Best Might and Magic

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I still haven't played a lot of titles in the franchise, but I must admit that this is my favorite gaming franchise. Mainly I'd say because the gameplay is so simple and yet there's always tons of stuff to do. There is never any hand holding of any kind, and you must discover everything on your own by trial and error. The games are very leisurely, I can do what I want on my own, and there's never any big epic quest to accomplish. It makes you feel a bit more like you're a part of the world.

I like almost everything about it, even all the little imperfections and flaws.

From what I've played so far, I'd definitely say my favorite one is VI, mainly because the level and world designs appear to be the best to me.

only ever played vii-viii. why is the cutoff point for everybody vi? what's so different about it?

viii was shit, but vii was p. cool, i always thought.

Worlds, by far.

I agree with this.

M&M IV and V were the best, in my opinion. It's especially cool that the two integrate together into a single conjoined game that you can move back and forth between, as desired.

I also really liked III.

I have to confess I think VI through IX were the worst of the bunch. I really think Might & Magic worked best as a turn-based game. The weird hybrid of turn-based and real-time gaming that New World switched to with VI just didn't work for me. Additionally, I find the "art direction" of those later games to have completely fallen off the wagon.

I was always wary of this fusion of two games, doesn't it create huge balance problems?

As far as the turn-based combat goes, I thought it worked fine enough in VI. And about the art, well Might & Magic always had goofy art, didn't it? Wasn't it the whole point too? The game doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest. The 3DO Heroes games have funny art too.

I think that people usually aren't fond of VII+ because 3DO had financial problems at that time, and they were churning them out fast. The game still have nice qualities, in spite of the increasingly outdated technology, and repetitiveness.

IX was a total turd, though.

VI.
Dungeon design is much better than VII and VIII (imho).

certainly in the case of my playthrough - i started in 5, for some reason haven´t figured out how to get into 4 and thus finished 5 first, when i finally got into 4 everything was 1 hit kill .
i still consider World of Xeen to be best of the bunch i´ve played (3-7).

the only one i disliked was 6. bland art, endless hordes of same monster types, needlessly long repetitive dungeons and iirc no markers for trainers even after you discovered them ... this altogether made the game really tedious, though the game got better towards the end.
7 cut the tedium a bit, added card game, branching main quest, stronghold and iirc some promotion quests were quite interesting, which altogether made it more enjoyable for me, even though the ending stages were somewhat anticlimatic and there was nothing of Tomb of VARN callibre.

Might and Magic III.

It has the most amount of content packed into the smallest areas, and the fullest use of all the diverse skills.

Unlike IV+V, you feel like the effort you made in getting the mountaineering skill and then traversing the mountains to find things on them really paid off.

And in III, you really need to be making sure money keeps coming in, because it will run out too quickly otherwise. Everything requires a lot of money, and often you even pay a lot just to get an ordinary item. (However, VI did this aspect better.)

And III had two extra slots for hired henchmen who demand daily pay.

And III had amazing terrain that you could use so fully in combat. If you were being chased by enemies, you cross the river, and leave them stranded on the other side. Then you kill them with ranged attacks. Similarly, walking in forests, your danger meter alerted you to possible enemies nearby. So you fired arrows through dark bushes without being able to see anything, until you find that an enemy somewhere has been killed.

Beautiful stuff. I will never ask for anything more in a videogame.

I played MM3 and really liked it. I also gave MM4+5 a try, and liked it as well, but didn't feel compelled to finish it since it was so similar to 3. I'll give it another look someday.

It is probably the mists of time, but I would have to say M&M II was my favourite, followed by III.

Dark Messiah. It's superior both graphically and in difficulty to any of the previous games. It also has difficult choices and consequences and interesting npcs.

But of course I'm joking, play M&M 7, it's the best there is in the series, imo.

The last time a poll was held, the MMVII: Day of The Destroyer was the highest voted for the most of the period, before being suddenly overtaken by VI.

And judging by the comments, a lot of regular Codexers consider MM7 to be the best.

Take that as you will.

Might and Magic 2-5 for me, with Might and Magic IIIas number 1 and 4-5 in close second. and i find 6-8 okay games to play, to bad NWC had to little time to finish 9, it could have been great with some 4-5 months extra work.

Re: Best Might & Magic

Same here.

The obligatory nature of the combat in the earlier games is limiting. VI is more like NotR, in that you can travel through dangerous areas you have no business travelling through, and sometimes survive! It's the simple and basic feature any good game should have: you can actually AVOID combat, in the sense of not having to engage every god damn time some blob appears in the horizon. It also means you can sometimes kill a few monsters far above your level, which is fun. It has no level scaling at all, and enemies tend to be of a certain level range in a certain area, so that you have a definite sense of the world being more dangerous the further you travel from the starting town, which is fun as well, because you can travel almost anywhere from the beginning.

Re: Best Might & Magic

You can avoid engaging those blobs with a teleport spell or running onto terrain that they can't reach.

I know you have not explicitly said so, but there is no level scaling in earlier MM games, and you very much do bump into places you have no business being - except, yes, chances of surviving somehow is a little less.

I stopped playing MM6 early, but my god, that goblin-infested temple in one of the early levels was beautiful. Loved it so much, that it went on and on and on. I really preferred the game's indoor fighting to the very annoying outdoor fighting, though.

Wizardries (apart from 8) and the later MM's are completely different. Pointless to compare, since both are excellent at what they do.

Wizardry 7 is a best Might & Magic.

I can't play older step-based crawlers with no automap function, making your own maps is just too long and tedious.

I had the original floppy releases of 4 and 5 and merging worked flawlessly with zero bugs. I was really impressed I have to say.

IX had huge potential and could've been a great game, or at least as good as 6-7. Shame the game was so rushed. With another 6 months or a whole year it would've actually been finished. What we got instead was a pre-beta.

Truer words have not been spoken.

Might and Magic II and Might and Magic VI.

It would have to be World of Xeen. VI was also great but the pre-rendered graphics didn't do it for me.

Worlds of Xeen is the best in my opinion. Of the modern ones that don't need DOS, MM6 is the largest but I've played and completed MM8 the most.