Might and Magic Might & Magic X - Legacy

[Average Manatee]

Honestly I think a lot of the failures of Legacy and the recent Heroes games is the horrendously generic, boring, and shitty fantasy world they created. There are few shades of interesting story threads in Heroes 6, but none of the charm and wonder of the JVC games.

It also goes back to M&M 9 when they threw out everything they'd built for a decade and wrote some odd viking fan fiction instead.

The thing is that M&M has been so long from the popular public eye that the prospective market probably assumes it's a 100% generic fantasy world RPG and would be disappointed if it wasn't. Western RPGs in general have moved away from the science/fantasy genre, only jRPGs seem to do it nowadays. It doesn't help that the Heroes games have a lot less focus on the setting, and as they overtook the M&M games in popularity so went the importance of creating an interesting world.

 

[Dorateen]

There were subtle references to the Sci-Fi influence of early Might & Magic present in Legacy. One NPC you can meet is totally not an alien from another world...

 

[Iznaliu]

There were subtle references to the Sci-Fi influence of early Might & Magic present in Legacy. One NPC you can meet is totally not an alien from another world...

Because that was all they could get away with.

 

[ilitarist]

There were subtle references to the Sci-Fi influence of early Might & Magic present in Legacy. One NPC you can meet is totally not an alien from another world...

Did you finish the game itself? Apart from this NPC the main plot goes back to presenting evil guys as aliens and the ultimate evil guy is

[QUOTE="Average Manatee, post: 5230546, member: 14517"It doesn't help that the Heroes games have a lot less focus on the setting, and as they overtook the M&M games in popularity so went the importance of creating an interesting world.[/QUOTE]

Yes, Heroes were very successful and one of the reasons for this is them being as generic as possible. They have every fairy tale creature you can think of and the roster is very diverse. Other fantasy RPGs and strategy games go into a trap of making the fantasy boring: e.g. Age of Wonders games are similar. But look at Elven city in Heroes and AoW. In Heroes 3 it looks great and inside you have: centaurs, dwarves, elven archers, pegasi, unicorns, dendroids, green dragons. In Age of Wonders 3 you have: elven mage, elven pikeman, elven swordsman, elven archer, elven priestess, elven unicorn rider... You get the point. Heroes is partly a platform for maps, you can imagine them beign set in a generic DnD world or Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time or whatever. Age of Wonders and other games infuse too much of the story in the gameplay.

Warcraft 3 is similar in that regard of being a fantasy game. Of recent games I think only Warlock (and previously Fantasy Wars from the same guys) adopted this philosophy.

 

[Iznaliu]

Warcraft 3 is similar in that regard of being a fantasy game. Of recent games I think only Warlock (and previously Fantasy Wars from the same guys) adopted this philosophy.

Because the more you think about it, the more it falls apart.

 

[Efe]

having met m&m series with 6th installment of series, X was utter garbage and an abomination for me.

 

[Haplo]

I loved MM X Legacy. Value it far higher then the earlier hybrid real-time pixelated abominations.

 

[TheGameSquid]

I played it for about 15 hours, and I can't entirely deny that I was having a pretty good time with it. However I do have to agree with Grampy_Bone, the world they've created is charmless, boring and devoid of any originality. Maybe it gets better later on? I don't know.

Unfortunately something extremely tragic happened in my life while I was playing the game, and I do have some trouble going back to it because it always reminds me of what happened. I realise I should probably just get over myself and complete the damn game, and I hope I will some day.

 

[ilitarist]

I loved MM X Legacy. Value it far higher then the earlier hybrid real-time pixelated abominations.

Oh well, at last I see someone honest and similar minded person who agrees MMXL is fine and MM6-8 aren't Jesus Christ in videogame form. Now I will stalk you closely watching your reviews.

 

[Haplo]

Honoured.

Though I don't play that much... and review even less. Finally got around to trying Underrail and it is indeed awesome.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I find it funny now that M&M 6 is so well-regarded today. It's hard to express what a disappointment it was back when it was released. Party roster reduced from 6 to 4, classes eliminated from 10 to 6, combat made absurdly unfair, etc. Still they were feeling out a new design and trying to innovate, so I give them credit for that. I still think M&M 7 is a superior game.

