Might and Magic® 6-pack Limited Edition

I dithered back and forth and finally decided to make the purchase of Might & Magic I-VI. I was concerned because they were such old games and maybe I was spoiled by newer and flashier graphics. 1) Might and Magic I - unplayable (too primitive.) 2) Might and Magic II - better than Part 1 but still too primitive to actually enjoy. I play games for fun, not duty :) 3) Might and Magic III - this game has decent graphics and an okay engine. But it is nothing better than average to me. I don't need to play this anymore. 4) Might and Magic IV - I load it up.....Hmmm, I love the intro and the sound quality is quite nice! I like the color palette for the splash screen. I start playing and realize that I want to make my characters from scratch. Ok. I read the manual and start rolling characters. Now I have my party. Hmmm. I like the automap a lot. And the town is easy to navigate. I REALLY like that you can move around as quickly or as slowly as you like. I like the digitized voices. They're fun! I was afraid that this wouldn't have the voices because it is not off a CD but they kept the voices in. Wow, did a monster just attack me IN town?! That's crazy! But I defeated it! And one of my characters has a Long Bow. You can actually hear and feel the twang as you let loose an arrow. Whoa. These 2D monsters...actually have personality. I didn't realize how much I missed that until I played this game. 3D monsters in RPG games are dull and boring monsters take a LOT away from an RPG. Well, the Mayor says I have to go to the Dwarf Mines. I teleport there and crazy-looking dwarves rush me. They are laughing and butting me with their staves! Time for some spells (and prayers!) Long story short....Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen has something that we have been missing from RPG games since the late 90's. PERSONALITY! Games since the 90's are the beautiful girl that is a perfect 10, perfectly polite, nice...and boring! This game is the girl that is a 5 out of 10 in looks....but is loads of fun to be around and keeps you guessing. I will take the 5 out of 10, thank you! I have not played part 5 yet, though I think I will love it. I actually played part 6 when it first came out. It was my first Might and Magic...and I could never finish the game. It always got too boring and I never understood why. Now I understand. The switch to 3D made the monsters dull. And each monster had way too many hitpoints, so the fights were consistently longer and less fun. And the massive amount of enemies and free-roaming movement made combat take way too long since you never knew if you were in range for a melee attack or not. Not to mention getting hit from the side offscreen and having to stop and heal every 2 seconds! And finally, the outdoor environments were massive, rather than memorable. BIG difference between the 2. Purchase this game and play Might & Magic 4 & 5! You will be glad that you did. P.S. Please play through each of them in order, even if only for 5 minutes on the games that you don't like. Playing through M&M 1 for 5 minutes gives you perspective and makes you really appreciate the graphics in part 4!

Here’s six games for the price of one, each of which is worth the ticket price alone. Might and Magic 1: Secret of the Inner Sanctum: Classic gaming at its ... classicest. This one might be a bit of a struggle for newcomers. The graphics are pretty minimal, with a completely text-based combat interface, and artwork designed for four-colour screens. You’ll need to do all your mapping by hand on graph paper, and type in numbers from tables in order to cast any spells. But behind all of these old-timey cobwebs is a pure, addictive RPG with compelling puzzles and a uniquely free-form kind of gameplay. There are very few quests in this game; instead the game allows you to discover the features of its world – and at any time perhaps find the Inner Sanctum and its secret! – at your own leisure. Might and Magic 2: Gateway to Another World: This instalment adds improved artwork, a few animated graphics and primitive auto-mapping; and otherwise provides a similar gameplay experience to the first game. It also includes some very interesting aspects such as time travel, hirelings (pre-levelled party members who will explore and fight with you for coin), and a setting with elements of science fiction blended into the high fantasy. Might and Magic 3: Isles of Terra: This is probably the first instalment of the series which would be easily accessible to modern players, and is a great place to start. Here is a game with VGA graphics, an intuitive mouse-driven interface, ranged weapons and a quest journal. Here also the blended sci-fi and fantasy setting really begins to shine as the game’s technical boundaries broaden to do justice to its unique genre. It is by no means a modern game, but it is perfectly playable and enjoyable on its own terms – a rare quality in a game released in 1991. Might and Magic 4: Clouds of Xeen and Might and Magic 5: Darkside of Xeen: These two games combine to form an epic adventure called “World of Xeen”, with two parts – each taking place on opposite sides of the flat planet Xeen. The interface is similar to the one from MM3, with a few very minor improvements. MM4 is a tidy stand-alone story with a high fantasy setting (though there is still plenty of creative flair in many of the level designs). MM5 takes the characters from MM4 into a Star Trek inspired adventure which brings the five-part saga to a satisfying conclusion. Might and Magic 6: The Mandate of Heaven: After a number of years of silence, the Might and Magic franchise re-launched itself with a new game engine. 3d graphics and recorded music replaced the VGA blocks and MIDIs of the old releases. However, what impressed me as a veteran Might and Magic player was how similar the game felt to earlier incarnations: The turn based combat and strongly D&D-inspired mechanics were all still very much in evidence, as well as the colourful high fantasy and nerdy humour. The sci-fi elements of the setting, however, didn’t seem to sit as comfortably with the more realistic gameplay, and seemed tacked-on rather than incorporated into the design of the world.

