Review RPG Codex Review: Might & Magic X: Legacy

[Infinitron]

The reviewer the Codex selected is either unqualified to judge dungeon design or out-and-out deceitful (the comparison to MM1-5 has me leaning toward deceitful)

Sceptic

 

[Broseph]

Blaine doesn't venture out of GD much, no surprise he doesn't know one of our most members.

 

[Blaine]

Bros, I've known about Sceptic, his avatar (which IIRC has been the same since before the gallery re-implementation), and his general preferences for quite a long time.

Doesn't change anything, really. I don't give a flying fuck who you are; calling the dungeons in MMX "quite good" is bullshit. If you can't even budge on that single sticking point, then you're a lost cause as far as this conversation is concerned.

Don't forget that some of our developer gods have been witnessed fawning over declined console games. No one is immune to the decline.

Edit: Seriously though, it wasn't my intent to turn this entire thread into an argument about level design primarily featuring me. Just let it go as I make my exit and feel free to discuss the positive aspects of the game, such as the fact that it only cost $25 and you can uninstall UPlay once you're done crawling strolling through the dungeons.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I don't think MM1-2 even had multi-floor dungeons. And I don't think Xeen had more than a couple of dungeons at most where you could get lost either.

So while MMX's dungeon may be simpler than Xeen's, I think you're vastly overblowing the issue since pretty much all MM's dungeon have always been baby's first dungeons. In fact, I just looked up Clouds of Xeen maps on gamefaqs and they all look so simplistic that they can even barely be called dungeons, and in Dark Side of Xeen the only map that may be called complex enough is Dungeon of Death. The rest are a joke compared even to most Japanese Wizardries, to use your own comparison.

 

[Sceptic]

I have no way of knowing how much input any of these people had, otherwise I would have simply said "the reviewer."

I'll be happy to send you the unedited review as it was originally posted in the content forum, ie the one that was 100% written by me with no input from anyone else whatsoever. Warning: it is so long winded that even I think it's long-winded.

Then again, I feel like if Might & Magic 7 were released today, people like Blaine would decry it as "decline", "popamole", and "banal shit boring".

Funny you should mention this, because I spent many many years decrying MM7 dungeons as decline and BSB. A lot of this decrying took place on these very forums. It is also one of the reasons I don't particularly feel the need to cry about how much MMXL are decline over typical M&M - M&M was never particularly famous for its dungeons (except for MM6, but then this was the reason that game was so praised, including by me), and nothing, NOTHING in MMXL is anywhere near as shit as the shittiest dungeons in MM2 (I specifically named those dungeons in the review as well).

I know where Blaine's coming from. He sees "dungeons are quite good", reads it as "dungeons are amazing and among the best in the genre" and throws a fit, then brings in some of the best dungeons out of the series and decries DECLINE OF TEH CODEX. I can play this game too. Here's a dungeon from MM2:

Here's another absolutely awesome one from WOX that was totally not put together in 30 minutes:

Fun fact: this was the endgame dungeon of the combined MM4-5. You play through two entire games, THEN through the combined WOX-only content, and the last gameplay sequence you do is walk along a linear corridor with nothing to see, nothing to fight, nothing to use, nothing to DO other tan press the arrow keys until you get to the end of the line, at which point you get to see the ending cinematic. Quality dungeon design right there! Review sucks and has never played WOX for daring to compare this stellar piece of design to the absolute crap done-in-30-minutes dungeons of MMXL.

There's a reason I stayed away from this entire debacle of a "discussion" back in the main thread: people were posting fucking Dungeon of Death to show that WOX had good dungeons. Since you love to throw around the "hasn't played WOX" crap: have YOU played WOX? Have you gone through Dungeon of Death? Do you remember what the reward for completing it was? Do you realise Dungeon of Death was one big, MASSIVE troll on the part of NWC? The whole damn thing was one long, interminable exercise in tedious and pointless time-wasting, followed by the developers laughing at you for going through with it to the end. And you posted it to prove WOX's good dungeon design - with a straight face no less.

