicles deliver a satisfying story-driven experience?

The first campaign mission sees you needing to defeat the current lord of the barbarian clans, Rabak, so Tarnum can name himself king. Nothing too serious, then…

The story is front and centre during missions, as over the first few turns you get a lot of narrative text. The overall objective of this campaign is to overthrow the Wizard-Kings who rule the land once held by the great barbarian conqueror, Jarg.

This first mission is on a small map, which usually means the scramble for territory and resources will be swift and brutal.

I took Tarnum east, and soon found another barbarian town to liberate.

Towns are important, as they provide you with income each turn, as well as generating units to hire each week.

The story continues to develop, as Tarnum soon learns that the people no longer remember the time of Jarg. As such, Tarnum decides to seek out bards across the land, the storytellers and holders of history. Tarnum is hoping the bards will be able to help the population reclaim their identity and therefore support his aim to reconquer the barbarian lands.

Over the first two weeks, as well as taking over another barbarian town, Tarnum had levelled up multiple times and acquired a gold mine (increasing daily income). He now controlled the northern half of the map.

For a look at the gameplay over the first two weeks, check out my video on YouTube:

It was now time to turn Tarnum’s attention south, to seek out Rabak, and strengthen his claim to becoming King of the Barbarians.

So far, playing on the normal difficulty setting, progress had been straight forward. This first mission had been relatively low power, where you quickly muster your forces and start marching forward. This wasn’t going to be an epic battle—it was going to be a set of quick skirmishes.

Playing Heroes Chronicles came naturally to me; my experiences with Heroes of Might and Magic III had served me well. It all came back to me, particularly how to build up your towns and manage your resources. By the time I headed south, I had built up a reasonable force to hunt down Rabak.

Sadly for Tarnum, he discovers there are only four bards left. Like progress on the strategic map, the story progresses quickly in Heroes Chronicles.

At this point in the mission, I acquired a second hero. Though I didn’t need to in order to be victorious in this opening mission, knowing that I could bring this other hero forward into the following mission meant it was strategically advantageous to do so. A levelled-up second hero is better than acquiring a level one hero in the next mission.

It wasn’t long until I located Rabak and sized up his strength.

Tarnum was more than ready for this fight.

With Rabak defeated, his home base quickly fell.

Tarnum’s success has not gone unnoticed among the Wizard-Kings—the next mission in Heroes Chronicles sees Tarnum with a target on his back.

Instead of fighting barbarians, this mission sees you taking on a new opposition in Tower towns and units. The Tower town is one of eight original town types in Heroes of Might and Magic III. In this first chapter of Heroes Chronicles, you use the barbarian-themed Stronghold town type. Across the eight campaign missions, you only end up experiencing four of the eight town types, so Heroes Chronicles is more tightly focussed (or restrictive, depending on how you look at it).

The second mission also takes place on a small map, and with three Tower towns to conquer, there wasn’t going to be much room to move without coming across the enemy.

Moving quickly, I managed to take the Tower town to the northwest, and secured the western front.

This also meant access to Tower units.

Pressing the advantage, I led Tarnum east and took the Tower town in the northeast.

Nearing the end of this mission, I also managed to upgrade my Stronghold town to provide the strongest units: Behemoths (and the upgraded version: Greater Behemoths).

The final town was no match for Tarnum’s forces now.

The third mission changed up the victory condition. Instead of just conquering all enemy forces, there was a time limit. The remaining bards had been captured, and were now being ransomed in exchange for Tarnum’s life. The bards will be executed in three months’ time…

This mission was again on a small map, but the approach to the captor was restricted and linear due to the need to access a series of border guards across the map in order to progress into new territories.

At the start of the third week, one of the bards is executed.

Finding the border guards didn’t prove too challenging, and I managed to find the Tower town where the remaining bards were being held captive early in the second month.

Tarnum and his army made short work of the defenders, and the bards were freed.

The next mission sees Tarnum attempting to “unite” more forces under his banner. This time, you head into the Mudlands, which happens to be in the middle of a civil war.

You’ll be battling the Fortress towns, which produce armies of deadly creatures like basilisks, wyverns, and hydras.

