RPGWatch Feature - Might & Magic X Review

Myrthos

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A while after we handed a review key of Might & Magic X to Dteowner he came back with a review of the game, which we now make available for you to read. http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article&articleid=241

Overall, the game was fantastic, particularly for a budget title from a small developer. I had a blast playing the game and more than once found myself playing far longer than intended to do "just one more" map or quest. Limbic clearly has a passion for, and a deep understanding of, the factors that made the Might and Magic games classics. Throughout the development process, they listened to their core audience and actually made changes requested by the community. The game was released with no major bugs at all and even the trivial ones were promptly cleaned up via patch. In an age where developers tend to use their customers for QA and regularly ignore what their customers ask for, Limbic's approach was a breath of fresh air. Although Ubisoft doesn't have a great reputation with gamers these days, they deserve some credit for allowing Limbic to do the job right.
More information.
 
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An awsome "no stone unturned" review yet without heavy spoilers.
And I agree 100% on everything.

Keep 'em coming!
 
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Yup, great review, although one screenshot is a BIG spoiler for M&M newbies. :)

I liked the game very much, two small problems emerged though:
1. Lack of that old M&M geek humor.
Yes, there is a wannabe standup comedian in one of the towns, giving some welcome comic relief, but the whole tone is much too standard serious high-fantasy nonsense. Where is the Scorpia monster? Trip Hawkins? Sonic ninjas?

2. Graphics & performance
Lots have been already said on this topic, I just want to add my small advice: do NOT play this game on a low-medium laptop. Unfortunately this game is not an ideal time killer during long trips -- because of its lack of technical performance.
 
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I think the review should have focused a little more on core game mechanics like how combat works. It mentions that it's turn based and a little about balancing but that's it. Same about movement. I mean the tile based movement of the game feels like being a big selling point, so how does the implementation feel?

Also I think that the main drawbacks are a little different, but that's probably personal taste and depends on the difficulty you played on and the time you invested in theorycrafting in order to "see" the issues (and is somewhat required for the harder difficulty). Some of the skills, some of the weapon types are totally overpowered (my barb still used a 1h mace in the end though he didn't train it just because I couldn't find a 2h mace with the overpowered proc the 1h had), other things, like tanking or ranged combat (see combat mechanics) are completely underperforming and are best left out by the player (design your party as these mechanics don't exist). The review already mentions that healing spells are something you should learn in the very beginning. And I'd go further and say that the game does not a particularily good job in showing you how to survive it's quirks. As the review mentions the Warrior difficulty isn't very difficult either BUT it requires you to know stuff or adapt to game mechanics which the game doesn't really tell you.

Somewhat related to this is also the enemy balancing and the difficulty. Once you learend to to ride this "bull" your skill rises much faster than the bull's wildness does. On warrior the game is hard in the beginning. But unless you don't inform yourself before playing or fail to adapt to game mechanics it will become very easy at a point until it becomes more of a sight-seeing tour in the end where no opponent is a match.
While this is "okish" for the base game itself it totally destroys the purpose of DLCs. I played the first DLC which was added for free and it's just a cakewalk. I mean if you have a party full of supermans, what exactly would you like to improve them in and what can be thrown in their way to keep interesting?
So personally I didn't buy the first paid DLC as it would just be a sight seeing tour without any gameplay.

Also I think there shouldn't be a pic of the developers dungeon (or add an apparent caption) because it might mislead into thinking there are sci fi elements in the game (like in the old games), which there aren't.
 
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Also I think there shouldn't be a pic of the developers dungeon (or add an apparent caption) because it might mislead into thinking there are sci fi elements in the game (like in the old games), which there aren't.

+1. This is what I was referring too as well!
OFF: Interestingly, a bunch of Diablo-obsessed friends of mine were surprised when I mentioned M&M V to them: they watched the intro, and asked me if this is a joke?
Sort of, I said to them, adding that you have to fight dragons and terminators too. ;)
/OFF
 
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I enjoyed reading the review - certainly makes me wish to play it, cheers!
However I noticed that there wasn't a note regarding the Operating System requirements. Considering how that caused a lengthy discussion here, perhaps a note of some kind could be made about it in the review? Especially for the older fans who still run older systems. It might serve as a precautionary warning at any rate.
 
