Being in a state of acute MM rush, I decided to
step jump into MM9 right after MMX. For anyone wondering, WTF is MM9? It's a game. The MM game, that's for sure. Is it good? Well, maybe, for everyone craving for old-school cool with a hefty amount of old-school uncoolness. NO, if you searching for an improvement on MM formula or at least for not dropping the bar too far.
I usually don't trust in so-called "codex concensus", as all the media, it is susceptible to hype, for better or worse. So, i like to dive in anything, proclaimed as decline, from time to time in hopes to dig up some rough diamond. By no mean this game is a rough diamond but i think it deserves of a more meticulous inspection.
First things first, it has at most half of the content as previous 3do's games. Empty indoors, empty outdoors, minimum objects, minimum enemies, minimum environment interactions. It is BUTT-UGLY, textures much worse that in MM6, 3d models are "baby's first 3dmax effort", most music tracks are short and annoying.
SO, with that out of the way now specifics:
- My biggest gripe. No mini map with wizard's eye and the big map is
uninformative. This means your can't point on a dwelling an see it's title.
- Trainers are now loitering around the streets and
you cannot see NPCs name until you click on him, which in combination with shitty map warrants a pretty frustrating combing of the layout. Even MM2 was easier in that regard. People who couldn't find Caius Cosades should be right at home.
- Interface is
uninformative. Lack of feddback on what status effects your chars have or what status effects they cast on enemies. Come to think of it, i dont remember statuses, other than desease, my party were suffering from and i didn't care about resistances whatsoever. Maybe they simply not working.
- Some spells are bugged. Torchlight not working and Divine intervention is a one huge exploit. Also, most of the magic, other than buff, seemed worthless.
- Obvious effort from devs to tone down the fun. You cannot outrun enemies without Fleet feet spell and you get most of the loot from bodies, not chests. Also, no waterwalk, no levitation, no jump. It seems devs wanted for player to follow the specific setup and not to have fun. What is this? Oblivion?
- It seems turn based mode is bugged as you will take far less hits in realtime. Or maybe im imagining things.
- Party's Inventories are huge. Makes me wondering, why they didn't implement one general inventory.
- No rations and fatigue. Ingame dialogs suggest there should be rations and fatigue.
- You can hire up to 3 NPCs but their stats are anemic and, by the midgame, you'll just be wasting time during their turns.
- Magic system is reshuffled. Just where is my fucking fireball? I mean elemental schools were the staple of all MMs and HoMMs. Getting rid of em makes it less of a MM.
- Can't attack NPCs. Decline.
Okay, other than that it's still MM. Munchkinism, powerleveling, partybuilding, promotions, are still incredibly satisfying, as in all MM games, and head and shoulders above anything they shit out nowadays.
PS Latest gog installer includes unofficial patch, so the game is surprisingly bug-free.
PPS I didn't say anything about MMX because it doesn't feel like MM game. You may as well include Legend of Grimrock and Dark Messiah in the poll.
PPPs Still better than Skyrim.
