Might & Magic IX

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So,is this game any good? I've read some reviews, but they said it was average at best. Has anyone played this game and thought it good? I for one played M&M VII and it was a great game IMO. From this point of view, do you think I will like the IX ? Thx.

 

If you can borrow it from a friend or buy it for a reduced price, you could try it. But if you're going to have to pay for it like for a new game, don't bother. I remember enjoying some parts of it, but it's worse than the previous parts of the series. Each next part is worse than the previous one, it seems. Seven was worse than six, eight was worse still, nine is even worse.

 

Before I started on my interplay/bioware/atari binge I played M&M VI back in 1998, thought it was great and have been tempted to play the other titles since and sadly have not had the time, but after hearing this I am some what deterred from the temptation.

@chev Do they simply lack originality in story line and quest depth or do they just not improve as the titles go on? I don't think I've ever known a game to get worse as a series goes on.

 

I have M&M 9. The worst part of the game is the bugs. Even with two patches out, there are still problems. But they don't prevent you from finishing the game, with some persistence.

The best part of the game is the character building. If you're a powergamer, it's easy to get addicted.

The storyline is alright. The quests are at best mediocure. But this is compared to M&M 1-5 which is the ones I've played. The best is still M&M 3 IMHO.

 

If you haven't played VI before I recommend that. I have all MM's and enjoyed IX the least. It's an unfinished game and was pushed out to early by it's distributor. Things weren't going well at New World Computing at the time.

I don't agree with Chev though. VII is better than six. It may have the same graphics but it feels more solid.

 

@Slayer of the Coast: It just worsens. Doesn't feel as good as the previous ones.

@Apeman: The logic behind proficiencies and allowances is strange in VII. Especially first time through. But being able to enter buildings is a good thing. I loved to have the Harmondale castle as my sort of base, sort of house. VI had a greater impact on me, for some reason. Don't really know why. But VIII I didn't want to play. I still have the CD somewhere here, but I don't bother playing it.

 

There is an unofficial 1.3 patch for MM9 out there, and it should fix what NWC/3DO couldn't fix while they existed.

And since we're talking about Might and Magic, has anyone heard of Might and Magic Tribute?

 

Sounds like an ok site. Are they making a new Might & Magic? That'd be awesome. If I find VI I'll certainly try it, for I like the graphics of VII and if it's the same, it's ok. Graphical improvement over lack of story isn't everything and seems to be a trend nowadays.

 

Having played all the Might and Magic games, I'll throw in my opinion:

I loved MM7 too, but I couldn't stomach MM9. Back when I played it the patches weren't out, so it was EXTREMELY buggy. It's also by far the second weakest game in the series (the only one I'd say is worse is MM2), in that the quests can get very repetitive and boring. Even with the patches, I've heard there are still glitches in dialogs that prevent you from completing certain quests. There are a lot of small irritating things (loot vanishing from the ground, NPCs that wonder off and become hard to find, unkillable monsters, that kind of stuff).

That said, the game does have its good points. Character advancement is a lot of fun, and can get very addictive once you characters start reaching higher levels. Graphically, it's a big improvement over the previous trilogy. The story is fun, and it seems like a parody of classical RPGs at times.

If you can still find it, it should probably be for less than $20, and at this price it's worth it. I do recommend MM6 and MM8 more, though. And 1-5 (minus 2) if you can get them to run on your system (they probably won't under WinXP)

@Chev: I don't quite agree. While the openness of 6 appealed to me a lot, there are things about 7 I like that aren't in 6, and things I like in 8 that aren't in either 6 or 7. As I said, with the exception of 2 (and with 9 being a lesser game), I think each of the MMs had something going for it.

 

If it doesn't have Heroes in front of it, don't buy it. Heroes of Might and Magic are so much better than the modern M&Ms.

I found 6 to be okay, 7 to be worse so I didn't even bother with 8 or 9. The lack of dialogue apart from single word topics really put me off.

