Might and Magic® 9

Lets just get one thing out of the way: It looks like shit. That was the first thing that hit me when i played it the first time. So, I tried to see beyond its horrible exterior. I found a game that was actually a lots of fun, though cant really be compared to the others in the series. The gameplay is ok, but it was (at least at the time) very buggy. The one thing i remember the most is getting my wizard to become a lich, which was a quest in its own right. The transformation, and the changed paperdoll was awesome. If you want to try one game in the series that is a bit different, looks like shit but plays ok, try it out!

When I first tried to start Might and Magic 9 on Windows 10, I got a black screen for a second, and then I received an error message that said, "MMIX has stopped working." However, after a tip from sigurbjornl on the GOG Might and Magic forum, I visited the following GitHub page: https://github.com/elishacloud/dinputto8 I then downloaded Release v1.0.58.0 and followed the instructions. Specifically, after unzipping the downloaded file, I added the dinput.dll file into the game's installation directory. Now the game starts up properly and is working for me on Windows 10! Regarding the game itself, I did not get the chance to play video games much when younger, so most "old games" are new games to me (part of the reason I love GOG). Thus, I have no experience with MM9 or the previous games in the series. However, I'm having fun playing MM9 so far, though I plan to backtrack and start with MM6 based on reviews I read. Anyway, if you're reading this and have had the same issue at startup, I hope this patch fixes the problem for you too!

I loved this game mostly because of nostalgic purposes. I just wish this game had mods so that it looks better. But either way, It is very fun and luckily I could finish it. I did have some problems though. when playing it the screen turned black during night times and when my party was swimming in the water. I think it was due to some compatibility issues. What I did to fix this is using an old version of DDrawCompat. I used version DDrawCompat v0.1.3. To install it just replace the ddraw.dll file in your game path. https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases

Without the 1.3 patch(availible at www.celestialheavens.com) this game is completely and utterly broken but if you do take the time to obtain said patch and apply it to your game, you will find that it is a very fun game. It is however nowhere near as good as MM8: Day of the destroyer but well worth a spin or 2.

I am really impressed GoG actually bothered to go all the way to Might And Magic IX. It is abhorred by both the fans, the developers and even 3DO, the publishers (who didn't get the instant returns it expected when they pushed to launch the game ASAP). But I guess they kinda HAD to re-launch everything. The result is pretty much what a Bethesda game is without the support offered by day-1 patches and the like (see Fallout 3). A lot of people went through some herculean effort to put the game in a playing state long after there was nothing more to be gained from it and in the end it does show that New World Computing had some bold ideas for this installments. There is an entire host of radical changes to the formula that hadn't changed any since Might and Magic VI and the results could've been what the series needed for a fresh breath of air. Just a heads-up, even with all the unpaid fixes and coding witchcraft used to make the game stagger on its two feet (with a cane and a crutch) it still is terribly fiddly to get it going and it might not work on your computer at all.