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I seriously loved the gaming experience provided by that game, but I'm having a hard time getting into six. The real time combat feels awkward and I find the graphics less appealing. I really like everything being turn based wtih this kind of game.
You might want to check M&M7 as it offers a tighter and slightly improved experience after the previous instalment, maybe it will ease you better into the next-generation M&M engine. Otherwise, I too find WoX to be better in terms of graphics (hand-grawn goodness instead of awkward sprites) and a better-designed game world instead of largely empty landscapes and dungeons.
I'd say 1,2,3,6 and 7 are better.
Xeen is just too simplistic and easy for my taste. It's still a fun game, though.
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Charon121: You might want to check M&M7 as it offers a tighter and slightly improved experience after the previous instalment, maybe it will ease you better into the next-generation M&M engine. Otherwise, I too find WoX to be better in terms of graphics (hand-grawn goodness instead of awkward sprites) and a better-designed game world instead of largely empty landscapes and dungeons.
I started playing around with it more. Learning to hit "Enter" to go into turn based mode definitely helps with the larger monster battles. I think i'll see this one through, it will just take a little getting used to.
I've found that turn-based works better for single, tougher monsters that require more refined tactics, so fighting in turns gives you the upper hand. Towards the end of the game you will use real time more because it's less tedious as you're powerful enough to just mash the attack button and mow down scores of enemies.
Few games are more fun to explore than MM6, and there's alway new booty to be had.

And in which other CRPGs than MM6 and 7 can you fly and carpet bomb armies of enemies? It was a huge shift from MM 4-5, but mostly for the better.
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PetrusOctavianus: And in which other CRPGs than MM6 and 7 can you fly and carpet bomb armies of enemies?
Well, there's Daggerfall and Morrowind, which let you fly with Levitate spells. (This is assuming you count them as CRPGs, but if they don't count, I'd argue that MM6 and 7 might not count either.)

(In Morrowind, Boots of Blinding Speed (with side effect resisted) + Levitate = fun.)
Here are some of my criticisms of World of Xeen:

* Enemies don't respawn, for the most part. In particular, no enemies worth fighting for high level parties ever respawn. This means that , for instance, that if you want to play but don't feel like progressing, there's nothing for you to do.
* The game lets you create your characters mid-game, but undermines that by making most of the methods of improving characters one-time only, so you can't get new characters to catch up to old ones.
* Speaking of which, late game there is an event that improves stats, but only if they're below a certain amount. This means that, if you want maximum stats, you need to avoid raising your stats until this point, and then backtrack to get all the stat boosts you skipped; I find this sort of gameplay perverse, yet the game encourages it.
* The game lets you explore the Darkside early, but doing so gives you enough XP and money to unbalance Clouds.
* There's no numerical feedback during battle; the game does not tell you how much damage attacks deal, for example.
* At high levels, the game is imbalanced in favor of physical attacks. Taking Holy Bonus into account (and there's no reason not to have this effect active at all times, especially since it is included in Day of Protection), physical attacks scale quadratically, while scaling spells only scale linearly.
* Speaking of high levels, training costs scale quadratically, while XP requirements stop increasing before level 15. This, combined with the late game being stingy on gold, creates a situation where you have plenty of XP to gain levels, but not enough money to actually gain them. To make matters worse, a late game dungeon expects you to have a few million gold handy to pay protection money, while a typical first-time player is likely to have spent it all on training, creating a situation that is incredibly frustrating. There's also the fact that it feels like there's no rewards in the late game, because the game is only giving you useless XP and not the gold you so desperately need.
* I highly dislike the aging mechanic of the game, where your characters age each year of game time, and there's no way to undo that aging. It doesn't help that years are only 100 days and that entering a store takes an entire day of game time.
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dtgreene: Here are some of my criticisms of World of Xeen:

