Well I have finished Might and Magic. My opinion of it is that it's a great game that deserves more credit. Everyone goes for Xeen or the M&M6 engine games and forgets or ignores M&M1. That's a big error on my opinion. I think I'm going to do a little review of some aspects of the game from my point of view:
Graphics are not the best for it's time, but they do the job quite nicely. Everything is distinguishable, and it has a lot of variation: Dungeons, Caves, Castles, Towns, Mountains, tundras, Deserts, Forests, Swamps, the sea... Monsters have a nice design to them and I can't believe people prefers the NES version graphics over this. My only complain is that the monster graphics don't stay on screen when fighting them. That would have been nice, but it seems that this was because the game uses the mixed graphics and text mode of Apple II, and when the combat occurs, it switch to the text only from Apple II. This seems to be recreated on the PC as well.
Sound in the game is very limited even though games like Ultima III already had music on 1983. However what little sound is there, it's very catchy. My girlfriend keeps humming the win song and the defeat an enemy song constantly.
The story is not that great though, but it encourages exploration in order to find the needed clues, and the ending itself is actually quite rewarding and unexpected. It's nice that it also ties directly with M&M2. The story probably suffers because there is very little NPC interaction, I'm used to the Ultima series which shine in this aspect and M&M seems to go more for exploration than NPC interactivity. The world itself is full of little tidbits and cllues and I really liked exploring and finding as much information about it as I could.
Regarding gameplay, I'm very surprised here with what the game offers. All areas have their own gimmicks here and there that makes them unique. I played a bit of World of Xeen when I was a kid and a few years ago, and M&M1 seems way more unique in this area. Combat in the game is actually one of it's best aspects. It's very tactical but at the same time casual enough so it doesn't become tedious. The level escalation it has works quite well and keeps sending the player new challenges without making it too difficult. I actually consider it very well balanced both at the beginning and at mid game. It tends to go in favor of the player towards the end though. I was level 20 or so and managed to fight any encounter without much difficulty as long as I could defeat the most dangerous enemies in time. I also don't consider the game needs any grinding at all. I never actually grinded levels during my playthrough and besides a few encounters that proved at first very difficult, I managed quite well during the game. Also, towards the end of the game you seem to be getting levels quite fast (I think the experience is the same for all levels after certain point instead of being double the previous level). Player classes are all useful, though I think the Archer is way overpowered... the class does a lot of damage shooting and also has magic.
Exploration as said in previous posts is also one of the best aspects of the game. I played not too long ago Baldur's Gate 1 and in that game areas seem to be almost empty of anything. M&M1 manages to make all areas interesting and unique, and you find clues, encounters traps everywhere. It makes mapping really fun. Maybe the only really empty places are the Soul Maze and the Astral Plane, but those were fun to map since they are quite different from other areas. You almost certainly can find something interesting on each of the 55 areas the game has, and one thing I really like that probably will miss in later M&M games is that you can't just go mapping on a straight line as it was the case with Xeen. Mountains, forests, and everything have corridors as dungeons do.
What I didn't like in the game were items. They felt mostly useless to me. Most items have a spell effect attached to them, but if you have a mage and cleric in your party you won't need to use items at all. If they worked on non magical squares they would have been great, but sadly the work as if they were normal spells. I suppose they can get useful for a melee only party, but for a balanced party they aren't. I also would have appreciated a identify option for items on shops or something.
Also, sometimes enemies feel a bit unfair since they can use spells in ways you can't. Like using a fireball to the front members of the party without any side effects. However, if they didn't have those option they probably would be way too weak.
Looking forward to play M&M2. Not sure if I will use my chars or create new ones. Even if my levels go down, my stats are quite high so probably they are a bit overpowered.
I really really recommend people giving a chance to M&M1 PC version. Great exploration, great combat and nice ending