Look: M&M is not a dungeon crawler. Dungeon design was never stellar. MM6 was one big exception to the series; that's what made the game so damn good and why many vote it as the best M&M (including me). MM6 dungeons are NOT representative of M&M series as a whole. When compared to the run of the mill dungeons of MM1-5, the dungeons of MMXL compare favourably - ie the best of MMXL is not as good as the best of MM1-5, but the worst of MMXL is also not as bad the worst of MM1-5, and if you pick Temple of Moo and Portmeyron, or Lighthouse and Witch Tower, and put them next to each other, they're not really any different. Which is exactly what I said in the review.

Edit: Seriously though, it wasn't my intent to turn this entire thread into an argument about level design primarily featuring me.

Sure, and I'm Julien Pirou.

Anyway this is the first and last that I have to say on the matter. There are 2 paragraph going into detail about exactly what is good about MMXL dungeons and why they're comparable to those of MM1-5. If you want to latch onto the statement while completely ignoring the actual argument then there's really not much space for discussion.

I don't think MM1-2 even had multi-floor dungeons.

MM1 did have some - Dragadune was a pretty great dungeon, probably my favourite in MM1-2.

 

[Excidium]

Calling the dungeon design "quite good" is some kind of joke though. They're tiny and basically just a selection of corridors filled with monsters and the occasional spawn-shit-behind-you trigger. Oh shit a locked door! Nevermind, the key is conveniently located in that one branch we didn't go yet, and we'll go there anyway because there is no reason not to walk over every tile of those minuscule dungeons. Finding secret passages is also trivial, and generally unrewarding. Also, traps? Wot is dat?

Also the treasures spread around the map don't really reward exploration like you claim, because they are always just filled with some gold and vendor trash, like every treasure in this game that isn't those relics conveniently stored on those one-room loot dungeons.

Overworld is just "there" only serving the purpose of linking quests together, systems are poorly designed, dungeons are garbage, performance is terrible (specially in older computers that should run a game this aged just fine). Also arguably minor but annoying shit for anyone that played the game: The skill bars. Why the fuck didn't they implement multiple bars when they copied MMO design so much? Why on earth do I have to open my spellbook (which doesn't save the page you last visited) everytime I want to cast a more situational spell or refresh my buffs? The map is also another issue, first I think this is p. dumb, it should be a spell. Second while the ability to leave notes is welcome, the overworld map makes it p. useless because you can't zoom or scroll it. it boggles the mind that games from over 20 years ago have better solutions that this.

All in all I think review is too verbose, sometimes it looks like you are trying to use words words words to gloss over issues you dare criticize, when you don't immediately dismiss them.

 

[Infinitron]

Sceptic Your second image is broken.

p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. shitty

You could have just said that and gotten it over with

 

[Blaine]

Sceptic
If by "quite good" you simply meant that MMXL's dungeons are somewhere above average on a scale measuring only the Might and Magic series... well, that's probably accurate. Generally speaking, I only give a shit about Xeen and VI (to a lesser extent), and I have other comparable RPGs in mind as well.

Sure, and I'm Julien Pirou.

Nah, sometimes I genuinely do forget that people cannot resist replying vigorously to bullheaded opinions, at which point the Codexian instinct to quibble about frippery takes over and then we're off. Look on the bright side: You all got lots of commiserative Brofists out of it.

Calling the dungeon design "quite good" is some kind of joke though. They're tiny and basically just a selection of corridors filled with monsters and the occasional spawn-shit-behind-you trigger. Oh shit a locked door! Nevermind, the key is conveniently located in that one branch we didn't go yet, and we'll go there anyway because there is no reason not to walk over every tile of those minuscule dungeons. Finding secret passages is also trivial, and generally unrewarding. Also, traps? Wot is dat?

It's no use. Codexians are so desperate for anything resembling an RPG that they'll tolerate embellished linear corridors with treasure nooks now. Even if previous MMs featured comparatively simple level design, that's no reason not to harp on it now.

Frankly Infinitron, I see you and Grunks defending decline on a regular basis. Excidium and Gozma on the other hand fight it pretty stridently at every turn—and I'm not saying that because those two and I are buttbuddies who endlessly Brofist back and forth at every turn, quite the opposite really.