I did have a particularly odd experience with M&M6 though. At the time I had a Pentium 233, some off-the-shelf Best Buy PC my parents bought, and it wouldn't run the game at all. Some kind of video driver conflict. I actually spent a lot of time with 3DO support trying to get it to run, they just kept telling me to update my drivers. Never worked. In the end I gave the game to a friend of mine, on the condition I could come over to his house and play it whenever I wanted. It ran on his PC, so I would go over there every weekend after work and play M&M6 all night. Thinking how long that game is, it took me most of a year to get through it. He played it at the same time and we both would compare notes and talk about our strategies. Good times.

 

[ilitarist]

I am slowly coming to absurd realization that MMXL is the best blobber available today (unless, of course, Grimoire comes out today).

It made me realize I love those kind of games some time ago. Previously I played MM series, Wizardry 8 - but not to any serious extent. There was something off about them even though I loved the idea. Today, years later, Wiz8 irritates me with many things, obscure mechanics, lack of good widescreen support - yeah, I'm a pussy in that regard. MM6-8 just have primitive combat and same problems as Wiz8. Stranger of the Sword City and Elminage Gothic have bad UI as if made for handhelds, plus SotSC doesn't have proper save system which is unbearable - I'm ok with the game being iron man but not allowing me to save in dungeon makes me dread launching the game cause I know I may *have* to spend a lot of time with it or lose progress if I have to go. Plus those Japanese blobbers love to throw bullshit at you.

So it seems I will have to get my tactical combat from MMXL replay or other genres. Those Disgaea games seem to have a similar philosophy somewhat, minus whole exploration thing.

 

[V_K]

I am slowly coming to absurd realization that MMXL is the best blobber available today

Nope, that'd be Grimrock 2. Or, if you mean specifically TB blobbers, Lords of Xulima. Despite its top-down perspective, exploration-wise LoX feel a lot more like a proper MM (just compare the world maps) than MMX, and combat-wise I'd say its much superior.

 

[ilitarist]

Grimrock 2 might indeed be more similar to MM6-8 than MMXL. But I didn't quite liked the combat, it always felt like I'm exploiting the game with all the strafes and running at constantly reminding my guys they can attack. Completed first one but couldn't finish the second one.

LoX endlessly irritates me with its presentation, especially combat animations. And I couldn't get to a proper open area, it always felt like the game is linear but allows me to wander somewhere I'll have no chance of surviving. Character progression felt very boring, I played for some time but it felt like a chore, wasn't looking for next levelup or equipment piece. You know what I mean: in MMXL you levelup to finally get a cool ability and new spells and to be able to wield that artifact you've found. In Grimrock and LoX it felt like I'm leveling up just to be competitive with the world, IIRC apart from couple of spells in Grimrock like Poison Cloud the combat didn't really evolve for the whole game.

 

[V_K]

And I couldn't get to a proper open area, it always felt like the game is linear but allows me to wander somewhere I'll have no chance of surviving

It's true to an extent at the beginning, but a properly buffed party can do many areas out of supposed order. There are only two "hard" gates - the golem and the statue - but the center-top part of the map only has "meat" gates. It certainly has less gating than MMX.

You know what I mean: in MMXL you levelup to finally get a cool ability and new spells and to be able to wield that artifact you've found. In Grimrock and LoX it felt like I'm leveling up just to be competitive with the world

Mages in LoX stop getting new skills at aroun level 40 IIRC. Character building in general is tighter and less forgiving, but I don't see how that's a flaw. Equipment progression in LoX is shit, that's true. However this is offset to an extent by different weapon types playing really differently instead of just having slighly differnt to hit/damage numbers.
Grimrock had a "flatter" character progression, but that's a good thing for an open-world game. Still quite a few utility spells and weapon special abilities were quite game-changing. Not to mention much more varied enemies.

IIRC apart from couple of spells in Grimrock like Poison Cloud the combat didn't really evolve for the whole game.