I have only played numbers 4, 5 and 6 in this pack, but I can say right now that for those games alone this is already an amazing value and should be a must-buy for anyone even remotely interested in RPGs. First, some general things about the series. The games are party-based and played from a first-person perspective. 4 and 5 are entirely turn-based, and movement is done on a grid, i.e. the party moves one square at a time, and can turn in 90 degree increments. 6 has a full 3D engine and is played in real-time but has the option to pause the action and enter turn-based combat. While paused the party cannot move but can turn and attack, shoot or cast spells at enemies. Generally the focus of the series is on exploration and combat, as others have mentioned, but also on puzzles, especially in 4 and 5. I felt that this was refreshing; while there is definitely lots of combat and loot to find, as you might expect in other RPGs, there's also quite a few brain teasers, which really stand to set the dungeons and other areas apart from one another. The series does a great job of avoiding a feeling of same-ness... yes, you are delving through many many dungeons, but each has its own theme and feels very different. Another thing I liked about the series is that to level up, your characters need experience, but then they also need to visit a trainer. At the higher levels, you will find that you are limited less by experience and more by money. Also, true the the name of the series, you will need both might and magic, with both your fighters and magic users being basically indispensable. Of the games I played, I liked 4 and 5 the best. Set on the world of Xeen, which is a flat world floating in space, the fourth game features the "light" side of the world and the fifth game features the "dark" side. When both games are installed, they merge into one giant game, allowing the party to move between both sides of the world. The fifth game is definitely the "higher level" one, so players will likely tackle the "light" side challenges first, mostly, but the ability to move in between is really awesome. Also, when both are installed at once, there is an extra "third" ending added on after one has finished the main plots of both of the individual games. I also liked the turn-based nature of the game, which allowed combat to be tactical without being overly so. And the many puzzles in these games can get downright tough. I am slightly ashamed to say that I played most of them with the help of the hintbooks (I was younger then and some of the puzzles were a bit overwhelming), and if you need some hints those are included as extras in the GOG version! Fantastic. Also the world and its inhabitants were really quite pretty, in an old-school way. Colorful sprites, a huge variety of enemies and locations which are very distinct, tons of extra, optional dungeons and locations to visit for fun, and overall just a huge amount of content. The sixth game featured a fully 3D engine, which was nice, and some of the gameplay occurred in real time. Fortunately, being able to pause combat and fight turn-based allowed tactical fighting when necessary. This was the first game in the series to have a crossover plot-wise with the Heroes of Might and Magic series, being set on Enroth rather than Xeen. The game world was set up in zones this time, generally centered around the various cities in the game. Travel between zones was kind of like warping (i.e. "It will take 5 days to travel to [city]. Do you wish to travel? Y/N"). This game retained the uniqueness of the locations and dungeons, but had fewer puzzles than its predecessors, although they were definitely still present. Overall, I thought it was a very good game, but not quite a great game, due to a few annoyances. First, there are LOTS of enemies, especially in the outdoor areas. When trying to explore around the towns, your party is greeted by hordes and hordes of similar baddies, and it frankly gets a little boring hacking through them all. There are some spells that are only used outdoors that can clear large groups of enemies, but these are hard to aim correctly and you can't get them until a little bit into the game. The dungeons are a lot better, with a more reasonable number of enemies and some very interesting and unique level design. The fully 3D engine really shines in the dungeon design, allowing a lot of vertical structure that is used in interesting ways. Another annoying bit was that your characters need to find trainers in order to raise their skills and abilities, and often all you are told is which city the trainer is in. This means searching every single house in the (often quite large) cities to find the trainer, with no way to note down which house they live in. I also didn't really like the endgame, when your party gets rather overpowered and has to mow down dragons and other really tough baddies for a while before you actually reach the end. I think the best part of 6 was the midgame. In the beginning the hordes of enemies are very repetitive, boring, and actually tough for your low-level party that doesn't have many strong spells to take out groups of enemies. In the end you're really powerful, there's no more challenge, and things drag out a little. But in the middle, things are really fun; the loot is starting to get interesting, your characters' skills are advancing and starting to set them apart from one another, and you're getting competent without being super-powered. I should note that the game is generally on the hard side, but it's never truly unfair. I liked the level of difficulty but not the repetitiveness of the combat. I don't want to sound too negative though; even with these flaws the sixth game is a lot of fun. I think that games 4 and 5 are easily worth twice the price of this whole pack, plus you get the three prequels, the Sword of Xeen expansion (which I've never played... looking forward to that!) and the slightly-more-modern 6 along with it? A no-brainer. Oh, and the sixth game had some pretty good music too.

I don't know to say. Six so awasome games in one pack? WoW! Might & Magic series has all what i expect from RPG's. - Great story; shared with Heroes of Might & Magic series - Immersive world - Dozens of hours of great gameplay, I love long games! - 'Another minute/10 minutes/hour(s)' syndrome :-) - Good soundtrack and background music Graphical side of course is little worse but M&M never this technical side worked to well, anyway it's not important. What matters most in those games is immersive gameplay. What left now it's waiting to Might & Magic 7,8,9 in catalogue :-). Enjoy!