If you’re like me and love a good first person dungeon crawler (the so-called gridders), like Wizardry and Eye of the Beholder, but always wanted a game like these classics that isn’t puzzle-heavy, I think you’ll love Heroes of a Broken Land. This game is a mix between dungeon crawler, turn-based strategy and a kind of town builder. Everything is procedurally generated, ensuring that every campaign is different from the last you’ve played.


As you start, you can choose between six world sizes (Tiny, Small, Normal, Large, Huge, Enormous), six different difficulty settings (Baby, Easy, Normal, Hard, Impossible, Custom) , and six different wizards that provides different bonuses to your heroes, like extra XP, more HP, better defense, etc. After making your choices, you’ll spawn in a strategic map similar to the world map of Heroes of Might and Magic III, near to your hometown, which is where you’ll buy and upgrade buildings to get more income, improve your teams, etc. Yeah, teams. Unlike most gridders, in Heroes of a Broken Land you can have multiple parties, and you build your first party as soon as the campaign starts. And this is not optional – later you’ll need to dive dungeons that can only be explored by more than one party, and they’re quite fun. In this strategic map, you’ll also find treasures, roaming monsters that want to destroy your town, random events and other goodies.


As I said in the beginning of this review, this is a gridder that doesn’t focus on super hard puzzles like some classics. Instead, diving dungeons in this game is all about defeating monsters, exploring, looting, leveling up and trying to avoid and disarm traps. The game still has some puzzles, but gladly they’re very basic, which is a thing that I appreciate, since I’m not into mind-bending puzzles. Another good thing is that is has automap, for the dungeons, by default, thankfully. While we have the strategic map and the town building aspect, it’s on the dungeons that you’ll spend most of your time. And I mean it - it’s really a lot of time. In about 20 hours playing in a normal-sized campaign, I still haven’t reached the end (I just had defeated two bosses), so get ready to sink a lot of hours in a single campaign. By the way, I’m starting a new campaign right now (I had no choice) because this game doesn’t have cloud support and I lost my save after a failed Windows 10 update that corrupted my OS, so don’t make the same mistake I did and backup your saves always.


I’ll be honest – I love everything about this game: oldschool graphics, gameplay, the high randomization, the blending of genres and the gorgeous piano soundtrack. But still, this game is not perfect – while the dungeons generated are very logical and interesting, on the other hand, the procedural generation for the strategic map is not so great, with defeated and sealed dungeons (that shouldn’t respawn anymore) reappearing, and some bizarre stuff, like spawning the player on an isolated island right at the start of a campaign. Also, while not essential, Steam Cloud support would be a very nice addition, given how lengthy the campaigns are.

If you think you’ll enjoy Heroes of a Broken Land, you probably will. If you’re not so sure, wait for a sale. In my humble opinion, this game is worth the full price, especially considering how unique it is, but if you’re on the fence, don’t worry, this game is often discounted, so put it on your wishlist and keep an eye on future deals.

Pros:
* Unique blending of dungeon crawler, town building and strategy
* High replay value due to the procedural generation
* Multiple party dungeons are a lot of fun
* Immersive soundtrack
* Engaging gameplay

Mixed (may or may not bother you):
* 4:3 aspect ratio

Cons:
* While it’s good in dungeons, the procedural generation for the strategic map is too wild
* Lack of cloud support

[h1]A fresh take in a forgotten genre[/h1] If you’re like me and love a good first person dungeon crawler (the so-called [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gridder]gridders[/url]), like [b]Wizardry[/b] and [b]Eye of the Beholder[/b], but always wanted a game like these classics that isn’t puzzle-heavy, I think you’ll love [b]Heroes of a Broken Land[/b]. This game is a mix between dungeon crawler, turn-based strategy and a kind of town builder. Everything is procedurally generated, ensuring that every campaign is different from the last you’ve played. [h1]Getting started[/h1] As you start, you can choose between six world sizes (Tiny, Small, Normal, Large, Huge, Enormous), six different difficulty settings (Baby, Easy, Normal, Hard, Impossible, Custom) , and six different wizards that provides different bonuses to your heroes, like extra XP, more HP, better defense, etc. After making your choices, you’ll spawn in a strategic map similar to the world map of [b]Heroes of Might and Magic III[/b], near to your hometown, which is where you’ll buy and upgrade buildings to get more income, improve your teams, etc. Yeah, teams. Unlike most gridders, in [b]Heroes of a Broken Land[/b] you can have multiple parties, and you build your first party as soon as the campaign starts. And this is not optional – later you’ll need to dive dungeons that can only be explored by more than one party, and they’re quite fun. In this strategic map, you’ll also find treasures, roaming monsters that want to destroy your town, random events and other goodies. [h1]Hack and slash in a turn-based fashion[/h1] As I said in the beginning of this review, this is a gridder that doesn’t focus on super hard puzzles like some classics. Instead, diving dungeons in this game is all about defeating monsters, exploring, looting, leveling up and trying to avoid and disarm traps. The game still has some puzzles, but gladly they’re very basic, which is a thing that I appreciate, since I’m not into mind-bending puzzles. Another good thing is that is has automap, for the dungeons, by default, thankfully. While we have the strategic map and the town building aspect, it’s on the dungeons that you’ll spend most of your time. And I mean it - it’s really a lot of time. In about 20 hours playing in a normal-sized campaign, I still haven’t reached the end (I just had defeated two bosses), so get ready to sink a lot of hours in a single campaign. By the way, I’m starting a new campaign right now (I had no choice) because this game doesn’t have cloud support and I lost my save after a failed Windows 10 update that corrupted my OS, so don’t make the same mistake I did and backup your saves always. [h1]Closing notes and verdict[/h1] I’ll be honest – I love everything about this game: oldschool graphics, gameplay, the high randomization, the blending of genres and the gorgeous piano soundtrack. But still, this game is not perfect – while the dungeons generated are very logical and interesting, on the other hand, the procedural generation for the strategic map is not so great, with defeated and sealed dungeons (that shouldn’t respawn anymore) reappearing, and some bizarre stuff, like spawning the player on an isolated island right at the start of a campaign. Also, while not essential, Steam Cloud support would be a very nice addition, given how lengthy the campaigns are. If you think you’ll enjoy [b]Heroes of a Broken Land[/b], you probably will. If you’re not so sure, wait for a sale. In my humble opinion, this game is worth the full price, especially considering how unique it is, but if you’re on the fence, don’t worry, this game is often discounted, so put it on your wishlist and keep an eye on future deals. [b]Pros:[/b] * Unique blending of dungeon crawler, town building and strategy * High replay value due to the procedural generation * Multiple party dungeons are a lot of fun * Immersive soundtrack * Engaging gameplay [b]Mixed[/b] [i](may or may not bother you)[/i]: * 4:3 aspect ratio [b]Cons:[/b] * While it’s good in dungeons, the procedural generation for the strategic map is too wild * Lack of cloud support