Might & Magic X - Review Roundup #2

Couchpotato

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Here is the second roundup of reviews for Might & Magic X: Legacy.

Gamereactor - 6/10

For those of us who grew up with Might & Magic there is a certain nostalgic charm to revisiting the old landmarks, but that charm quickly wears off. Much of what made the old games special is missing and it doesn't take long before we become painfully aware of the strings and mechanics that hold the game together.
Lazygamer - 7.5/10

There’s no getting around the fact that Might and Magic X: Legacy is going to be a niche game. They just don’t make RPGs like this anymore, but there is a ton of love for coded into this game. It could have done with some more polish overall, but it’s still actually decent fun to play and it’ll stretch that grey matter of yours.
And for last a new impression from Digitally Downloaded.

This short piece isn't meant to be a review, just initial impressions, because I know a lot of DDNet readers are keen on the game and I did wanted to highlight how surprised and impressed I am that Ubisoft did resist the temptation to overhaul the core Might & Magic gameplay in order to better commercialise it. I'll be playing this like mad to have a review live first thing on Monday, but, while I'm not sure where the game will sit amongst the entire Might & Magic franchise, I am convinced that this is going to be one of my favourite games this year.
More information.
 
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Hmmm, I think this game could really use a demo. I never played the old games so the nostalgia factor isn't going to do much for me.
 
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Reading the gamereactor review (among others) they mention the step movement as a negative and mentioned that mm moved away frome it. However, the step movement is what i define as a key factor for a mm game. Favourite of mine beeing world of xeen. One critic i read on many reviews have been the long intro, and i found it strange since it isnt bioware. I mean, i can play the game not watching an interactive game. It sounds like the intro is bad but it is ordinary. As a game should have… I feel.

Another critic i read is the combat over distance, arrows, spells and crossbows. Is sometimes refered to bad design. Perhaps it is bad design doing it like this, but if not doing it like this it wouldnt be mm. I like it and smiled when i experienced it. Its part of the game mechanic.

Then is the difficulty. Mm games has never had any levelling enemys. If you took on the wrong cave in the wrong order you would have a difficult time. That was the game telling you to do something other before this.

I read in some review about the constant travelling back to town. I remember in the old games one thing i measured my groups abilities with was when i could master a cave without replenishing health or reviving members in the temple. Such thing are mostly slimmed away in modern games.. (Perhaps a good thing since i dont have the same time today as 25 years past). But this is the charm with mm.

Slow pace and arm against your head… Well i thing a cod player might feel like that but i dont. However, i really would like to have controller support playing the game on my couch. That would be great!

I really wonder how our kids would like mm nowadays. They are 11 and 13. I really dont think they would accept it. I think i must let them try.
 
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Good comment, mute. I think I agree with all of it :)

As far as the step-movement, it wasn't just the M&M games that had it. Bard's Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Wizardry, Dungeon Master, etc… all did movement the same way. Really, I can't think of any game that had a first person perspective that didn't, in the 1980s and early 1990s. And the ability to see enemies at a distance and engage in ranged combat for a turn or two before they closed to melee distance was actually a feature. I think EOB had that too, but most games initiated encounters when your party was on the same grid square as the enemy group. And speaking of grid squares, I don't think the newer MM games did away with them, I think they just let you travel (one square at a time) at angles other than 90, 180, 270 or 360. Anyway, it seems many of the reviews are good but awarded low scores. Some are bad and awarded low scores. I guess the moral of the story is that this game gets a low score, whether the reviewer liked it or not :)

I haven't bought it yet, but based on what I've read about it and what people here have said, I plan to. My only concern was they were just capitalizing on the name and weren't attempting a real M&M game, but it seems that's not the case.
 
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I like MM 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

so I have no problem with step movement or with free movement.

I prefer turn based combat.
 
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Imho the problem wasn't that it was dated but the problem was that the developers were lazy or not given enough time for the latter games. While MM VI was still fine. MM VII was just the same thing with a different story. But no real update in the engine or assets from that I remember. Also MM VIII didn't correct that.
Whether you were in the canalization or in a Dragon's lair - they used the same dungeon texture for everything and if they didn't tell you where you are you wouldn't know it. This was acceptable in 1992 for Realms of Arkania - but not in the middle/ late 90s in 3D engines.
 
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Didnt read the reviews. The game is pretty good.
Simply old school dungeon crawler with updated interface and graphic.
 
