Hello,

I've been playing through the Might and Magic series and just completed World of Xeen. I've been following a chronological ordering of the games, including the Heroes series, and next on the list is Swords of Xeen. I understand this is a semi-official fan-made project. So, just two questions about the game:

1) Is it worth playing for the story/lore related to the Might and Magic universe? (Whether or not the Might and Magic lore is worthwhile or not is a different discussion, but I like it so far).
2) Is it worth playing if I enjoy the series, and found the gameplay in 3-5 to be largely enjoyable? 3-5 aren't the most fun I've ever had, and I vastly prefer 6's gameplay, but I'm not opposed to more of the same. I've heard that Swords is pretty buggy, though, and you can't necessarily abuse it like you can in other games in the series (which to me is a large part of the fun, I like power gaming).

I don't remember this game having significant lore, and what it does have is probably non-cannon.

As for whether it's worth playing, there is an interesting town building mechanic. There are also enemies who visually morph between forms (clever use of the engine here).

As for abusing the game mechanics, there are abuses possible in this game. For example, there is a repeatable event that can repeatedly increase Personality of some classes until it reaches the maximum, and there's a fountain that gives HP ignoring the character's max HP without limit (but watch out for integer overflow if you go too high!). So yes, there are exploits in this game. I believe you can also break the game's linearity by using Mr. Wizard, which sends you to a different place depending on whether it is used in or out of combat.

With that said, if you do decide to play the game:
* Play on Adventurer difficulty. While I prefer Warrior for World of Xeen, I do not recommend it for Swords. WoX is reasonably balanced, SoX is not, andd if you try on Warrior, you will likely get frustrated at some point, (That can happen on Adventurer difficulty, but at least it's a bit less likely here.)
* You don't need Thievery. The default party has a Robber and a Ninja for some reason; you don't need either. You are going to want a Figher or Barbarian for their better accuracy, however, and might even consider having more than one (accuracy is a *major* issue come endgame).
* Don't trust the game. Don't trust the game to behave in a sensible manner. For example, if you choose to not use a stat boost, it might disappear anyway (although, to be fair, this sometimes happens in Darkside of Xeen). Don't assume that the fountain of youth won't underflow your age, causing you to instantly age 255 years (yes, that can happen; I suspect the intention was to allow the fountain to reverse natural aging, but unfortunately the engine doesn't work that way). Don't assume that the healing fountain will have a check to prevent overflow. In general, don't assume that every thing works correctly, particularly when it comes to the game's scripting.
* Save early, often, and in multiple slots. This is my standard advice for buggy games, and it applies here. I don't know if it is possible to get softlocked (but remember, don't assume it's not!), but I believe you may be screwed out of certain feature appearing in towns if things go the wrong way.

Swords of Xeen is worth playing once if you enjoyed World of Xeen. It uses the same engine but it's not as polished. Putting a different game in-between for variety is worth considering. The story is unrelated to the other games.

SoX is more difficult than WoX, there's no arena to gain levels if the game proves too difficult, you'll have to face and fight powerful monsters while you're quite low level, you'll have to save and reload quite a lot. Some quests are not as clear and simple as in WoX.

Warrior difficulty is doable, I recommend having at least one barbarian in the party who gets enough attacks per round to hurt monsters immune to spells. Don't ever use the raise dead spell (endurance loss), go to a temple or reload instead. The astrology skill which gives extra MP to druids and rangers isn't in the game. For thievery a dwarf ninja or thief is enough, some even play without anyone having this skill.

I enjoyed it for what it is. I'd advice to give it a try.

Actually, I believe there is a place to learn the skill, so a character of any class might be enough. (This is unlike WoX, where it's the one skill that can't be learned (even everything doesn't include it, unlike in MM3).)

Also, I don't even know if there is any place in the game that actually checks thievery and requires more than the 0 skill a character without the skill is (I believe) treated as having.

Another thing you, or anyone else thinking of playing the game, might want to consider is playing it using a daily build of ScummVM. Support has recently been added for Clouds, DarkSide, and Swords - it's just pending on the next official release to be officially supported, so you'd need to use a daily build for now. Out of all of the Xeen games, only Swords hasn't yet had a complete play-through. Any encountered original game bugs that could be identified could likely be permanently worked around with engine patches.

There's in fact a place to learn thievery in SoX but it takes some time to get there. I had a dwarf ninja in my party so I can't say for sure how it works without one but those who recommend playing without a thief seem trustworthy.