But before you can lead Tarnum into the harsh, swamp-infested territory, he receives a captivating visitor.

It seems Tarnum will have a love interest in this story. Yalla, this mysterious warrior, informs Tarnum of what he’s up against, with three factions fighting amongst themselves.

She wasn’t wrong, as I hadn’t even managed to get Tarnum into enemy territory before one faction was eliminated.

For a few turns, the attention turns to Yalla’s story, but it isn’t long before it’s back to the mission at hand. This mission is the first in Heroes Chronicles to take place on a larger map, and once you head north the terrain is more difficult to travel over on the strategic map.

On larger maps, you’ll need to manage your supply lines. As I took Tarnum north, I used my other hero to transport the additional units to him each week.

Heading north, I didn’t encounter much resistance, and soon took the northeast and eliminated another faction.

Sweeping west, it wasn’t long until the civil war was ended with the submission of the third faction.

This victory brought the halfway point in this first chapter of Heroes Chronicles. The next mission was to be a long, hard-fought battle through a heavily fortified region.

This mission saw the introduction of the Castle town, with its clerics and knight heroes marshalling ground troops and cavalry alongside griffons and angels.

Taking place on another large map, you learn that nobody has ever been able to conquer this mountainous territory. It would take a large force to be the first.

At this point, there was a certain sameness to the missions that was beginning to frustrate. You always start each mission with a Stronghold town, with very few structures and a very small force. So each mission so far in Heroes Chronicles, you have to go through that same build up of structures and forces.

At least in this mission, there was the novelty of another new enemy to take on, and a new town type to manage once I’d started capturing them.

It wasn’t a particularly challenging mission, but it did take a while to fully explore the map.

In the end, I had entered the fourth month when the final town was captured.

Now when I complained just above about each mission restarting you with a small force, which thematically didn’t always make much sense as you’ve usually just amassed a rather large force in the previous mission, the next mission resorts to using the story to justify it.

Yes, that’s right. Having just put together a force so large and strong that it could conquer the mountain passes for the first time in history, you lose it all to a trap. An ambush.

Once again, we find Tarnum weak and surrounded by enemies.

From the narrative perspective, this mission, and the one following it, were about regrouping and building a force that could finally defeat the Wizard-Kings. From a gameplay perspective, these two missions just felt like they extended the campaign out for no good reason.

I also didn’t like the direction the story was taking, with Tarnum seemingly more extremist in his desire to wipe out the mages from the map.

The penultimate mission felt particularly egregious when confronted with peasant rebellions.

Tarnum believes the local populace is either with him or against him. Despite the peasants’ fear that siding with Tarnum will lead to retribution from the Wizard-Kings, Tarnum mercilessly slaughters them all.

I found it hard from this point to separate the story in Heroes Chronicles from the game I was playing and enjoying.

I wanted to play the hero, but this felt anything but heroic.

The final mission and conclusion of this first chapter of Heroes Chronicles did provide me with clarification and closure, however.

The mission itself was long, and fairly linear. It takes place on a large map, but it isn’t all accessible from the beginning. You also lose any other heroes you had built up.

It provided its challenges, where for the first time in the campaign I had heroes and towns defeated.

After nearly four months, I finally found the portal to the location of the final border guard tent.

Tarnum could then cross the border and lay siege to the final town loyal to the Wizard-Kings.

The campaign was over. The barbarian lands were liberated. But what of Tarnum? Would he become a benevolent leader, or despicable despot?

The Verdict

Let’s get back to that closure I mentioned just above.

Remember how in the beginning of the campaign it was stated that knowing where Tarnum came from will aid in understanding him, and why he was judged unworthy of the afterlife?

Over the course of the campaign, Tarnum had turned into a tyrant.

So it was foreshadowed, and it did come to pass.

In the beginning it was about liberation, but as it progressed it became about conquering and subjugating. Heroes Chronicles tells a descent-into-madness story of a flawed hero.

I’m not opposed to playing morally ambiguous characters, or exploring difficult themes. The lack of agency is what ultimately troubled me.

