What a difference! After struggling through Ishar 1 and Might and Magic 1, I decided to give Might and Magic 2 a spin. It's going to be very difficult for me to go back, especially to Might and Magic 1.
Everything is improved. The graphics are more colorful, the NPC interactions are streamlined something fierce, you can identify items fully now, you can get special items in stores on certain days, and what's best: there's an auto-map, and the leveling process is all but painless.
In the first Might and Magic it took several play sessions before I was lucky enough to find decent equipment, and there were many times where I was fairly poor and within a few days of not having any food to heal with. While that poverty made me appreciate it greatly the first time I got a nice wad of cash, Might and Magic 2 does you the favor of actually not taking forever for your party to come upon some decent equipment, gold, and experience. After stumbling through the still-hostile town I found it easy to get into compartmentalized trouble. Unlike when I first played this in my Genesis/Mega Drive days, I knew that I wasn't supposed to avoid killing these guys. If they were attacking, they were bad, end of story. Made things much easier.
The Genesis version WAS better; I think since it was ported they had the time to add some upgrades, including higher resolution graphics with more colors, and a few other tweaks that I wish this version had. They're not deal breakers though, and I find I'm having a lot of fun with this one. An added bonus is that the DOSBox emulation doesn't need tweaking like it does for many of the other games I've played (including Xeen).
I'm actually enjoying myself. It's weird.
Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World
Game » consists of 4 releases. Released July 1991
Gates to Another World picks up where the first game left off as a powerful villain that had escaped the party at the end of that adventure threatens the world of CRON with destruction.
Might and Magic II
What a difference! After struggling through Ishar 1 and Might and Magic 1, I decided to give Might and Magic 2 a spin. It's going to be very difficult for me to go back, especially to Might and Magic 1.
Everything is improved. The graphics are more colorful, the NPC interactions are streamlined something fierce, you can identify items fully now, you can get special items in stores on certain days, and what's best: there's an auto-map, and the leveling process is all but painless.
In the first Might and Magic it took several play sessions before I was lucky enough to find decent equipment, and there were many times where I was fairly poor and within a few days of not having any food to heal with. While that poverty made me appreciate it greatly the first time I got a nice wad of cash, Might and Magic 2 does you the favor of actually not taking forever for your party to come upon some decent equipment, gold, and experience. After stumbling through the still-hostile town I found it easy to get into compartmentalized trouble. Unlike when I first played this in my Genesis/Mega Drive days, I knew that I wasn't supposed to avoid killing these guys. If they were attacking, they were bad, end of story. Made things much easier.
The Genesis version WAS better; I think since it was ported they had the time to add some upgrades, including higher resolution graphics with more colors, and a few other tweaks that I wish this version had. They're not deal breakers though, and I find I'm having a lot of fun with this one. An added bonus is that the DOSBox emulation doesn't need tweaking like it does for many of the other games I've played (including Xeen).
I'm actually enjoying myself. It's weird.
Might and Magic II is my favourite childhood RPG, but I still find it very hard to play now. Maybe if I had more time to devote to it. I really wish all the classic RPG series would get remakes (either proper ones or fan-made ones).
Might and Magic is something I'd like to be remade, although I'd hope they'd move away from the rendered sprites stuff from VI onward, which actually felt cheaper to me than the hand-drawn stuff.
Since I spent a great deal of time trying to wrestle with the difficulty curve and navigation problems of Might and Magic I, MM2 was like a direct answer to nearly all of my complaints.
It's still a bitch to exchange items between party members (type the number of the person who has the item, what do you want to exchange (4: item), who do you want to exchange with (remember the party slot the recipient is in), which item slot in the backpack do you want to give. If the recipient's backpack is full, only NOW do you learn that it's full, which is lazy coding). Casting spells means you have to remember what level and number the spell is (I have the spellbook in the pdf open all the time). Weapon classes have to be researched to know what their damage range is, in addition to learning specific magical enhancements beyond the bonus (but in MM1, there was no way to research them AT ALL. Even Xeen doesn't tell you damage ranges for weapon types unless you spend money identifying them).
There's also a weird issue when I cast spells, where a spell often fails for reasons I'm unable to discern. Fireballs often don't cast properly. I don't understand why, because I'm pretty sure the prerequisites are met. Maybe the target or area cancels that level of offensive magic. I had the same problem when I played the Genesis version and never quite figured out what was going on.
I wonder if the timed cryptogram was in the Genesis version, as well. Not cool :)
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