Is Might & Magic VI the greatest game ever created?

Just joking (sort of), but dang, this game is super impressive to me thus far.

I have a little experience playing it on an old laptop a year or two ago, but I didn't get terribly far before becoming distracted with a shiny, new laptop and moving on to different games. Since the games were part of a bundle, I bought them for my desktop PC and have installed them once again to check them out further. Specifically, M&M VI, although I still want to check out the others eventually, too.

Anyway, the party creation to me is a thing of beauty. It's just awesome. Sure, there's only 6 classes, but creating a balanced party that you are happy with is just so fun. Determining which starting skills to give your characters along with their stats instantly gives you a deep level of customization right off the bat.

Next, the inventory, skill page, stats page, etc., all very clean and nice and easy to navigate.

The writing. Wow. It's really good, actually. I've only really read the note that is in your inventory at the start of the game and a few villager dialogues, but it is great so far. The note especially was really well-written and professional.

Then you enter the actual game, and my god, the combat system is literally the best combat system I think I've ever played in a game. Bold statement, I know, but the combination of first-person view, ability to switch between real-time and turn-based, and just the feel of fighting hordes of goblins in turn-based first-person just does it for me. It's certainly my favorite first-person combat that I can ever recall, that's for sure.

So while I'm half-joking that it's the greatest game ever made, it's very impressive to me.

So tell me, what are your spoiler-free experiences with M&M VI? Do you also hold it in high regard or was it more forgettable for you?

A lot of things are super impressive to you.

M&M VI didn't do much for me. A played 6 and 7 for twenty or so hours each. Both were fugly even upon release and so wide open that I didn't find the fun in them. At some point I hit a difficulty wall and stopped playing.
I loved M&M 3 - 5 though and played them for weeks back in the day.

AFAIR the hivemind says M&M 6 and 7 are good games, 8 is MOTS and not really worth playing, 9 sucks and 10 is once again pretty good.

Fluent, I always love to read your reviews and contributions on this site, but sometimes I wonder: are you taking drugs while gaming?

(I mean this as a joke, truly no offence intended).

More on topic: I really enjoyed MM6 and have fond memories of playing it while being in college. I should fire it up once more.

Is Might & Magic VI the greatest game ever created?

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No.

I'll skip reading the rest of it, sorry.

Outside of 9, all might and magic games are excellent. 8 is like 7, but on easy mode. In 8 you play some of the monsters that were in 7. Trolls, Dragons, Minotaurs, etc. MM1 and 2 are extremely dated and hard to play today. 9 was rushed out the door because the dev was out of money and the publisher didn't want to fund a delay, iirc. I've finished all of them multiple times, even 9, to my everlasting shame.

Wish I could take an anti-memory potion that would wipe just my memories of playing rpgs, then start over with the games from the 80's and work back up to today. Of course, I'd have to take early retirement to do it, but some sacrifices must be made.

If you ever get to MM8, take a Dark Elf as your main. Why? They are good fighters, excellent magic users, and have the disarm traps skill

Is Might & Magic VI the greatest game ever created?

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No, the greatest game ever created is the one you are currently playing :lol:

Jokes aside, I have never played any M&M games and but I recently got M&M 10 and I have spent good 5 hours so far creating a party! So I guess the rest of the game has to be good

In my opinion, Might & Magic VI is one of the best RPGs ever.

The scope of the game is impressive, and the dungeons are incredible. The uniqueness of each town, the magic spells (fly!), the hidden areas, being well-balanced. The game is a challenge that keeps you coming back for more.

7 and 8 are not even close to being as good as 6.

M&M VI was impressive. Worlds of Xeen were even more impressive for me.
M&M VII, VIII were fun, M&M IX was also fun despite many games don't like it.
M&M X was ok.

Every M&M game is outdated. That's not a problem for me, but with so many new and fresh RPG around I don't think that I have time to go back to M&M any time soon.

Having played every M&M game except 2, I can agree that 6 is a great game. But it definitely has it's share of problems. It is not a very well-balanced game. The character skill decisions at the beginning looks extensive but a great many of them are nearly useless while a few are almost game-breakingly OPed.

Also, about midgame or so, the power balance of the classes skews so far towards the Magic classes that the Might classes become almost useless. There's a reason of a lot of M&M6 vets call it Magic & Magic 6. M&M7 does much better in this regard.

On the other hand, it does have probably the best designed dungeons in the entire series. Some of them are just enormous with tons of secrets, puzzles and plenty of very challenging encounters. The overworld exploration is also amazing but that is part of what the M&M series is known for.