Heroes of Might and Magic is a series portraying good versus evil; there are good heroes and evil heroes. Heroes of Might and Magic III introduced neutral towns and heroes, and interestingly, Tarnum’s Stronghold town type is one of these neutral towns. Narratively then, it seemed there could have been space for Tarnum to make a choice along the way. In the game, this could have provided mission choices and alternative pathways.

This was actually featured in Heroes of Might and Magic II, where at the outset you choose to play the good or evil campaign. Even mid-campaign, there is a choice where you can turn traitor.

I understand it wouldn’t have been canon, as Tarnum already had a back story, and Heroes Chronicles provides his origin story. But that doesn’t matter, as we see this in gaming, particularly often in real-time strategy games like Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. There’s always a canon ending to each instalment, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play it a different way.

I appreciate that incorporating story into real-time-strategy and turn-based-strategy games isn’t easy, as success in these genres largely depends on the strength of the gameplay. But it can be done well, like in the Command & Conquer series. Those campy cutscenes don’t distract or take away from the core gameplay, but enhance the experience.

In Heroes Chronicles, I like the intention of a story-driven campaign, but the amount of narrative text was substantial enough to become an annoyance, and the lack of choice led me down a path I didn’t enjoy.

As for the actual gameplay, Heroes Chronicles continues the excellence established in Heroes of Might and Magic III. Even after many years, it all came flooding back to me, and felt immediately comfortable. There was something cathartic about how intuitive it was to play, being so familiar with the gameplay.

Playing on the normal difficulty level, I found the campaign very easy to progress through. Veterans of the series might want to play at a higher difficulty.

As I stated earlier, I wanted to know whether Heroes Chronicles could deliver a satisfying story-driven experience. Perhaps the other chapters improve upon this start.

But just remember, in this first chapter of Heroes Chronicles, you’re on rails, and there is no exit at the next station if you find yourself wanting to get off.

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Contents:

The Intro

The Game

The Replay

The Verdict

The Intro

Title: Warcraft: Orcs and Humans

Release year: 1994

Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment

Genre: real-time strategy (RTS)

Platform replayed on: PC

I played a lot of real-time strategy in the late 90s, mostly across the Warcraft, Command & Conquer, and Age of Empire series. What still makes me smile after all these years from the Warcraft series is the humour.

Take this example from Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, when repeatedly clicking on a unit:

“My liege?”

…

“Yes?”

…

“What?”

…

“What do you want??”

…

“Why do you keep touching me?!”

I’m sure anyone familiar with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans will remember these lines well.

The fourth wall breaking moments got a lot funnier and more varied in the sequel, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995). But as you can see, the series’ famously quirky fantasy humour started here in the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

I’m not sure exactly when I first played Warcraft: Orcs & Humans; I can only narrow it down to the late 90s/early 2000s, and that was only after I had already played a tonne of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.

Coming to the series a few years after its initial releases, I didn’t have copies of my own to play. I remember borrowing a copy of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness from family friends.

That all changed when I managed to get my hands on the Warcraft Battle Chest!

I must admit, I do miss physical releases of PC games, and especially sets like the Warcraft Battle Chest which combined sequels and/or expansions. Many years later, I would pick up the Starcraft Battle Chest, which even included strategy guides.

While I bought the Warcraft Battle Chest primarily to continue to play Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, it also allowed me to try Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, and see how the series all began.

Let’s crack open that chest and take a look.

The Game

The title says it all, really: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. It’s that classic fantasy battle between orcs and humans.

As the story goes, the orcs opened a portal between their world and the human world, Azeroth. Raiding on human lands became bolder and bolder, but somehow the humans managed to drive the orcs back. Realising that the humans were united, tactically superior, and aided by powerful magic, a war chief seeks to organise the orcish hordes into a war machine and devour the humans once and for all…

This is where you join the game, and of course, you have a choice to make: whose side are you on?

While on the surface the premise is standard fantasy fare, there is a surprising amount of background lore provided in the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans manual. There are multiple pages dedicated to the orcish and human histories, illustrating how we got to where we are at the start of the game.

