Posted December 30, 2018
Hello!
I recently purchased the Might and Magic 6-Pack Limited Edition, since it was on-sale. I'm very happy with my purchase, since I haven't owned proper, clean versions of the MS-DOS games since I had the Ultimate Might and Magic Archives. However, much like that archive… I noticed a "problem" with this archive.
There's no way to install Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen or Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen as completely separate games.
Back-in-the-day, I bought these games brand new, in-box. I installed them from the… five-to-seven floppy disks, each, I think it was? (Edit: Try six-to-eight diskettes, me.) And, I remember the Darkside of Xeen installer politely asking me if I wanted to merge the two games together to make World of Xeen – which I did right away. What I didn't realize, though, was that I was robbing myself of two completely unique experiences.
As interesting as World of Xeen is… it feels like the combined game aspect was tossed in as a last-minute addition. There aren't very many situations in either game where it hints at events on the other side and the "crossover" events and dungeons are extremely limited. (I can think of one dungeon and about two events that have you hopping back-and-forth, not counting the endgame.) Furthermore, Darkside of Xeen was intended for a slightly-higher-leveled party (which starts at Level 5, instead of 1), so if a brand new party that's fresh out of Vertigo makes that hop through the pyramid… they'll probably run into trouble, if not get killed outright.
One can just as easily play through Clouds of Xeen, then go to the Darkside after being grossly-overleveled. One could even complete Darkside before Clouds, after beefing up a little. The fun of World of Xeen is that one can do a quest chain in one world, then hop over to the other, and change things up. But, I honestly think that it would be awesome if the installer had the individual versions of the games, in case someone wants to experience the original versions, complete with title screens and version-exclusive quirks.
Just some food-for-thought from a looong-time fan looking for more.
I recently purchased the Might and Magic 6-Pack Limited Edition, since it was on-sale. I'm very happy with my purchase, since I haven't owned proper, clean versions of the MS-DOS games since I had the Ultimate Might and Magic Archives. However, much like that archive… I noticed a "problem" with this archive.
There's no way to install Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen or Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen as completely separate games.
Back-in-the-day, I bought these games brand new, in-box. I installed them from the… five-to-seven floppy disks, each, I think it was? (Edit: Try six-to-eight diskettes, me.) And, I remember the Darkside of Xeen installer politely asking me if I wanted to merge the two games together to make World of Xeen – which I did right away. What I didn't realize, though, was that I was robbing myself of two completely unique experiences.
As interesting as World of Xeen is… it feels like the combined game aspect was tossed in as a last-minute addition. There aren't very many situations in either game where it hints at events on the other side and the "crossover" events and dungeons are extremely limited. (I can think of one dungeon and about two events that have you hopping back-and-forth, not counting the endgame.) Furthermore, Darkside of Xeen was intended for a slightly-higher-leveled party (which starts at Level 5, instead of 1), so if a brand new party that's fresh out of Vertigo makes that hop through the pyramid… they'll probably run into trouble, if not get killed outright.
One can just as easily play through Clouds of Xeen, then go to the Darkside after being grossly-overleveled. One could even complete Darkside before Clouds, after beefing up a little. The fun of World of Xeen is that one can do a quest chain in one world, then hop over to the other, and change things up. But, I honestly think that it would be awesome if the installer had the individual versions of the games, in case someone wants to experience the original versions, complete with title screens and version-exclusive quirks.
Just some food-for-thought from a looong-time fan looking for more.
Post edited December 30, 2018 by JosephCollins