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Nothing special

First of all, I would like to say that I do not think this is a bad game. I played Heroes I, II, and III, and loved them, though they were all fairly similar. The *graphics* in Heroes IV are much better than the graphics in the others. However, the *artwork* in Heroes II and Heroes III is far superior. There are tons of new "innovative" features in Heroes IV that differ from the other games, some of wich I will list here:

Heroes actually enter combat (they can be killed).

You can have multiple Heroes in an army.

You can send individual groups of troops out of the army on the map and have them run around (without a Hero).

Caravans send troops from castle to castle automatically as they are produced.

You have to choose between two different units when purchasing certain creature dwellings in your castle (if you want them both, you need two castles).

There are a few bad sides to this game though, including a memory leak that wasn't fixed by the patch, and a quite inferior map-editor. I thought it was kind of annoying how there was no unit upgrades, but the game was very well balanced, in respect to the different castle types and their unique attributes. The campaigns are well done, and entertaining. Overall, this is a fun game, but it lacked the certain feel, or "magic" that Heroes 2 and Heroes 3 had... and the fans of those games will know what I mean.

*NOTE* If you are still unsure as to whether or not you want to get this game, keep in mind that the system requirements are much steeper than in the previous games, so it might not be very enjoyable if your computer isn't that great.