 

[Infinitron]

Frankly Infinitron, I see you and Grunks defending decline on a regular basis. Excidium and Gozma on the other hand fight it pretty stridently at every turn—and I'm not saying that because those two and I are buttbuddies who endlessly Brofist back and forth at every turn, quite the opposite really.

Haha, and you're a Warrior For Incline, right?

Well, I wouldn't put myself in the same category as Excidium if I was a person who'd spent thousands of dollars on Kickstarters.

 

[Mortmal]

Then again, I feel like if Might & Magic 7 were released today, people like Blaine would decry it as "decline", "popamole", and "banal shit boring".

But that's the point, old games are cherished because of nostalgia and, most importantly, because there was littlr hope to see something similar made again, if the reinassance just means same old mediocrity without any improvement or any of the best elements and design calling them popamole is just fair.

Its not just nostalgia , MMX strongest point is to exist of course its a miracle we still got anything at all , but the level design is indeed really poor , if you compare to games we once had its massive decline . Not so long ago i was discussing about old games on the shout box and that gave me the idea to replay Fate a bit, a game done by a very small team.... Now here's one level of a dungeon , theres 7 pages like this, just for one of the dungeons (http://dungeony.rpghry.cz/fate/index.html) :

Oh i got my money worthwith MMX, but i'dlike another blobber like fate with a modern interface a real automap and similar dungeon crawling. I'd like a titanesque adventure like that again.

 

[Blaine]

Well, I wouldn't put myself in the same category as Excidium if I was a person who'd spent thousands of dollars on Kickstarters.

I spent thousands of dollars on Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera as well, as you probably don't recall since it's inconvenient—hey-o, let's just focus on the Wing Commander one.

Also, 1.) I'm not exactly putting myself in the same category, just observing; and 2.) Ex is from Brazil.

 

[Grotesque]

MMXL? MM40?
You people and your fuckin' acronyms.

Too lazy to write the game's title besides the title?

 

[Infinitron]

Well, I wouldn't put myself in the same category as Excidium if I was a person who'd spent thousands of dollars on Kickstarters.

I spent thousands of dollars on Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera as well, as you probably don't recall since it's inconvenient—hey-o, let's just focus on the Wing Commander one.

Uh, but I didn't mention Star Citizen. I'm well aware that you've spent large sums of money on CRPGs.

I'm just saying, if you want to talk about "supporting incline", then speak for yourself.

 

[Invictus]

I haven't played X but to be honest I never found the M&M games to have very deep dungeons, and the ones that did like the Dwarven Mines in WOX where not very entertaining. The puzzles in the dungeons are another matter of course, and I do recall by far the good dungeons like Fortress of Fear for their tricky puzzles more than its gameplay or the actual size of the dungeon itself.

 

[Broseph]

Sceptic
If by "quite good" you simply meant that MMXL's dungeons are somewhere above average on a scale measuring only the Might and Magic series... well, that's probably accurate. Generally speaking, I only give a shit about Xeen and VI (to a lesser extent), and I have other comparable RPGs in mind as well.

In case you didn't notice, the game is called Might & Magic X. Of course its dungeon design is going to be measured against other titles in the same series, not fucking Wizardry or Shin Megami Tensei. Point is, for the most part, people who like this series didn't play it because it had historically excellent level design.

 

[Shadenuat]

Warning: it is so long winded that even I think it's long-winded.

This article was even longer?

Fuuuuck.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Codexians are so desperate for anything resembling an RPG that they'll tolerate embellished linear corridors with treasure nooks now. Even if previous MMs featured comparatively simple level design, that's no reason not to harp on it now.

Nice job on continuing to blow the issue out of proportion. The entire point of the review was to assess MMX as a Might and Magic game, not as an ideal of a perfect RPG. You just took a single sentence about dungeons being "quite nice", blew it out of proportion while completely ignoring its context - which actually presents a very balanced, if subjective, argument as to MMXL's relative strengths and weaknesses compared to other MM games - and now you attempt to present that as fighting against the decline, even though you have yourself already admitted that, within the context of the review that Sceptic so helpfully explained to you, his statement is "probably accurate".