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Indeed. But a crawler including things to find and story. Grimrock on the other hand doesn't include any of this. Instead Grimrock is focusing on riddles.
Same genre, extremely different games.
 
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I ultimately did not enjoy Grimrock in part because there was no story to keep me interested but mostly because it became too twitch-based (real-time) in the lower levels. It was very much like EOB, so that is good, but ultimately I did not enjoy it.
 
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Yep, I didn't like the twitch based part as well.
But imho EOB had much, much more story. Or at least stuff to discover. Additional NPCs which can be raised from the dead, screens like this, this or this. It wasn't packed with story but it had carrots on a stick like these pictures and events which made it much more interesting to me.

And of course MMX, while being not as open as I wished it was, also provides these carrots.
 
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Indeed. But a crawler including things to find and story. Grimrock on the other hand doesn't include any of this. Instead Grimrock is focusing on riddles.
Same genre, extremely different games.

There is big difference between two games.
Grimrock is heavily twitch action based , MMX is turn based tactical
 
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I am having a great time with this game. Wish it was a little more open also but I think the turn based battles are great. I think it carries the tradition of the M&M franchise and I wonder if there will be some super sweet mods later? :)

I also think the character advancement is spot on for M&M games.
 
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I didn't get enough hours of value out of grimrock. I will have to wait until a big steam sale for MM10.
 
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Word to the wise: Watch denizens should ignore mainstream reviews. This game hit the nail squarely on the head. I'm loving it.

I think people will have varying trouble with the difficulty depending on their party makeup. I happened to make a Blade Dancer, and her dual wielding provides by far my biggest melee damage output. That and my Rune Priest's Fire Bolt keeps my damage up enough that I'm doing ok playing on the harder ('Warrior') difficulty. I can see that if somebody went with something closer to the default party with a tank and an archer type, which both look more on the useless side (at least at the beginning), they would probably struggle more to the point that frustration sets in.

Resource management is critical, and so far I've been able to barely keep up with my rate of potion drops and not buy any (good thing, because so far at 5th level I've spent all my money on skill training and buying spells). But it takes effort, and some of my longest pauses in battle have been while deciding whether to drink one more potion or not. That's one big plus of this game for me: It forced me to overcome my hoarding tendencies on consumables. You'll drink potions, or you'll die.

One concern I have at this point is that the world map doesn't look that big. I've been to the first couple dungeon areas outside the starter town, and that already covers a decent chunk of the "world map" (like 1/8th of it or so). So the game length might be concerning (though I guess we shouldn't expect a whole lot for $25).

Overall, I had trouble putting it down, and I want to play again right now. Big thumbs up.

I had to smile at a cave not far out of town with a big warning sign in front of it, and if you go in you'll pretty much get insta-killed. Old-school, indeed.
 
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The only opinion that really matters is your own as I always say. I'm glad gamers enjoy it, but it's most definitely not worth anything over a 7/10. <—(Opinion)^^

I'm waiting for a review that gives the game a 10/10 were I can laugh my arse off.:lol:
 
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So what would you mark it down for?

Seriously, start at a 10 and list the cons that drop it down to just above a "D". I'm genuinely interested in what the shortcomings are for folks that are big-time into serious RPGs.

Compared to what's out on the market today, sure, I could see your average bells-n-whistles gamer giving this a pass. But if you played Worlds of Xeen back in the day and considered it a 9 or 10 at the time, this game should score at least a point within that IMO. It's quintessential Might and Magic.

(And for the record, I'm talking about the release version, not the Early Access version. I have only played the release version, and it's great).
 
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It seems to be pretty good. I bought it during early access, and admittedly I haven't played much beyond the first town. Right now, Blackguards is keeping me busy, but I can say that I have an itch to play more MMX, which is as high of a recommendation as I could give anything right now.
 
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Well, I've played several maps of Blackguards which people seem to love (I don't) and the city and a dungeon plus some wilderness of M&MX and it wins hands down!! It's not perfect and a couple of minor things annoy me, but I'm really enjoying it so far.
 
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MMX is definitely a winner for anyone who can still enjoy the MM3-5 games. It is basically those games made with a more modern engine. I've wandered a great deal of the outdoor areas after leaving the first town and the game just feels exactly like a Might and Magic. They picked a great name for the title. This game brings back the legacy that was M&M.
 
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There should be a hardcoded limit on how many times each user can post to a certain topic.

What was this thread about again?
 
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