Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

I have a complicated relationship with games that smuggle serious strategy inside a friendly pastel wrapper, and Clash of Heroes Definitive Edition does exactly that. What reads at first glance as a lightweight match-three is, by the third chapter, a grid-based tactical fight where a single misplaced unit can unravel a formation you spent four turns building. Dotemu's 2023 remake of the original Capybara Games DS classic brings redrawn artwork, reworked online modes, and all prior DLC into one package, and the result holds up far better than most fourteen-year-old puzzle games have any right to. The combat is the whole game, and it is genuinely clever. Each turn you get three moves to stack your units vertically by color and type to trigger attacks, while horizontal lines of three form defensive walls. Standard units, elites, and champions all charge at different rates, so the tactical question is rarely "which color goes here" and is almost always "can I afford to block his elite while my champion finishes charging." On top of that, each hero carries a unique spell that fires when your damage meter fills. Watching Anwen's Sylvan spells interact with a fully charged champion column, or managing the Necropolis faction's slower-burning undead units against a faster Academy opponent, reveals genuine faction asymmetry that holds up well past the campaign's twenty-plus hours. Artifact loadout choices before each fight add one more layer: a well-matched artifact can tilt a close matchup, while a wrong pick feels punishing in later chapters. The five-chapter story follows Godric, Aidan, Anwen, Nadia, and Fiona, one hero per faction, all scattered across the regions of Ashan chasing a demonic plot set forty years before Heroes of Might and Magic V. The narrative is functional rather than memorable. The writing is light, the dialogue is unvoiced, and anyone coming in hoping for Disco Elysium-level character work will leave disappointed. Side quests are mostly resource-gathering errands that exist to push your units to the level cap of ten, and they do occasionally feel like filler padding between the genuinely good boss encounters. The story mode runs about twenty to twenty-two hours depending on thoroughness, which is the right length: long enough to master all five factions, short enough to avoid outstaying its welcome. Where the game earns its Steam rating is in PvP. The reworked 1v1 and 2v2 online modes are where the combo-chaining depth becomes fully apparent, because a human opponent will punish every lazy defensive wall you throw up. Faction asymmetry matters more here than in campaign, and the artifact-build space gives competitive players something to optimize between sessions. Local split-screen is present for couch play. The player population is not enormous given the game's niche status, but the mode is polished enough to justify its place as a core feature rather than an afterthought. A few complaints are worth flagging. The Definitive Edition, for all its visual upgrades and quality-of-life passes, still lacks some modern conveniences that a fifteen-year-old design can't fully hide. Losing elite or champion units mid-campaign and having to backtrack to purchase replacements is a small but genuine friction point. The Academy faction's faster-charging elites give it a noticeable edge in PvP that experienced players will feel. And if you are fundamentally uninterested in puzzle mechanics, no amount of RPG framing will change what this game is at its core. For everyone else, this is a tight, confident, surprisingly deep package that earns its "Very Positive" tag honestly.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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