Following their adventures in Might and Magic II, the players take up the quest to save the Isles of Terra from complete destruction. Only by unearthing the secrets of the legendary wizard, Corak, and his nemesis hidden somewhere within the islands can they hope to save the land and themselves.
We're rapidly approaching Halloween, and what better way to celebrate this spooky time with a visit to the Isles of TERRO-, oh wait, Terra. I guess that just means "Earth", doesn't it? Well, never mind that, because while Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra might not have any big scares it's certainly disquieting in that psychological way all modern horror stuff seems to be inching towards, possibly menacingly.
Might and Magic is, of course, the venerable CRPG series from New World Computing, which closely followed its main rival Wizardry with its traditional four-directional dungeon crawling, a vast number of sequels and spin-offs and a certain weird sci-fi edge to it that set both series apart from more traditional fantasy fare and perhaps led to its mega-popularity overseas. III actually goes back to an era when CRPGs were still largely inscrutable to those not prepared to read a 10,000 word novella of a manual, and coupled with its bizarre imagery and even more bizarre soundtrack, it's something of a discombobulating experience. It's not even some strange Japanese-developed console conversion either: New World Computing put this version together themselves (and got Hudson to publish it). It's functionally identical to the 1991 PC original, excepting the redbook audio which... I dunno, maybe you want to skip to the end and hit the Soundcloud link now, so you can enjoy the whole soundtrack while you read this.
The history of Might and Magic III requires a little too much text to fit into this brief pre-amble, so I'd recommend finding a spare hour to consume HardcoreGaming101's (yep, them again) retrospective on the series. Essentially, though, you're an adventuring party on the Isles of Terra (a group of islands floating in space) looking for artifacts to help a good diety, Corak, defeat his rival evil deity, Sheltem. Same ol', same ol'.
A Room... With A Moose Rat!
That's Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra, or at least the first half hour of it. I actually consider myself fortunate to have gotten that far, given how infamously tough those moose rats are on new parties. I, and a few others around here (including CRPG nut @arbitrarywater, to whom I owe a credit for recommending this one), are big fans of the later Might and Magic games (with the possible exception of IX). Even though III has dated terribly with its obtuseness, it was worth looking at Isles of Terra to see what kind of early advances it made to Might and Magic, and to CRPGs in general.
Here's a fun story tidbit about this game to see you off: At the end, the heroes were meant to follow an escaping Sheltem to the world of Xeen (the setting for games IV and V) via a "seedship", or an inter-dimensional spaceship. They got lost on the way there, however, and would eventually end up in Might and Magic VII, sparking off the events of that game. In other words, the player's adventuring party in this game would eventually become the powerful star-faring NPCs of M&M VII (a game I would very much recommend, even today, and previously Brief Jaunted a little while ago). Like I said from the offset, this is a weeeird series.
Might and Magic III soundtrack (I actually had to upload it to Soundcloud in the end, since YouTube and the internet failed me. The tracks are unlabeled, but I'd recommend 06. It's the theme to Fountainhead, the starting town, and is completely nuts. 07's something else, too, and 09's actually pretty good.)
@sparky_buzzsaw: Yep. Well, the characters from this game specifically. The default party has an even number of good and evil characters, and they split up at the start of VII to go work with the good/evil factions from that game. They even have the same names.
Here's the thing: As far as RPGs from that era are concerned, I think Isles of Terra is one of the least obtuse ones you can find. Like all games of that era, it has a certain amount of "RTFM" syndrome and the interface is clunky and unintuitive (having a mouse helps), but the game itself (and by connection, the Xeen games running on the same engine) are so much more straightforward and easy to understand than the likes of Wizardry VII, Ultima VII and... Darklands? Sure, let's go with Darklands. The fact that I finished World of Xeen is proof of that.
I'd play the DOS version if one was actually serious about playing Isles of Terra. I just recommended this one to you because of how effin' trippy the Turbo CD soundtrack is. It sounds absolutely nothing like the DOS version and was apparently done by a well-known Japanese composer who also composed a trippy soundtrack for the Sega CD version of Eye of the Beholder, should you ever decide to do a Decsega or something.
@arbitrarywater: You may be right. My history with CRPGs began with Dungeon Master in the late 80s -- which despite concealing almost all the spell recipes from you and any concrete data about the effectiveness of the weapons/armor, is so straightforward anyone could play it today and not have much trouble -- and games like it like Eye of the Beholder before jumping to 16-bit JRPGs after I fell in love with Secret of Mana. I eventually hopped back to CRPGs in the late 90s with games like Daggerfall and Baldur's Gate and Diablo and M&M VII. In that sense, I feel like I side-stepped the truly oblique era of Gold Box D&D games and the earlier Wizardrys/Might and Magics, so despite playing games from this genre for almost 25 years I still get a little lost with some of the more complex ones (well, besides those based on D&D, since I'm familiar enough with that system).
Really, though, Might and Magic III probably just takes a little more dedication than I was willing to invest. I could always save before the weapon shop and then experiment with the large budget they gave me. I could get everyone bows and arrows and shoot enemies from afar if there's too many (something I believe this game introduces). I instead elected to get lost in the starting town for a while and then dogpiled by a thousand orcs outside the gates, because drama. Or something.
I think Isles of Terra was the game that made me fall in love with the first person party based dungeon crawler genre. Even though I never got far in it I absolutely loved the atmosphere in Might & Magic 3-5. I kinda got put off by the new art style in part 6 and 7 though, and instead got really into the Wizardry series.
@mento: I'd agree with you on Dungeon Master if not for that title's unfortunate lack of an auto map of any kind. Well, I guess that's what Lands of Lore is for, if I want to play a real-time dungeon crawler older than Grimrock that doesn't inconvenience me every step of the way.
Some of the inconveniences you listed are spelled out more clearly in the DOS version (like what equipment any given character can equip), so consider that a weakness of console ports. Still, I'm a young-ish dude whose first real "Computer Role-Playing Game" experience was the original Knights of the Old Republic and I figured out a lot of M&M III on my own back in the heady days of 2006 or so. I've still never beaten it, but I likely could if I had the time and patience to dedicate towards that goal. I can't say the same for the first two Might and Magic games.
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