A whole setting is established. Characters are introduced. Timelines are laid out. Backstories provide context for the struggle. It’s impressive, and it provided the basis for the ongoing series, including the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game juggernaut that is World of Warcraft (2004).

Heading out onto the battlefield, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans has a more skirmish than epic siege feeling compared with Command & Conquer and Age of Empires. The maps are small, and each skirmish usually only involves a handful of units on each side.

In Warcraft: Orcs & Humans you are limited to selecting a maximum of four units at a time, which inevitably requires a lot of micromanagement.

Micromanaging usually has a negative connotation, but here it’s about being more zoomed in: you’re commanding small squads, and you need to lead them.

Resource generation to build your armies is simple, and involves recruiting peasants (humans) or peons (orcs) to mine for gold and chop trees for wood. It’s a well-known real-time strategy formula now: harvest resources and build up units faster than your opponent.

It’s an interesting balance in the early game though, as these peasant and peon units are quite expensive relative to battle units. Do you recruit that extra peasant to speed up your resource generation, or do you recruit that footman or archer to bolster your base defences? A poorly defended base can quickly become overrun, but if you’re not getting that gold and wood in quickly enough, your forces will fall behind.

Base building involves building enough farms to feed your troops (in other words, allows you to recruit units) and building unit generating or unit enhancing structures.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is an offensive game. Once you have your economy established and enough units to defend against any base incursion, it’s time to think about attacking. There’s little in terms of structures you can build to defend your base, so the best defence is really a good offence.

The two sides don’t differ much in terms of units. The human footman, archer, and knight units have their equivalents in the orcish grunt, spearman, and raider units respectively. 

Both sides can build catapults for powerful long-ranged attacks.

But when it comes to magic, the two sides have slightly different units and spells available. Both sides have two spell-casting units, and mastering how you manage these units and their spells is critical to success in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

The humans can recruit clerics, who can cast healing spells. If managed well, saving units from dying is a huge advantage, increasing their longevity and removing the need to replace them.

The orcish equivalent is the necrolyte, and while they can’t heal, they can cast the frustrating unholy armour spell. This spell makes a unit temporarily invulnerable to attack.

The other two spell-casting units, the human conjurer and the orcish warlock, have access to summoning spells, producing the most powerful and fear-inducing units in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans: water elementals and daemons.

Essentially, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is an arms race. It follows the familiar real-time strategy unit and technology tree model, where building prerequisite structures allows access to new structures, units, and upgrades (spells, for example). The faster you branch out, the better your chance of success.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans features two campaigns, allowing you to play through a series of connected missions. The now-familiar real-time strategy approach sees early campaign missions effectively acting as tutorials, introducing new units and structures as you go along.

But let’s not just talk about the campaign—let’s choose a side and raise/raze some armies!

The Replay

As I was with Command & Conquer, I was hesitant to cover another real-time strategy game here on Present Perfect Gaming, despite the genre holding a special place in my gaming history. I wasn’t sure I would be able to get over the learning curve and complete a campaign in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. I knew I had done it before, but having to master the micromanagement required by being quick on the hotkeys was not an exciting prospect.

But one step at a time, I thought. Let’s just get through some of those early tutorial-like missions and see how I go. Besides, as with Command & Conquer, I was interested in more than just the real-time battles. I wanted to explore the campaign story and experience any mission variety on offer besides the classic base race and elimination objectives.

I wanted to know if Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a worthwhile gaming experience, now almost thirty years since its original release.

Siding with the humans, the first mission sees you being given the incredible responsibility of building some farms and a barracks.

First problem though—I couldn’t even select, let alone move, my units. Trying to drag a box around units with the mouse didn’t work. When I selected a single unit by clicking on it, right clicking to move didn’t work.

I had to look up the manual, to understand that you can select multiple units (up to that maximum of four) by dragging a box around them, but that you also need to hold down a hotkey. And moving units or getting them to perform an action? Hotkeys. Or else you have to actually select the action from an action window (to the left of the main window) and then select your target on the map.

I had to learn the hotkeys!

It’s actually possible to complete this mission without combat—you can quite happily gather your gold and lumber in peace until you have enough to build your farms and barracks.

