Disrespect for the 3rd mission! It's a complete mockery of the players. They didn't even warn us. As it turned out, we needed to level up Varis. But who said anything about that? Why should I level him up? When my main hero was already level 13 or 15 and had a ballista. This moment ruined everything good about this map.
In the end, Varis was level 8, and I got level 9 at the beginning of the 3rd mission. With that number of troops, it's impossible to complete this map because you have enough strength to kill the first 5 stacks without losses, but killing the rest is either impossible or results in significant losses. And yes, there should have been some hints on how to complete the 3rd map; I had no idea until I watched a remix. Again, because the same key was guarded by a stack with the inscription "no chance," and how am I supposed to kill it on the 3rd day??? It's completely unthoughtful. Both the 2nd and 3rd missions are flawed. In the second half of the game, I just killed creeps and collected loot, thinking I might be able to take something with me to the next mission. I easily captured all the castles, and after the first appearance of the brown hero, I realized it was a "joke," so on the last save, I decided not to attack the 4th elf castle but went to the 3rd dwarf castle and immediately sent 3 heroes to the rune and Varis to the main one. As a result, I captured the castle and the rune right away. And it was an easy win. Without any Darkness, I didn't even level it up. I don't know, it's useless in the 2nd mission. Attack, light, defense, and machines are the foundation for a hero with a ballista skill. The ballista killed 10 dwarf dragons in one turn, without any luck. I'll have to replay the 2nd mission to level up this secondary hero because even mentoring won't be enough for the 3rd mission.
I like the landscapes and the correct terrain. The visuals and mechanics of the map are the best I've seen. Even Master doesn't match it in terms of mechanics.
The 1st and 2nd missions are very easy on Hero mode. It was only a little difficult at the beginning, but after the 2nd elf castle, everything became easy. And yes, the boots of levitation, which you can get from the sphinx, don't work!
I'm a little annoyed because I'm typing this text for the first time, and for some reason, it keeps logging me out of my account.
But there needs to be a balance in the 3rd mission based on the hero's level, or there should be a warning in the 2nd mission about this need. I spent an hour trying to figure out what to do in this situation. The Sanctuary is still standing, which is useless; I thought I could hide in it, and they would run away somewhere, and I would have time to level up, but no, they just stood there and waited for me. Thanks for the effort, but there are some serious nuances, in my opinion.