Spell casters have always been weak in M&M. In the old games you rolled for stats. Here you allocate them manually. So if you pump only spirit and magic for your casters, you can make them hard hitting glass cannons that go down easily. But if you boost Vitality they gain survivability.
By weak do you mean they go down quickly? because in terms of raw power and damage they dish out casters followed the traditional RPG/D&D curve, in that by the end they were portable black holes capable of annihilating entire species just by looking at them. This was particularly pronounced in 6-7 but it was also there in 1-5. I think the only game that escapes this is 8, but that's only because dragons are so hilarious OP.
Yes this does pose a problem if you fight way out of your league though, in that casting these protection spells only delays the inevitable.
I would argue this is as it should be. A novice level spell you cast with a level 2 party should NOT allow you to faceroll a enemy meant for a level 20 party.
Another thing I dislike is that there is no cap to attributes. There should be.
MM1-5 had a cap attribute at 255, which was so high you were unlikely to see it without cheesing the fuck out of the game (and in fact I think only MM2's cheeses would allow you to get anywhere close - in MM1 and MM4 it was most certainly impossible to get there without hex editing). I don't remember if MM6-8 had the soft cap still at 255, though I recall that temporary boosts could take you above that cap. Well, you could argue that MM2 had no cap, since going over 255 would reset the attribute to 0
Generally, I go with "if the previous games did it and it didn't break them then I don't see the problem" with respect to whether elements in MMX should be limited or removed. Of course,
adding things that improve the game (such as bringing the skills from MM6-8 into the MM3-5 formula) is always welcome.
However, elements were borrowed from all M&Ms. Such as the ability to select skills, a larger overland mass, safe towns (with some exceptions like the spiders), more and varied spells
Overland mass was huge in WOX, and in fact I'd argue that it's the largest game in the series, with only MM6 being a possible contender. And the game with the biggest spell variety and selection is MM3. That said, although some elements were indeed borrowed from later M&Ms, the framework was still WOX, and it shows. Though adding some of these elements, especially the skills, was a VERY nice feature and the best example of how you
can have the best of both worlds.
Like you could not modify your starting party apart from race and class, as in the Xeen series?
MM1-5 all allowed you to roll for attributes, and even had a very nice option to swap 2 attributes.
Please finish the game before writing your review
There goes my master plan of writing a review after playing the game for 30 minutes and of using it to get a position at PC Gamer.
On a more serious note, yeah, the game does improve significantlyi n acts 2 ad 3.
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