* Enemies don't respawn, for the most part. In particular, no enemies worth fighting for high level parties ever respawn. This means that , for instance, that if you want to play but don't feel like progressing, there's nothing for you to do.
* The game lets you create your characters mid-game, but undermines that by making most of the methods of improving characters one-time only, so you can't get new characters to catch up to old ones.
* Speaking of which, late game there is an event that improves stats, but only if they're below a certain amount. This means that, if you want maximum stats, you need to avoid raising your stats until this point, and then backtrack to get all the stat boosts you skipped; I find this sort of gameplay perverse, yet the game encourages it.
* The game lets you explore the Darkside early, but doing so gives you enough XP and money to unbalance Clouds.
* There's no numerical feedback during battle; the game does not tell you how much damage attacks deal, for example.
* At high levels, the game is imbalanced in favor of physical attacks. Taking Holy Bonus into account (and there's no reason not to have this effect active at all times, especially since it is included in Day of Protection), physical attacks scale quadratically, while scaling spells only scale linearly.
* Speaking of high levels, training costs scale quadratically, while XP requirements stop increasing before level 15. This, combined with the late game being stingy on gold, creates a situation where you have plenty of XP to gain levels, but not enough money to actually gain them. To make matters worse, a late game dungeon expects you to have a few million gold handy to pay protection money, while a typical first-time player is likely to have spent it all on training, creating a situation that is incredibly frustrating. There's also the fact that it feels like there's no rewards in the late game, because the game is only giving you useless XP and not the gold you so desperately need.
* I highly dislike the aging mechanic of the game, where your characters age each year of game time, and there's no way to undo that aging. It doesn't help that years are only 100 days and that entering a store takes an entire day of game time.
The aging thing drove me nuts! I looked at the manual enough to get the general idea of the game and just winged it after that. I missed a secret in one of the dungeons and wound up playing a lot of the more advanced stages before having to backtrack in order to get the proper weaponry to beat Xeen. I actually beat the Dark Side first. My characters were all above level 70. I wound up taking out Xeen with one hit, which was rather anti climactic.
I thought of a few other issues with the game, in this case related to AC and armor:
* The AC mechanic is fundamentally broken at high levels. Against many enemies (especially Dragon Mummies), AC is completely useless unless you have a lot of it. A big AC bonus (like the +50) from a fountain can easily take you from almost always hit to can't be hit.
* That same mechanic works the other way. It is likely that, depending on your level and the enemy's AC, your attacks will always or never hit, and a temporary level boost (particularly when you factor in Heroism, which scales with level) can take you from one extreme to the other.
* Many enemies do not use physical attacks, making AC entirely useless against them. For example, in the town of Vertigo (where the game starts), AC is entirely useless, and there are many other situations like this (dragon dungeons, a certain final boss, and a certain superboss being just one of many examples). In fact, I suspect enemies that use physical attacks (and that AC is useful against) might actually be a minority.
* If a character is reduced to -10 HP or lower, their armor will break, making it useless until you go back to town, go to a shop (costing you a day of game time), and paying to have it repaired.
* Your armor inventory fills up quickly, forcing excessive inventory management, which is not fun.

For these reasons, I have decided that armor is not worth bothering with in this game. (Well, I could see it being worth boosting your Cleric's AC for the Southern Sphinx, but it is only worth it if you can get her AC up to 250 or so; any less doesn't really help against those Dragon Mummies (which, by the way, are nut undead because enemies can only have one type).
Characters aging is not a problem. I took my sweet time completing the main quest and all side quests as well as exploring all dungeons, and my custom-made characters were only 25 years old at the end. Magical aging is more sinister since you don't get notified of it, so the only way to check it is by looking at character stats. It's also a pain to cure before you reactivate that fountain on the Darkside.

WoX might have its problems (as outlined by dtgreene), but it's still a very charming game that offers great exploration experience since every area contains something interesting and unique.
For me it is MM VI which is the best, though WoX definitely has its special place in my heart.
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Charon121: Characters aging is not a problem. I took my sweet time completing the main quest and all side quests as well as exploring all dungeons, and my custom-made characters were only 25 years old at the end.
I actually started to fear aging on my previous playthrough (didn't finish it yet, but I am not in a hurry since I already finished WoX before). It will quickly add up if you explore everything thoroughly. I also had to check my party age after each fight with monsters who could age you - if someone got aged, I simply reloaded.

MM6+ is better in this regard, when character gets aged - (s)he starts screaming. Also I think that MM6 is bigger than WoX, but it was much more generous with time. You actually could go shopping when you want instead of planning it, and could visit temples - all those activities were devouring massive amount of time in MM3-5.
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Charon121: Characters aging is not a problem. I took my sweet time completing the main quest and all side quests as well as exploring all dungeons, and my custom-made characters were only 25 years old at the end. Magical aging is more sinister since you don't get notified of it, so the only way to check it is by looking at character stats. It's also a pain to cure before you reactivate that fountain on the Darkside.
To me, it isn't so much the effect that aging has in practice, but rather the principle of the idea that I dislike. In an RPG, I really don't like having a mechanic that has the potential to permanently hurt your character with no way to reverse it; it actually is the sort of thing that makes me less interested in playing the game.

Magical aging isn't a problem because it's reversible, and it is possible to use the mechanic to your advantage. (Int and Per actually increase when you age, and death from old age isn't a problem unless a stat reaches 0, so giving the Cleric all the + to all stat bonuses is a good way to make Divine Intervention viable as your primary method of healing.) With that said, why doesn't the manual mention that Divine Intervention ages the caster 5 years?

Is World of Xeesn the best in this series?
Yes.
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williew705: I seriously loved the gaming experience provided by that game, but I'm having a hard time getting into six.
As another player who loved World of Xeen, I was also disappointed by MM6. I still finished it, and enjoyed parts of it, but much of it felt like a huge monster slog, even when switching between turn-based and real-time as appropriate. There are huge hordes of enemies that simply become tiresome to deal with. I did like the variety in the dungeons and other places to explore, especially those that take advantage of the fully 3D engine in their design, but most still had less character than the locales in Xeen.

My impression is that players who like power-leveling and long-term strategizing prefer MM6, but those who are more into a non-linear, puzzle-filled adventure prefer Xeen. MM6 still has those elements but they're not as strong.

It has been a long time since I played both games (especially Xeen), however, so I may be a little off base here. I also haven't played the games after MM6 (yet) so I don't know how those tweak the formula. I've heard that MM7 is a more focused experience that might appeal more to fans of Xeen, while sacrificing some of the openness that MM6 fans love.

By the way, if you haven't tried them already, the early games in the series are worth a look. I was surprised by how much I liked MM1 when I first played it around 2010. It's really engaging despite its age (and some age-related annoyances).