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I think the review should have focused a little more on core game mechanics like how combat works. It mentions that it's turn based and a little about balancing but that's it. Same about movement. I mean the tile based movement of the game feels like being a big selling point, so how does the implementation feel?
I would refer you to this part of the review:
—-
The gameplay hasn't changed much since the preview, so I'll gloss over that a bit. Suffice to say that veterans of the M&M series will find the experience very familiar while adding useful modern touches.

Also I think that the main drawbacks are a little different, but that's probably personal taste and depends on the difficulty you played on and the time you invested in theorycrafting in order to "see" the issues (and is somewhat required for the harder difficulty). Some of the skills, some of the weapon types are totally overpowered (my barb still used a 1h mace in the end though he didn't train it just because I couldn't find a 2h mace with the overpowered proc the 1h had), other things, like tanking or ranged combat (see combat mechanics) are completely underperforming and are best left out by the player (design your party as these mechanics don't exist). The review already mentions that healing spells are something you should learn in the very beginning. And I'd go further and say that the game does not a particularily good job in showing you how to survive it's quirks. As the review mentions the Warrior difficulty isn't very difficult either BUT it requires you to know stuff or adapt to game mechanics which the game doesn't really tell you.
I would say that you should replay MM7. It had numerous quirks as well, most of which weren't detailed out. You learned by playing, getting stomped, and trying something different. I agree that MM7 (since I'm mentioning that one specifically) had better balance, which I why I put balance issues in the cons section at the end and mentioned a few of them specifically in the review.

Also I think there shouldn't be a pic of the developers dungeon (or add an apparent caption) because it might mislead into thinking there are sci fi elements in the game (like in the old games), which there aren't.
I played the Limbo dungeon while writing the review, so those screenshots were easy to grab. Most of the other pics I had were rather dark since I tended to think of hitting the key when I saved, which most often was when I was ready to rest, which most often was at dark. I don't know that it's misleading if you read the text, but I probably should have used other screenies.
 
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I enjoyed reading the review - certainly makes me wish to play it, cheers!
However I noticed that there wasn't a note regarding the Operating System requirements. Considering how that caused a lengthy discussion here, perhaps a note of some kind could be made about it in the review? Especially for the older fans who still run older systems. It might serve as a precautionary warning at any rate.
You'll find better detail of that in my preview since I played the preview version on my old desktop, a 6-year-old Dell running XP on 2GB of RAM. It works fairly well if you're willing to sacrifice some graphics quality (and if you've got an old rig like that, you're used to making that sacrifice), with the main headaches being noticeably long load times and occasional stutter.
 
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Well, yeah, in that context it makes sense. But I guess I see a review more as a "standalone" thing. People who are reading this might neither have read the preview, nor played earlier games, which are already a little dusty.
 
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this game is a huge gift to RPG fans of a certain cloth. big ups Limbic
 
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Corwin: I agree with everything Dteowner has written.
Zloth spits Pepsi all over his monitor

Ummm, maybe you should say that you agree with everything Dteowner wrote in this review?
 
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Zloth spits Pepsi all over his monitor

Ummm, maybe you should say that you agree with everything Dteowner wrote in this review?

LOL!

And regarding win XP it should be a none issue now, it is not even supported by Microsoft anymore....
 
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"In an age where developers tend to use their customers for QA and regularly ignore what their customers ask for, Limbic's approach was a breath of fresh air."

Someone hasn't done their homework... Epic Fail ;)
 
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Great review - this game really takes the best of old school and gives it a bit of modern spit and polish.

While I can't overstate how great this is, I would add a couple of criticisms. Firstly there don't seem to be many choices or multiple path solutions to quests, which is a shame because they could have added more ending slides at little cost. Secondly, adventurer difficulty is not fine for "any party composition that sounds fun". I had to restart because could not defeat the act 1 boss with the party I had (more specifically could not get past the penultimate fight). Also there is a major difficulty spike early in act 2 (this with the 20/20 hindsight party build) - the dash to city #3 was a little too heavy on the reloads.
 
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Game is not perfect but I had a blast playing it. Some of the most fun I had playing a RPG the last few years. Guess I do not always need to play something dark like Witcher or Skyrim. Was a great change of pace. Really enjoyed the turn based combat.
 
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