Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

Screenshots

Notes

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a spinoff from the well known RPG/strategy series. This one is a basically match-3 puzzle game, where each puzzle level is a battle against an opponent playing their version of the puzzle. Match units to start them charging up (or create walls), and then after n turns they will fire off, destroying stuff on the opponent's side of the field. It has a story campaign mode which adds light RPG mechanics as you walk around a world map, talking to people, buying units and doing quests.

The main problem with the game I saw is that it's very RNG dependant, particularly with how units spawn in at the start of battle. The large "special" units exacerbate this problem as if they land akwardly it can take many moves to "unbury" and then fire them. This is a problem as moves are very limited and precious, and the big units are also by far the most powerful. This creates a big swing between a pretty easy level or an unwinnable setup. It also means the big units are kind of a double edged sword and not using them (or only using 1 of a possible 2 slots) can be better. Which feels bad, the big units should be big, powerful, and valuable but this gets messed up.

The game is divided into chapters where you play as a different faction, get to play with all new units and abilities. This is pretty good as the game moves on right as the progression for a faction is done, and it keeps things fresh.

I ran into a big difficulty wall a bit past half way through the game. At the end of the Necropolis chapter, the game starts giving the AI big advantages (free elite/champion units charging up on the first turn). I found this really hard to deal with, and only managed to get past using the "revive after death" artifact. Then the final boss of necropolis seemed really tough. I don't know if there was some strategy I should have been using or if I just needed to have mastered the puzzle mechanics at a much higher level. Nothing in the game seemed particularly hard before that point. Maybe my under-use of the bigger units was finally catching up and I should have been getting really good at charging up the big 2x2 champion units. However to even start doing that I'd need to go back and do a bunch of grinding to level them up at that point.

Side note: walls always seemed really bad, and could do almost nothing against high level units (ex. 5 power walls when the enemy champions are firing with ~50-100 power). I almost never tried to make walls, only getting them as a side effect of chaining multiple units together. Not sure if I missed something there.

Anyway, long story short, I ran into a difficulty wall and am skipping as I don't want to try and bash my head against it any longer. It's a bit of a shame as I was getting quite into the game before that. It definitely exceeded my expectations.