Might and Magic X — An Fitting End? Part One

For a while I have been thinking in trying to write something, but feeling not very confident at all and was unsure of what. In the end I decided to write about a franchise, the Might and Magic crpg series, which I have a small amount of confidence. In fact, I often imagined writing about it several times, but never made to paper, despite have replayed almost all the games, even taking screenshots, for that eventual day.

However, a couple of months ago an HD failure cause me to lose most screenshots which I was planning to use, causing me to delay this even further. I was able to recover a bit of the screenshots, since a couple of them I had uploaded on Photobucket (but, let me tell you, rescue them from that site was not easy).

I was unsure if I should replay everything again, which won’t be easy, even if I managed to recover screenshots from the first three games, since that still mean I had to replay around seven other games, including the infamous M&M 9, which would take even more time. Something else I was aware is that replay all them might taint the experience, since I might need to rush stuff and the whole thing could feel like a job, causing me to miss important stuff I wished to comment.

In the meantime, I decided to play a bit more of Might and Magic X, a game that I find myself divided, in one hand I can tell is an attempt to make a good game and mostly important, maybe give a better closure and end worth to the series, compared to what we had before with MM IX. But in the other there are a lot of stuff that bothered me. In the end, what eventually came out was the idea, of talking how Might and Magic X related to the previous game and how Might and Magic fit in the crpg genre.

Now, to make a couple of things clear: the series is not without its own flaws or contradictions, or strange tone issues. Also, overtime, my interest in games have shifted too, when I start playing MM games, I was deep in the western crpg as my favorite genre. However, as time pass I found myself leaning strongly toward anime and strategy games, right now my favorite games are either Visual Novels, Jrpgs and strategy games (Grand Strategy, 4X and tactics).

Also, I am splitting this in three parts, first this a summary and notes, next I plan to do a quick recap with more details on the previous games and finish talking about Might and Magic X. To be fair, maybe there will be more parts.

So first some quick notes and a quick story of the series:

• The Might and Magic series, along with the Heroes of Might and Magic series, was produced by Jon Van Canegham and his New World Computing company (1984). NWC became a part of 3DO (around 1996), which worked for a while, until 3DO financial problems and mismanagement caused the end of NWC (around 2003). 3DO sold the right to the franchise to Ubisoft before the end.
• One major part of the franchise identity and distinction was the unusual mix of sci fi and fantasy elements, in almost jarring way. There was often little to no effort to blend them, you just have them side by side, with the sci fi elements appearing out of the blue. You might be playing normally, until you find yourself fighting robots, figuring out demons aren't really demons but aliens, and even wielding futuristic weapons or even using a spaceship, in fact you might find the fantasy world you are in a game, isn't a world, but a literal spaceship. While might look really strange, this does give the franchise a unique element, something we only see in jrpgs and handful of other oldschool western crpgs, such as early Wizardry or Ultima games. However, this mix as dropped at a certain point (don't worry, we will talk about this later).
• Another thing, that is also a part of the franchise identity, is the “power curve”, it's hard to tell, if it was intentional or not, but characters in Might and Magic, specially in the early games, grow to ridiculous levels, you might have characters dealing 64 attacks per round in some games. While you might think this was bad, this in a strange way, sort became part of the franchise identity and distinction, and even its own rhythm (again, this is something we will talk about). Why? Because of this power curve the combat in the games often turn in almost comical mass battles (but I don't mean the game were meant to be comical, only that the scale get off hand), in the second game you have stuff, like battles against 255 monsters at once, and while you might think: “wow, that surely would take forever”, expect, not! Between ridiculous numbers of attack per round, absurd spells, this doesn't last so long. The “Might and Magic Power Curve” changes a lot between games, and in a short recap, I will talk more about this, specially because later games try to reproduce this with different degrees of success and failure.

A quick list of the game in the series:

• Might and Magic I: Secret of the Inner Sanctum (1986)
• Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World (1988)
• Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (1991)
• Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen (1992)
• Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen (1993)
• Might and Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven (1998)
• Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor (1999)
• Might and Magic VIII: The Day of the Destroyer (2000)
• Might and Magic IX: Writ of Fate (2002)
• Might and Magic X: Legacy (2014).
  
