Heroes vs Crusaders

[Sneakimus]

A lot of people love to discuss the virtues of each, and so I am curious to hear why you think one might be better than the other.

Having completed every campaign in all of them, I am of a mixed opinion and think each of them have their own strengths.

For the RPG and story element, I found Crusaders to be better overrall, and to have a much better english voice acting(although I will give a honorable mention to Leinheart in Heroes). And while the writing of the story was never amazing in Crusaders, I was thoroughly confused by the story in Heroes.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the gameplay in Heroes more than Crusaders. It felt more refined and like a logical next step. I loved the way cavalry became more important. On the other hand, my chief complaint with heroes was that it featured a lot of 'do this X way or die' missions with hidden damage modifiers based on certain events, many being far from intuitive. I enjoyed heroes' selection of difficulty, but it also featured some pretty brutal difficulty spikes.

Probably my biggest disappointment with heroes was that it chose to introduce those elemental units, rather than expand upon the Dark Elf and Orc army unit roster, or add a Dwarf or High Elf roster. This was particularly noticeable in the Orc campaign of heroes, where running a pure Orc/ogre army made it feel like you lacked units to fill many essential roles.

That said, I enjoyed them both, and I am curious to know what you think or if you share any of my views.

[Mr_pia]

i love them both but i see heroes more as a side story

[vintoks]

You hit most of the points on the head. Heroes fleshed out a lot of the context for the major story but had some very rough difficulty spikes with protect the VIP and escort missions. I see them as better paired together than as something where you take one over the other. Honestly without Crusades, Heroes would have no foundation to give you context and care about the situations the characters find themselves in.

[Big Blue Dude]

Crusaders:
Pros:
-Hironiden crew (Gerald, Ellen, Rupert, Hugh) all have the best voice acting in this iteration, in my opinion.
-Better Regnier voice (the distortion thing they did in the second one just seemed kinda forced)
-More secrets, less BS. You can kill Regnier during the Hugh mission for mad XP if you're patient, it's not a bug but a reward for observant players, same as the secret cutscene for the Hironiden castle siege. You can kill the Encablossa in the first mission they appear and at Jungsburg if you try really hard, and you get rewarded in the case of the first mission, handsomely I might add. While there are a few instances of infinitely spawning units, they're mostly limited to the final missions of Regnier and Kendal, which makes sense given the gradual difficulty uptick, or situations where you have to find the Lich unit to stop ghouls from spawning.
Cons:
-The Lucretia campaign voice acting. Just... good god...
-About half as long, no replay options or skirmish mode. What you see is what you get (especially since the minigames didn't make it onto the pc port, sadly.) I get heroes came out after, but it's still a pretty big disparity given they usually have the same price-tag.

Heroes:
Pros:
-With the exception of Regnier, every Vellond and Hexter character gets better voice acting that really has personality shine on through.
-Much more fleshed out story for side characters, both ones we loved (Ellen and Rupert, Leinhart) and ones we didn't know we'd love (Cirith, Ukubar)
-Elemental Units for greater specialization AND greater use for wizards. Sometimes you have to swap out an officer for better abilities or because one of them leaves, so it's nice to know the fire mage you hire can turn into his own special unit with a little bit of love instead of just getting turned into infantry fodder.
Cons:
-Missions with infinitely spawning units aren't just more common, they're basically a staple. Crap there's pretty much one per campaign AT LEAST. If you could grind XP infinitely it might be worth something but it caps out at a certain point so it's really just pointless, restrictive grind.
-Missed unit focus. If I could choose between elementals or NO new units, Ill take the elementals, but an expanded unit tree would've been nice. Maybe an orc spear chucker unit for anti air so you can have a full orc army without needing to bring in Vell archers for anti air or replace your swamp mammoth with wyverns. That and, technically, Elf and dwarf infantry are a thing as seen in the rupert campaign. Even if they have the same model as the leader and essentially function as infantry with maybe some magic abilities like heal or meteor, being able to deploy them would've been nice.
-Confusing story. If you play Crusaders first, you're fine. This is a before and after for folks, I get it. But as a newtime player, it jumps forward and back pretty regularly, especially with the unlock path for campaigns. That and it introduces side characters that never showed up in heroes when, with how important they're made out to be, they really should've been around. Where was Paroth during the war, and what ever happened to Ellen's buddies? And why did Ukubar go from a proud and somewhat eloquent chieftan to generic big dump gorilla guy, like did Regnier give him brain damage?

All in all I'd say they're about equally as great, though I'll decide it like this. If someone had 20 dollars and wanted an experience, I'd point them to crusaders. If they wanted a fun game with more replay value and less feel, I'd point them to heroes.

[Castyles]

It seems you can get the exp you spent on your units back, in Heroes. Is this true?

[The Mailman Thinks I Am Gay]

If you want story go crusader. If you want more gameplay like skirmish go heroes. Those are take from playin the games

[Sneakimus]

On the story, I'm still confused about some of the transitions.

For instance, at the end of Lucretia's campaign in Crusaders, you basically went to hunt down Cirith for desertion; but come Heroes, Cirith is suddenly back on good terms with the vamps & vellond. Relatively speaking that is.

Feels like I missed somthing.

Originally posted by Castyles:

It seems you can get the exp you spent on your units back, in Heroes. Is this true?

Indeed. It's one of the better changes Heroes made. It really allows you to be more flexible and try out more unit comps, whereas in Crusaders you basically needed to have your game plan ready from mission 1 otherwise you would gimp yourself.

[isssy28]

I think just before the last Lucretia mission, Moirene mentions that Cirith has been a spy for Vellond in the Kaedes all along. Part of the reason for the final mission was because Moirene implied that Cirith was under orders to assassinate Rithrin.

[Woodyjr96]

Originally posted by Master:

On the story, I'm still confused about some of the transitions.

For instance, at the end of Lucretia's campaign in Crusaders, you basically went to hunt down Cirith for desertion; but come Heroes, Cirith is suddenly back on good terms with the vamps & vellond. Relatively speaking that is.

Feels like I missed something

So Cirith is acting dumb in Crusaders as she is spying to get close to Rithrin who is the Kaedes leader ,come Heroes shes acting her normal self as she like Morene are trying to hunt the Patriarch who has the Heart.


Overall the war was a lie which you discover in Walter's first mission in Heroes and explains what happend to Greyhampton in Geralds opening mission when you find it burnt down.

Walter story is just a few days before Crusaders starts

Cirith and Morene stories are literally after Lucreatia's last mission (For Morene last mission Lucretia becomes the new Kaedes leader after she mourned Rithrin)

Leinhart and Urukarrbar stories are set in the Orc civil war with Kaedes disrupting Vellonds plans way before Crusaders when Vellond tries to ally with some orc tribes which leads to Regnier becoming Hexters leader after beating Urukarrbar.

Ellen's story is her past life when she served Ecclessia before she joined Hironeden while hiding her half elf heritage since Ecclessia are pretty much racists.

Ruperts story is all about his journey when he leaves Gerald to the get help from the High Elves and Dwarfs