Clash Of Heroes: Definitive Edition – a puzzle epic (Picture: DotEmu)

One of the best puzzle games ever made gets a new remaster in this genre-bending fantasy classic.

By the time Clash Of Heroes first appeared on the Nintendo DS, back in 2009, the golden era of the puzzle game was already long gone. In the early 90s, Tetris fuelled a mania for puzzle games, but even the successful ones, like Puyo Puyo and Puzzle Bobble, are rarely seen nowadays. Match-three puzzlers are more popular than ever but only on mobile, with no major publisher ever likely to release a new one on consoles. But we’re very glad they made an exception in this case.

As the awkwardly long name suggests, this is a spin-off from the long-running, but inarguably obscure, Might & Magic franchise, which even we’ve only played a few entries from. This does not matter. It means the game is set in an ultra-generic fantasy world but other than that its existence as part of a wider franchise is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that this is one of the best puzzle games ever made and it’s looking better than ever thanks to this excellent remaster by the makers of Streets Of Rage 4 and Windjammers 2. We suspect the game is doomed to be a hidden gem forever, or at least until it changes its name, but for those that do discover its charms, it’s aging like fine wine.

Puzzle games always sound weird and confusing when you explain them, but there’s such a depth of options and tactics to Clash Of Heroes that it’s almost impossible to describe in a way that makes it sound appealing. It’s a real shame there’s not a demo, as the basics are very easy to pick up and everything else is explained in very helpful tutorials, introduced at a sensibly measured pace.

The basic idea is that you’re in control of a small army of fantasy clichés, including wood elves, knights, wizards, necromancers, and the like. Each faction has its own unique units, with their own special abilities and limitations, but most of them work in the same general way: connect three of the same type and colour in a vertical line and they’ll get ready to attack the enemies opposite them.

Your two opposing armies face each other in turn-based battles and what you’re trying to do is get an attack through to the top of the screen (or bottom, if you’re playing as the other side in multiplayer). Attacks take a least one turn to charge up, at which point the amount of damage you do may be reduced by running into your opponent’s enemies or a wall – which either side can make by connecting three or more units horizontally.

You only have a limited number of moves per turn and can only move units at the bottom of a column, but apart from a special move for whatever hero character you’re playing as, that’s the bare bones of the gameplay.

There is a huge amount more to the game than that though, with the ability to reinforce units by connecting to them vertical or horizontally, using others of the same type. There’re also elite and champion units that you can run out of, and have to buy more of, and which need to be powered up by other ordinary units of the same colour.

That’s still not nearly everything though, as there’s no way we’ve got space to go into all the special abilities of individual units, such as deer that can jump over walls or mages whose attacks can damage adjacent units.

Oh, and both heroes and unit types level up independently, through earned experience, plus there are special artefacts you can collect that change your stats or give you additional special abilities.

Clash Of Heroes is an incredibly deep and rich experience, that straddles a unique middle ground between puzzle and strategy game, but it does have one major flaw that has held back its mainstream success: it’s extremely difficult. If you’re not exactly the same level, or higher, than your opponent you have to be absolutely top of your game with every single decision to get any taste of victory.

You can call in new units at any time, which uses up a move and is essentially like drawing additional cards in a card game. It’s also random, so it’ll take a very mellow player not to feel aggrieved if the luck of the draw doesn’t go their way, especially if random chance seems to treat the AI better.

However, these issues are all much reduced in multiplayer, with the game having both online and local options. And then there’s the single-player campaign mode, which we haven’t even got into yet and is far bigger and more expansive than you’d ever imagine for a puzzle game.

The plot revolves a demonic invasion and a search for various magical MacGuffins. It’s not very original or interesting but the dialogue is relatively knowing and at times almost seems to be fighting against the unoriginality of the setting, with some wry humour, likeable protagonists, and neat talking head artwork.

You progress through the lengthy story by moving across a board game style map, talking to characters, getting into fights with demons and others, picking up side quests, collecting resources, and buying perishable units. There are boss battles with one-off opponents, tons of secrets, battles with unique victory conditions, and opportunities to level grind if you need it.

Clash Of Heroes: Definitive Edition – much more than matching three (Picture: DotEmu)

It’s a massive campaign that, in terms of modes and options, makes this one of the biggest and most well-rounded puzzle experiences ever. Despite all the talk of definitive editions though this isn’t very different from the HD remaster from back in 2011, which is fine as there was nothing to really fix from a presentational point of view. Although we would’ve liked an option to play with the original graphics. The new hand-drawn designs are very good but the original had some really great pixel artwork.

We don’t remember it being a problem before, but we also wish they’d done something to beef up the sound effects, which needed to be a lot crunchier than the strangely muffled noises you get instead. Supposedly the multiplayer mode has been rebalanced, but since online wasn’t available pre-launch we’ve not had enough time with that to notice any difference.

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The Definitive Edition also includes the rarely seen I Am The Boss DLC and adds four bosses as playable characters, plus a brand-new multiplayer exclusive one. They’re all minor changes but they’re still welcome ones that show a great deal of care has gone into the remaster. Although we do wish something could’ve been done about the constant loading pauses, which have always been an issue and are present even in the PC version.

Clash Of Heroes isn’t perfect but it’s still our favourite puzzle game, and if for no other reason than it goes so far above and beyond what anyone would expect for a low budget DS game, that’s a spin-off from a franchise most people have never heard of. It’s a testament to the game’s qualities that we’re still here, 14 years later, reviewing yet another new version of it. And we look forward to doing so again, in another decade or so, because there’s still nothing else quite like Clash Of Heroes.

Formats: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PlayStation 4, and PC
Price: £15.99*
Publisher: DotEmu
Developer: DotEmu and Capy
Release Date: 20th July 2023
Age Rating: 3

*£13.59 until 2nd August 2023

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One of the best puzzle games ever made gets a new remaster in this genre-bending fantasy classic.