My personal favorites are 3-5, with 7 and 10 coming up close. I think if you like 6, then you should really try out 7.

Really though, the best thing about 6 is the character portraits. I remember a few years back I was playing 6, my wife walked past the computer and asked why I was playing a game with a bunch of pornstars. :lol:

I've only played VI through IX but if I had to put those in order it'd be
VII > ... VI > ... VIII > IX.
None of them comes close to being the "greatest game ever created" though, especially not VIII and IX which kinda sucked. MM VII is still WAY up there among my fav RPGs (top 5 or so) but that's about it. Part VI was quite a bit weaker IMHO.
I'm really looking forward to playing no. X which is one of the many games I grabbed on sale and that went straight onto the impossible pile. Oh well, one day, hopefully...

Well, I haven't played enough to notice any balancing issues or flaws later in the game. I hope I can get lucky and avoid them, we'll see.

The game is impressive to me because the party creation is really strategical and interesting to me. I like how each class has their own available skills, and you'll have to choose wisely, yet you have a lot of freedom in how you choose and which skills you start with.

The stats are nice, too. Do you want a Cleric who wears leather and can do some nice damage with their mace? Or do you want them to focus more on their spell points and use diplomacy. There are many different ways to create a party and I was poring over my decisions carefully and having a lot of fun simply crafting the 'perfect' (for me) party.

I also think the combat is the best first-person combat I've played. I simply love it. I wish Morrowind has a system like this, where you can switch between real-time for quick encounters or turn-based for more difficult ones, and it's just a blast to play in turn-based mode, snipe enemies with your archer as they are coming towards you, and then firing off some spells and attacks, all in first-person mode. I think it's a great system.

So those 2 aspects to me are very impressive. I wish more games used the combat system and party creation from this game. They are so simple in their execution but very effective.

Also, keep in mind that I never played these games when they came out, so they are new to me. Exploring these classic games for the first time is exciting, and I love examining all the design decisions and how things have changed over the years.

Yes, I'm a giant nerd. :lol:

And I was joking about it being the best game ever. The combat and party mechanics are just really great, IMO.

BTW, if you haven't already, I highly suggest installing Grayface's unofficial M&M6 patch. It fixes a ton of bugs plus adds mouse look, double speed mode, and a bunch of other things. Makes the tedious parts of 6 less so, and helps with the somewhat clunky UI.

https://sites.google.com/site/sergroj/mm

I did install that, Neph. I tweaked it a bunch last night and now have the perfect setup with the mouselook features and so on. I also downloaded the keymapper and re-mapped the keys to my liking. The end result is a tweaked M&M VI that plays much more to my liking.

Yep, Grayface is mandatory on any replays of the MM games. He's my hero.

MM6 had a much bigger world, but I'll still take MM7 over it every day. The prime difference was that MM6 allowed you to develop characters that could do everything. MM7 boxed you in a little bit, making party composition far more important. Classes mattered because you couldn't be "all everything". That added another layer of complexity to character development and made replays much more viable.

I've only ever played the starter island of M7M VI, but I found the quest design really impressive. Having multiple ways to collect most of the items required was very nice. I absolutely hated the combat system, but I also didn't realize it could be switched to TB. Maybe I'll have to go have another look at it.

Switching to turn-based is my recommended way of playing.

When I first played the game, I didn't know I could do that either, and I would get slaughtered regularly by every enemy in the game. Once I learned I could switch to TB, it made a world of difference. Really improves the game and I love the combat system now.

One early game strategy in MM6 is to get all your characters to expert in bows as soon as possible and buy them the best bows available. Then you leave it in real time mode and MM6 becomes a great FPS

I love the game, personally.

The Might and Magic trilogy from 6-8 hold some pleasant memories for me; I still listen to Paul Romero's soundtracks now and again (they work well exploring in Spiderweb games for instance) and even have the certificates that the games give you upon completion. This was around 2002-2004 for me.

Maybe we should have an honor thread where people can post these after you beat the game eh Fluent?

VI is a big game and is probably my favorite simply for the dungeons and because I played it before the next two and which ultimately felt a little too similar mechanically. However it did start to get ultra-repetitive toward the end and I remember rushing to the conclusion and not really liking the appearance of lazers and whatnot. To be honest I also played these games in real time and never really needed to resort to the turn-based system; never found them too hard for that to be necessary.

That said, I did start a second playthrough of VII a couple of years back on an older machine to experience the "Light" path. Maybe I should get back to that one day.