But call it curiosity, bloodlust, or just impatience, I just had to get my hands at least a little dirty. It is Warcraft, after all.

It turns out I could have just waited until the second mission to get my hands dirty, as all that is required is to wipe out orcish forces in the vicinity of your base.

Another simple task, though it does see your base getting approached early. You have to be ready to defend before getting adventurous beyond your borders.

The following mission is a progression from destroying orcish forces, to destroying a base. This time, you’re leaving the lush-green pastures of the human lands and venturing into the more barren swamplands of the orcish settlements.

The graphics haven’t aged well in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, but it was nice to see some variety in the map design.

This mission also saw the introduction of magic, with clerics being available.

Of course, that also meant the orcs were bringing their necrolytes…

Protecting against attacks from the north and the west, I managed to start building up an attack force.

Once ready, I advanced my forces into position and took on the orc base.

After completing these “tutorial” missions, the campaign story gets going with an important rescue mission.

This is the first mission which doesn’t follow the traditional base-building model. Here, you have a finite number of units, and must survive a journey underground to find and rescue Sir Lothar, loyal servant to King Llane, Lord of Azeroth.

This maze-like mission is a slow grind, navigating your forces through tight tunnels, and wiping out anything standing in your way.

The presence of clerics means there’s no real danger if you manage your units well and keep them healed.

Usually, this involves the classic real-time strategy of “kiting”. Lead a single unit into the fog of war hiding enemy territory until you encounter something aggressive, and then lure them back into an awaiting ambush.

In Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the fog of war is permanently removed from the map once you uncover it, so you can always see enemy approaches from any part of the uncovered map from that point forward.

Finding Lothar was easy, though it was a bit annoying having to then march him all the way to the underground exit, right back where you started the mission.

The next mission sees a return to base building, and really serves only to introduce you to the horse-mounted knight units—and their orc raider counterparts.

Secure your base, build up, wipe out the orc base. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again.

The halfway point in the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans human campaign is a slight variation to that familiar mission formula, which sees you having to put down a mutiny within the lands. First you must rescue and secure a town that has been attacked by these renegade human forces.

But once you’ve secured the town (which becomes your base), it’s another build up and wipe out mission.

Another slight variation to the formula finds a group of peasants being captured as slaves by the orcs. 

Rescue these peasants and put them back to work. And then wipe out the orcs.

Check out some gameplay video from the final ten minutes of this mission on my YouTube channel:

Thankfully, the next mission furthers the story in the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans human campaign, and is another one with finite forces. Though the mission preamble requires you to deal with a powerful warlock named Medivh, who has been draining the soul of the land to increase his dark powers, there’s more to the story if you read the backstory in the manual.

There’s also the legend that Medivh can command the daemons of hell.

As it turns out, it’s not just legend. It’s reality.

The effective kiting strategy worked well again, and with the clerics able to heal your units after each skirmish, this mission provided no real danger of failure.

Removing Medivh as a threat takes you into the endgame in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. The final four missions see you delving deeper into orcish lands in search of Black Rock Spire, home of the war chief Blackhand.

The challenge provided in these later missions comes from having to take on multiple orc bases at once. The first of these provided a nice strategic vantage point, however.

Securing and protecting the bridge meant I was able to build up my base and forces in relative peace.

It wasn’t without its challenges though.

The following mission starts on a sad note, with news that King Llane has been assassinated!

If you needed additional motivation to eradicate the orc presence from human lands, this was certainly it. Pushing on, your next task is to take out one of Blackhand’s darkest seats of power: the Temple of the Damned. It’s really just another base demolition job, but this time you have no base of your own.

Fortunately, as in the previous mission, there were bridges I could funnel orcs into.

But there were also challenges with this approach.

A steady approach involving protecting your catapults meant enough firepower at the end to destroy the temple.

The final two Warcraft: Orcs & Humans missions in the human campaign played out very similarly, as the conjurers now had new toys to play with: water elementals.

