It would be interesting to read it.
Even though MM9 is far from being the best in MM series, it is still one of those games, which are no longer being made nowadays.

Here goes.

(Disclaimer: This is based off GOG's version, which come with the 1.3TELP patch installed.)

In general, I liked it, but sadly the problems at 3DO/NWC have left their mark on what is clearly an unfinished game. If I were to use one word to describe it, it would be "unpolished". That's not a problem in itself; I've played quite a few unpolished games, but in MM9's case everything is unpolished. The interface is unpolished, the graphics are unpolished (and I don't mean the 3D graphics are ugly; they were good for their time and the Lithtech engine was not bad, certainly better than using the MM6 engine yet again. What I mean is that a lot of areas are just undecorated and bland, not to mention quite a few graphical glitches), the quests are unpolished, the text is unpolished (tons and tons of typos. Seriously, "it's" instead of "its" was used incorrectly almost every time), the items were unpolished, the spells were unpolished, the NPCs were unpolished, the dialogues were unpolished, the music was... well, the music was good, I loved it. Probably the only polished thing in this game.

But, underneath all this unpolished stuff was a true gem. I really felt sorry for the team that worked on this game. So much potential wasted. If the developors had the proper time and resources to actually complete it, it could have been a masterpiece. I liked the new class system, I liked the new spell system (with different skills influencing spells in different ways, rather than each spell belonging to one class only), if only lots of spells weren't broken! I liked some new ideas for quests, like the prison-break one or the ranger promotion timed-trap dungeon. They introduced many innovations, while at the same time keeping true to the general Might and Magic formula (5-6 main towns, for which you have to perform a quest each; several dungeons. And a religion named after an animal sound; the Temple of Honk was great. And finding out what was behind it towards the end of the game was hilarious!).

They obviously put lots of thought into the setting, the story and the new world. The history, of the land, of the races (like the half orcs. Or the elves, which was I think supposed to be more in-depth; the mysterious 14th clan was referenced a few times in the game but never used). If you overlook the terrible spelling, some of the dialogues were pretty good and genuinly funny, it was especially amusing to talk to some people about certain towns that you haven't visited, then after visiting those places and knowing what they're actually like, talking to those people again. And mentions of places and events that you can't visit in this game but are out there, maybe to be visited in an expansion or sequel. I like that. I like it when not everything you hear about in the game is related to the game; makes you feel like it's part of a bigger world. Someone clearly spent time on creating this world that they thought was to be the setting for many games to come. Sadly it was the setting of one game only, and an unfinished one at that.

A note on the setting: I don't really mind that it was more Nordic rather than medieval Europe type setting like in the previous games. In fact, it could be that Chedian was the Nordic land in that world, while other lands were different (like for example Kara-Tur based on Asian setting in Faerun).

I do wish they coordinated it more with HoMM4 team. I'm not talking necessarily about a shared story like MM6 and HoMM3, just some references would have been enough. The HoMM4 team concentrated on the new arrivals from the Erathia/Enroth world establishing new kingdoms but seemed to have not really many ideas beyond that (the 2 expansions were extremely bland stop-the-evil-wizard-from-world-domination and let's-all-conquer-one-country plots). The MM9 team, as I mentioned earlier, appeared to have much more extensive plans. Since Nicolai is there, apparently both storylines were taking place simultaneously, and the Chedians are the original inhabitants of that land. It would have been really nice to see coordination between the two teams: let's broadly agree on what the world will look like, you work on the new arrivals in your game, we'll work on the Chedian part in our game, let's make some references to each other to establish that this is one world, and hopefully both of us can use it in our future MM/HoMM games. Just like MM6-8 and HoMM2-3. Sadly, dues to all the mess I'm really not surprised Ubisoft decided to drop it and reboot it all over again.

So overall I enjoyed it. Luckily no technical difficulties (I know it's hit and miss on new systems), and 1.3 patch takes care of all game-breaking bugs. The major thing still out there after the patch are the promotions that can be easily missed. Happened to me in fact, and now I see that Sarisio did warn me about this very thing. Should have payed more attention. I missed my crusader promotion this way. After some deliberation as to whether I should continue onward and have a gladiator instead of the ranger like I planned, or reload, I decided to reload a previous save. Luckily I keep backup of old saves and only had to redo part of Dragheim, Beet Hoven and the acutal killing of bandits. In a way it's good it happened to me then, instead of later in the game; I'd have really hated to see some more important promotion get screwed because of this.

Would I recommend this game? Definitely not to a newcomer to the series. But if you enjoyed previous Might and Magic that I really suggest you give this a try. With just one caveat: know what you're getting into (And ideally you should have some experience with CRPGs in general). If you accept that the game has its issues, and once you get used to it, it can be really enjoyable.