And how did combat evolve in MMX? Cast shield, cast whatever elemental buff you need for the current encounter, cast whatever elemental damage spells you need for the current encounter, rinse and repeat.

 

[ilitarist]

And how did combat evolve in MMX? Cast shield, cast whatever elemental buff you need for the current encounter, cast whatever elemental damage spells you need for the current encounter, rinse and repeat.

You will probably not have elemental buff and cures for all situations. I liked MMXL as it forced me to overcome tough fights by using scrolls/potions in places where my party was weak. There are also many ways you can affect enemies with stuff like shield break, berserk and other stuff that in most RPGs only works against the player. Every type of enemy required different approach, and it was quite clear that my party was well balanced against some of them and faired poorly against others. This was very different from most party RPGs where you either have a good party or a bad one; you either have enough level/equipment against specific foe or not. Yeah, every RPG under the sun has rings for fire/cold/whatever resist but in MMXL it felt useful to adjust equipment and elemental play wasn't the only factor in dealing with enemies. It also had used the environment well by sometimes forting multi-front attacks or presenting an opportunity for a smarter engagement.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Hopefully Bard's Tale will be good.

 

[V_K]

I wouldn't hold my breath. Grimoire's our only savior. Maybe Frayed Knights 2, but it's anyone's guess which one will release first.

 

[Haplo]

Yeah, seems like MM X is the best modern blobber. LoG is real-time and LoX feels just bland to me. Like illitarist wrote, there's no excitement in levelling, character development or looting/equipping characters.

I did play Elminage Gothic (still need to finish Ibag Tower.. sometime) and SoSC. I liked the first one a lot, despite its UI. SoSC was okay. The devs went a bit overboard with multiclassing options and it's all a bit too tidy, orderly and convenient (this dungeon has sliders, this teleporters and this hidden pasasges... here use spirit slaying weapons, while here undead slaying... can't mix those, that would confuse players... oh and sections are copy-pasted and repeated). Story is very animu. But I still liked it.

 

[Castozor]

I think you might want to give Swords and Sorcery: Underworld a go to if you haven't already. It's obviously indie but it's relatively cheap and I quite liked playing it. I don't understand your complains/issues with LoX though. Yes items are a bit meh but leveling was as exciting as MMX if not more so and it's combat is vastly superior in my opinion.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

M&MX was fun but I felt the combat was too tedious. As someone said before, you need different approaches for different enemies. It clashes with the older M&M games in which you mostly auto attacked (or spammed spells) your way through and monsters were fodder for your party which would eventually become godlike and the game mostly let you focus on exploration and loot (but with enough combat in there to keep it interesting).

 

[Castozor]

M&MX was fun but I felt the combat was too tedious. As someone said before, you need different approaches for different enemies. It clashes with the older M&M games in which you mostly auto attacked (or spammed spells) your way through and monsters were fodder for your party which would eventually become godlike and the game mostly let you focus on exploration and loot (but with enough combat in there to keep it interesting).

I'm sorry but how is making the combat less brain dead auto-attack spam a bad thing? You make it sound like actually thinking about the combat is a bad thing. At least to me, nothing is more tedious than having the 100th random battle where all I do is spam the attack key to hope it goes away faster.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The combat in older M&M games was all about the setup. Getting the right gear, the right buffs, and knowing what order to do the dungeons in. Legacy was definitely more engaging at a tactical level but came at the cost of speed. Having just played through the Xeen games a month ago for the first time since the 90's, there is a certain charm to facerolling all the enemies, but running around to get all the overpowered fountain buffs was quite tedious. Half the time it barely felt like an RPG at all. Then the game loves throwing out 100,000 gold here, 1 million xp there. Even on Warrior mode it's piss-easy. I would almost call it... casual.

I don't think one is necessarily better than the other, just different.

 

[Iznaliu]

Half the time it barely felt like an RPG at all.

Anything will feel like an RPG if you take the right drugs.

 

[DemonKing]

I thought M&MX was one of the best games of the last few years, although a lot of that might be down to the nostalgia factor. The world was pretty bland but I thought the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.