These water elementals were game changers, as a small group of them can wipe out an orc base on their own. The only challenge then, is keeping your base defended long enough to build up to the point where the water elemental spell can be researched (it’s not cheap!).

Daemons came early too, so you have to be attentive, and prepared.

The penultimate mission required two bases to be destroyed, and the human base is quite exposed with no natural choke points to defend.

I managed to hold out until I could build a tower and research the water elemental spell.

It didn’t take long to flood the orc bases.

It was time for the final assault on Black Rock Spire, and this time there were three orc bases to contend with. Thankfully, the human base is more easily defended with a forest along the western border.

You also don’t need to research the water elemental spell in this mission (thematically, it makes sense—you had already researched it in the previous mission). As such, it was a lot quicker to get to the point where I could recruit conjurers and start summoning.

Daemons were again an early threat, so I needed to counter them with water elementals.

The first two orc bases were easily taken out by small squads of water elementals.

Black Rock Spire proved to be more difficult to breach, as there was a large contingent of defenders, including a lot of catapults.

I managed to lure the catapults out of the southern entrance, where my knights rushed in and finished them off.

Simultaneously, I attacked the eastern entrance with water elementals.

Victory was near, and Black Rock Spire finally fell. The human campaign in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was over.

Cue the fireworks…

…and a hint of the sequel to come.

The Verdict

Replaying and reviewing Warcraft: Orcs & Humans has been challenging, mainly due to its age and the technical limitations at the time of release (the four-unit selection limit and lack of right-click functionality).

The gameplay is repetitive. Most campaign missions I replayed through had the same end goal: destroy all enemy forces and bases. As such, the same tactics could be employed to ensure victory. The final two missions are examples of that, with the use of water elementals to destroy bases.

The lack of asymmetry between the two sides reinforces this repetitive gameplay. A lot of the skirmishes end up being between similar units on both sides.

The abundance of resources also ensures that you can build up your base and your forces the same way each mission without pressure.

This lack of overall complexity in gameplay was improved in future real-time strategy titles with more asymmetry between sides, the rock/paper/scissor approach to unit balance, and variation in the scarcity/access to resources leading to the need to prioritise.

But these limitations shouldn’t cloud the ambitions of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. There are some impressive positives, not least the fact the game was majorly improved upon in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (perhaps a story for another day…).

Mission design in the campaign featured variations now common in the genre: early missions serving as tutorials, missions not involving base building, and missions with unique start positions (for example, the missions requiring you to initially rescue peasants or rescue and take over a base). While all base-building missions devolve into the same tactics and endgame, the mission starts at least provide some variation.

Enemy AI is quite predictable, and therefore easily manipulated (for example, using kiting, and creating chokepoints). But there are examples of counter tactics that ensured I had to keep a watchful eye on enemy advances. Catapults and area-effect spells can wipe out your small squads instantly, as well as your base.

While I initially struggled to understand and learn the controls and micromanagement required to play Warcraft: Orcs & Humans effectively, there is one setting that I was grateful for: game speed. You can adjust it, and while I didn’t have to, it was reassuring to know it was there. I didn’t want my lack of speed with hotkeys and dragging and selecting small squads of units to be a determining factor in my lack of advancement. 

Despite its limitations, and the hint of the greatness to come, what made replaying Warcraft: Orcs & Humans an overall enjoyable experience was the story and the lore this first instalment was establishing.

I compare this to my replay of Command & Conquer, which also features repetitive missions, where what I enjoyed the most was the campy cutscenes in between missions.

I’m really looking to enjoy the unfolding story in a real-time strategy game, and as I do in most games I play. I don’t play multiplayer, and if I was only interested in the gameplay, I would play randomly generated one-off battles and not bother with the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans campaigns.

But I want characters. I want settings. I want stories. And I don’t even mind if I have to do some reading to get it.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is showing its age, and playing it really is like stepping back in time. But like any epic saga with humble beginnings, it had to start somewhere.

It may not be great, but Warcraft: Orcs & Humans foreshadowed greatness. And for that, I am grateful.

Be sure to check out my Linktree for some great gaming deals with Fanatical.

And don’t forget to check my blogs and my YouTube channel for more content!

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