I just finished this game. Keep in mind that I have finished all of the M&M games (excluding 5…started but never finished), so I am a big fan of the series. Overall, it is a huge step down from MM7 (my favorite).
Similarly, I've played and finished them all except MM2. I felt overall that the game was a significant step up from MM9, yet inferior to MM 3-7.
Just a couple of responses to your points, given I only completed MMX a couple of weeks ago myself:
- Missile weapons are basically useless
I don't think this is the case at all. My hunter was able to wipe out many enemies before they even got into Melee range, especially once bow mastery was achieved.
I don't think ranged combat quite had the visceral feel that it had in WoX though.
- No in-game log of trainers and locations
I don't think this is really valid criticism, as it is easily solved by taking notes either on paper or better yet, on the map of the game. It's meant to be an old school game after all.
- Too much backtracking and no Town Portal/Lloyd's Beacon (Spirit Beacon spell is a poor substitute)
Not a problem for me, as there was always seemingly something to find or a cave to return to when the party was more capable.
- Annoying difficulty spikes can potentially make the game unwinnable, depending on your party combination
Again, another strength of the game I think and something which all of the Might and Magics have. I agree that there were moments when you had to strategically search for encounters that the party could handle, but I think that's a good thing.
- No respawning enemies (limits available experience, skill progression, and your ability to level up relics)
I don't usually agree with Joxer on many things, but here is one of those few times: I'm happy that there were no respawns, as that would make the game more tedious.
- Many of the puzzles are obscure, tedious, and annoying
No dramas for me. The riddles were actually a little disappointing I found - certainly not the most eloquent or memorable. Still, it was good to see this type of gameplay offered in a classic rpg experience again.
- Bizarre performance issues at fixed points in the game (I have a really beefy rig, so this is unacceptable)
I fully concur with you here. (See my own mini-review below)
- Step-based movement adds absolutely nothing and restricts your viewport in certain areas
It's subjective, but I love World of Xeen, so I actually like it.
- You can't run from combat (you can't even move at all when an enemy is in melee range)
Another point which I fully agree with you on. This was certainly unfortunate given that it is possible to flee in previous games.
This is a small repost, but perhaps here was a better place to write my own mini-review of the game in the first place:
I recently upgraded to Windows 7 on account of how this game behaved on my old XP setup. Whilst I was arguably well overdue to do this upgrade anyway (the OS no longer being supported and all) I still had some initial minor misgivings that a game with such an "old school spirit" wouldn't play so well on older technology.
I still had some issues with game performance here and there i.e slow downs whilst walking outdoors, some heavy increase in GPU fan speeds when in stores, even a couple of early crashes due to overheating. However, I gradually ironed these problems out and got stuck into it.
The game wasn't bad, I had some decent fun with it. It's certainly an improvement on IX, though I still think its inferior to 3-8 essentially overall, due to the lack of really memorable or deep dungeons.
At any rate, I've just recently finished my first playthrough with characters at level 32. I went for a fairly typical party: Dwarven Defender, Orc Hunter, Elven Druid and a Human Freemage. I found it amusing that my dwarf never really got close to my orc for pure damage output, despite having a might of 110 compared to 30 odd. Spears can be quite brutal it seems with high perception. Having grandmastery in shield also saved the party on more than one occasion!
Some more reflections:
I found that I had a ridiculous amount of gold leftover - some 400,000. Basically I couldn't really find very much to spend it on given the nature of relics and the plethora of loot. The game was probably the most tricky just after Act II, with exploration and trial and error being key to finding the most logical places for progression.
There were quite a few side-quests that I decided to leave until another playthrough, even one or two optional bosses that I never got around to.
Oh and a certificate of completion as from MM6-MM9 would have been really nice!