 

[Niektory]

MMXL? MM40?

2040

 

[Blaine]

I'm just saying, if you want to talk about "supporting incline", then speak for yourself.

As I ninja-edited in, I'm simply making an observation.

Simplistic embellished corridors with treasure nooks are my pet peeve. They've been pissing me the fuck off on a regular basis for the past several years.

In case you didn't notice, the game is called Might & Magic X. Of course its dungeon design is going to be measured against other titles in the same series, not fucking Wizardry or Shin Megami Tensei. Point is, for the most part, people who like this series didn't play it because it had historically excellent level design.

What I've noticed is that several of you (including Crooked Bee) seem to believe that Might & Magic stands alone in its very own subgenre, and as such, needn't be compared to any other series within that subgenre, or to related subgenres for that matter. Well, I don't share your opinion. As far as I'm concerned, it's a dungeon crawler, and can and should be compared to its brethren while at the same time being compared to earlier entries in the series. A few simple towns and a large, but ultimately sparse overworld (Sceptic himself touches on this) aren't adequate excuses.

I'm having a hard time thinking of any dungeon crawler ever produced with simpler dungeons... Anvil of Dawn, maybe? Been a long time since I've played it.

The puzzles in the dungeons are another matter of course, and I do recall by far the good dungeons like Fortress of Fear for their tricky puzzles more than its gameplay or the actual size of the dungeon itself.

You'll maybe find one genuinely good one in MMX, depending on your threshold of challenge.

 

[Invictus]

Blaine just sau you over reacted and leave it at that; it like if I see a movie and somebody asks if it was good and I say "Yeah it is nice" I am not saying it is fucking Ciitizen Kane ffs. Sceptic is one of the biggest M&M fans here in the Codex and he is giving the game his blessing; it is not WOX or man date oh hevan but it is a good game and that is what fans have been waiting for. Heck even the overworld sections sound to me like the Wizardry 7 overworld and that sounds fine to me and his review has prompted me to get the game as soon as I am done with Dark Souls 2

 

[Mortmal]

Anvil of dawn had simple dungeons not sure if MMX succeeds to beat it to be honest , but everything was simple in that game anyway...Here's a sample:

 

[Crooked Bee]

You're trying to make a broader point about dungeon crawlers now and how game developers should strive to do better, which is a fair enough point to make, but your initial comment was that it was "the comparison to MM1-5" that made you consider the reviewer "deceitful". You already admitted, however, that the comparison that got you so riled up at first was actually "probably accurate". Since then, you've been doing nothing but moving the goalposts.

 

[Nyast]

I find this whole discussion about dungeons designs absolutely fascinating.

But, but but.. I have to ask. What defines a good dungeon design in the first place ?

What criteria would you use to judge whether a dungeon design is good or bad ? Realistic layout ? Complexity ? Non-linearity ? Puzzles ? Encounters with NPCs/monsters ? Items distribution ? All of that.. and more ? Would it be possible to make small/simple dungeon maps, similar to MMX's size, but with a better design ? Or does a better design necessarily involve bigger/more complex maps ?

 

[Shadenuat]

Sceptic, imo you need to learn2cut. You have ~5 paragraphs talking about UI only, and by UI I mean not all of it, like from controls to inventory, but just what buttons you press to do what - since there's another paragraph or two for inventory and some other stuff. Hey, there's a button which shows you if enemy is near! Well great, but what purpose does that knowledge serve for the reader? And then there's something that feels like more important info, like the fact that game is made on Unity and has performance issues, yet it gets the last place under technical part.

When I think about "review", I usually think about an article which would focus on most important parts of the game to help reader understand if he would be interested in the game or not, not a titanic mix of a technical manual, a walkthrough of all it's systems and a history lesson.

Maybe it's a Codex tradition, as there are more quite long articles around, but when reading a review could take more time than downloading, installing and trying the game reviewed, I'd say the editing is just not optimal.

 

[Lerk]

Good review, jives with my own experience with the game. Will be interesting to see what Limbic do with a sequel, assuming they get the opportunity to make it.