Review of Songs of Conquest by an old fan of "Heroes"
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I haven't written reviews in a hundred years, but what could be more motivating to spend an entire day behind the keyboard than the feeling that the internet is going crazy? I was blown away by the incredible successor to "Heroes of Might and Magic" called Songs of Conquest. How quickly have games degraded that this receives high praise from the press?

Year 2024: a swamp, in some sections of which you can glimpse units, mushrooms, or corpses - if you don’t mix them up

Let's clarify for those who missed it: the turn-based strategy "Heroes" emerged more than 30 years ago and ran on computers like Pentium without any loading screens at all. The game was appealing with its sprite graphics, which were beautiful even by today's standards. There was a special joy in the cities: the panorama changed with each new building, and there was a symphonic power to it, as if each race gradually revealed its strength and intention.

And here I launch your Songs of Conquest… What is this? Pixel graphics? Are you reminiscing about the 8-bit era or what? This is a powerful, extremely powerful approach for a game that feeds on nostalgia: to neglect the technical part and rely on… gameplay, perhaps? Alright, I’ll talk about gameplay later.

Year 1995: each unit has its own character, and you are just waiting to try it out in action

In short, for some reason they present us with a game that looks hopelessly worse than "Heroes," but is a thousand times more demanding on hardware. You have to wait for all these loading screens and the ridiculously long turns of opponents. But even in the pixel art genre, Songs of Conquest is a failure. All the units are gray-brown-pink blurry spots. They are forgettable and evoke no emotions. Except for frustration: even I could have drawn better in Paint.

Okay, let's get to the gameplay. Everything here is borrowed from "Heroes," that’s clear. What innovations are there? First of all, there are no city screens. That is, the very ones for which Ubisoft faced backlash from fans of the series, prompting those greedy French to hastily find money and redraw everything. Songs of Conquest immediately strikes the most sensitive nerve of a fan, and I’m supposed to consider this a feature. Are you kidding me?

Although it’s all understandable: if there are such units, then there was no chance of drawing cities at all. They decided not to embarrass themselves.

This is a castle in the 2024 game: a square fence, a few towers, and incomprehensible spots. By the way, there’s also a hero in the picture - but he almost blends in with the fence

Next, we have four races - and somewhere here the fantastic bonuses of Songs of Conquest in terms of gameplay begin, for which it is worth enduring the awful graphics. Each race has about a dozen units, plus an upgrade for each. In general, all differences from "Heroes" are cosmetic; there’s no point in mentioning them. For instance, there was a magic box and fury in "Legend of the Knight," while in Disciples everything revolved around leveling up - there’s simply no central feature at that level in Songs of Conquest.

Well, that’s it, after about three hours the game shows its bottom, having failed to surprise in a good way. If Ubisoft had released the same game with top-notch graphics, everyone would have said, that it’s just another trash instead of a proper remake of "Heroes 3." But since Songs of Conquest wasn't made by Ubisoft, it seems it can be held up as an example: look how an unknown indie studio wiped the floor with a rich corporation. Only in the end, Songs of Conquest is yet another under-hero game, only this time with poor graphics.

This is a castle in the 1995 game: a coherent design from the clouds to the puddles on the road.

Though I admit: the magic tower stands out

And you might ask: so should we go back to “[Heroes 3](/games?search=Герои 3)”? My choice is yes. Also, to all the other parts of the series if you want variety – each of them is better than Songs of Conquest. If that’s not enough – check out the most tested of fan modifications, like "Heroes 5.5."

And the high scores in the reviews for Songs of Conquest are a sign of the final degradation of computer games. It seems that not only have the good developers left, but also an entire generation that remembered what a [good game](/games?search=хорошая игра) is. The industry of junk has finally raised its consumer. May it rest in peace.