Not Heroes, I mean the RPGs.  Not a sequel, I mean the original.  That game has come a long way since those beginnings, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how much stuff has STAYED IN all this time.  I'm not as familiar with VI onward, but I know that over the many years that that series was developed, it kept a lot of its baseline philosophies (gems as spell components, food when you need to sleep, violent little gnomes, hidden back story behind the world). 
 
One thing I miss, and am glad the second game onward had it: automap!!
 
Argh.  
 
The sequel is where things got more interesting. I'm wondering how much I want to play this game, since I feel a bit too punished at times.  I guess I'll see.
 
edit: Spoke too hastily in the comments. I guess you can sleep and still find the treasure chest.  Not sure why I thought otherwise.
 
Also, the lack of colors in this game is starting to affect my temperament. I think it's starting to make me a bit depressed, actually!  I'm temped to download the hintbook from GOG and just see if I can't get a map of the starting zone so I can orient myself better.  I get the feeling a big problem I have with this game is that the density of interesting ideas for the amount of time you have to invest in it is too low.  Maybe when this was one of the few games on the market of this complexity it was cool, but apart from nostalgia (which I have for the second one, not this one) I don't see too many people enjoying this game very much.   I did manage to use the Jump spell to get past some guards, though, which was nice.

Not Heroes, I mean the RPGs.  Not a sequel, I mean the original.  That game has come a long way since those beginnings, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how much stuff has STAYED IN all this time.  I'm not as familiar with VI onward, but I know that over the many years that that series was developed, it kept a lot of its baseline philosophies (gems as spell components, food when you need to sleep, violent little gnomes, hidden back story behind the world). 
 
One thing I miss, and am glad the second game onward had it: automap!!
 
Argh.  
 
The sequel is where things got more interesting. I'm wondering how much I want to play this game, since I feel a bit too punished at times.  I guess I'll see.
 
edit: Spoke too hastily in the comments. I guess you can sleep and still find the treasure chest.  Not sure why I thought otherwise.
 
Also, the lack of colors in this game is starting to affect my temperament. I think it's starting to make me a bit depressed, actually!  I'm temped to download the hintbook from GOG and just see if I can't get a map of the starting zone so I can orient myself better.  I get the feeling a big problem I have with this game is that the density of interesting ideas for the amount of time you have to invest in it is too low.  Maybe when this was one of the few games on the market of this complexity it was cool, but apart from nostalgia (which I have for the second one, not this one) I don't see too many people enjoying this game very much.   I did manage to use the Jump spell to get past some guards, though, which was nice.

Oh dear. You see, I have no interest in either the first or the second Might and Magic games. Maybe it's me being born several years after these games were released, but my experiences with both usually involve my party dying, me getting lost, or both. The fact that the first game has no automap is even more proof that I am simply incapable of playing any RPG developed prior to 1991.  For me, the series starts with Isles of Terra and ends with For Blood and Honor.  The last two are fairly bleh. VIII is both uncreative and stupifyingly easy (having Dragons in your party helps) while IX is just kind of dull and mediocre. I guess that's what happens when you ship a game in a pre-alpha state and have to rely on fan patches to become stable.

It's been over a decade since I played any Might and Magic before the fifth game, but I ripped through them all as a kid and a teenager.  I kinda prefer the later games (up until the last atrocious entry in the main series).  The worlds became huge, the gameplay updates were smart without really changing the core fundamentals, and the stories became more complex and better written for the most part.  I'd love to see Might and Magic return to its roots somehow, some way.  I've got the same hopes for a Wizardry game.