 

That was a huge pain. They have very few avatars for their NPCs, so you can't remember who is who by what they look like. So you try to remember by their location, which works for a while until they start wandering around. Then you have to talk to each one individually.

And sometimes when they wander, they walk off the cliff and sink underwater. Funny, but annoying when you are searching for him and didn't know this.

 

Can someone then describe the overall atmosphere of 6 and what makes it so attractive. I know graphically it's all the same probably, so the game depends on that.

Can we conclude it's the bugs that kill the atmosphere in the other games. On my part, the bugs in 7 didn't bug me.

I checked out Molustken's link and found the project quite interesting. A good move.

 

Might and Magic 6 is quite different from 7 and 8 when it comes to graphics. It has pretty much the same interface, but you will see that the game is older.

 

@Mollusken: Actually, the only graphical difference is in the use of colored lighting. Aside from that, the graphic engine is identical.


@Nizidramanii'yt

The main thing that stands out in 6 is the way the world is built. It's basically a large 5x3 map, where each square is an outdoors map area. The areas "spill" into each other, so for example when you reach the edge of one area that's predominantly plains you see the terrain becoming swampy; sure enough if you walk into the adjacent area it's a swamp.

The dungeons are big, a few are very big (one is HUGE), and each one really has its own character, not just because of the graphics, music or monsters you're fighting, but even more so thanks to the layout and level design. A few have really interesting puzzles to solve. Dungeoneering feels like a real adventure, but the dungeons aren't unbalanced either, and even though it takes a while to get through them they never feel boring or drawn-out.

All in all 6 offers more freedom, while 7 has a tighter structure.

As for bugs, 6 has its share. Items "of recovery" and the Haste spell don't quite work the way they're supposed to. Furthermore, the latest patch (1.2) introduces a bug that may prevent you from finishing the game (fortunately there's an easy way to fix this). In fact the cleanest of the three is 8, and as you can see from the previous comments it's the least liked (I like it a lot, but this doesn't seem to be the concensus).

Anyway, if you want my advice, go play 6 AND 8

 

Not true. 7 will not run properly on a non-3dFX video card. 6 will. That said, I thought that 6 had better graphics than 7.

6 is much buggier than 7. In addition to the bugs that Zian mentioned, Scrolls of Remove Curse do not work, and the stun and charm spells do not work.

World of Xeen (4, 5, and expanded) as well as Swords of Xeen run just fine on my XP Pro system.

 

Huh? What makes you think so? I've seen it run just fine on a TNT2, a GeForce2, a GeForce FX, a 3D-accelerated ATI. And on a non-accelerated ATI for that matter, if you turn off 3D acceleration. The game's acceleration runs under Direct3D, and thus isn't hardware-dependant.

Of course 6 has no problem with all of that since it's doesn't support acceleration in the first place.

That's good to know. I have the Millenium Edition, and they simply refuse to install under XP (the installer sees it as an NT system), so I assumed they wouldn't work.

Oh, and it's Ziad. With a "d".

 

Thx. I'll play 6 and 8 if I can find either one. But I'm afraid the stores only have IX left.@ 15 euros. I think I'll wait some more then. Anywayz, I already adored VII for its possibilities, but never finished it because it became boring as hell. And difficult...

 

I should have been more clear with that. Running in software mode is not running properly. The game does look better on a 3Dfx card.

XP is based on Windows NT.

 

@Nizidramanii'yt: Well 8 is easier, and 6 is even harder... And the "possibilities" in 8 don't affect the course of the game much, and they're nonexistant in 6. Still they're both fun games.

@Rastor: As I said, both 7 and 8 run accelerated with Direct3D, so they look exactly the same on a 3dfx card and on an ATI/Nvidia card with 3D acceleration. I had a Voodoo2 and now have a TNT2, and there's no difference at all in the games.

And yes, I know XP is based on NT My point was that the games (World of Xeen) don't work on NT at all, and because the installer sees XP as an NT, it refuses to install them, even though they'd work on XP.