  

To keep thing simple I will use MM I-X when I talk about the Might and Magic games and HOMM when I talk about Heroes of Might and Magic. By the way, for those which don't know, the MM is a rpg series while HOMM is a strategy series.

Now to also keep things simple, I will only talk about HOMM in a very superficial way. But here is a short list of all HOMM games:

• Heroes of Might and Magic I (1995)
• Heroes of Might and Magic II (1996)
• Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999)
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV (2002)
• Heroes of Might and Magic V (2006)
• Heroes of Might and Magic VI (2011)
• Heroes of Might and Magic VII (2015)
  
  
• Overall you can split the games in two major history arcs: from MM I-V you have the Corak vs Sheltem arc and from the MM VI-VIII you have the “Enroth” arc (I call this Enroth, since this is the planet name, where all games would happen). MM IX was a sort of reboot (more about of this later) and MM X is set on Ubisoft own HOMM universe.

The MM and HOMM games sort mix together, specially after HOMM 1, since they all share the same setting, so the order would be something like:

• Heroes of Might and Magic I (1995) (First game in the Enroth arc)
• Heroes of Might and Magic II (1996)
• Might and Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven (1998) (The story sort happen after HOMM II)
• Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999)
• Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor (1999) (the story sort follows the events from HOMM III)
• Might and Magic VIII: The Day of the Destroyer (2000)
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV (2002) (While does not share the same setting, the story of the game follows the destruction of Enroth).
  
• Talking about Ubisoft, their first game was HOMM V in 2006. All their games would use their own universe.
• While MM mixed around, the sci-fi elements, never appeared in the HOMM, even in games where they share the same universe or even where event happen right before or after something. So yeah, that can lead to a lot of confusion and inconsistency, since in MM6 you are literally holding sci-fi weapons and the Kreegan where aliens with a hivem ind, but in HOMM III the Kreegan suddenly are just demons, but in MM7 (remember, MM7 happens right after HOMM IIII), they go back to begin aliens and so on.
• Since it might be impossible to talk about HOMM and not mention the maybe, very tired topic, about the “Forge Town”, It might be worth a short explanation: There was a plan for a expansion for HOMM III, which would bring scifi elements to the HOMM, following one of the endings for MM 7. However, the reception wasn't good (to be fair some of the artwork they show might didn't help at all), so the concept was dropped. The backlash was there, but not so big as old rumors suggest however. The expansion was changed and the “Forge Town” was dropped in favor of the “Conflux”. This event might also lead to the actual drop of the sci-fi elements and even the destruction of Enroth as campaign set.

Next:

I will try make a recap of the previous games, talking about their gameplay and pace, along with their story. This might take a while. Maybe I might split this in two parts, one for the early games and one for the 3d games.

Links for All the Parts:

Part One: Might and Magic X — An Fitting End? Part One

Part Two: Might and Magic X — An Fitting End? Part Two - The Early Games

Part Three: Might and Magic X — An Fitting End? Part Three - The 3DO Era

Part Four: Might and Magic X - The End (Part 4)

Hey, looking forward to seeing what you plan on writing! Big fan of Might and Magic stuff. I think most of those games hold up remarkably well in the pantheon of classical old-school CRPGs. Even Might and Magic IX is alright for something that was clearly shipped in an unfinished state.

As for MM X, I think it's solid, even if the entire endeavor feels mostly held together with duct tape and good intentions. You can tell the thing was a low-budget side project, what with all the reused Heroes VI assets and limited world size. It's kind of a shame it came out slightly too early to ride the full CRPG renaissance wave, because there aren't any other big recent games like it.

I remember being blown away back in the day when I learned that MM 4 and 5 connected to each other. It’s been a while and I’m sure you will go over it in some detail but when I was a kid learning that was a possibility was crazy to me.

@arbitrarywater:Thanks! Yeah, I totally agree, MM X was solid in a way that you could wonder what other titles would look like if Ubisoft give them support. Not to talk that the game even had some shout out even to obscure MM stuff such as the novels.

@bongchilla: I will, MM4 and MM5 are among my favorite games!

Might and Magic 7 is the best first person RPG of all time