Might & Magic VII - in Matt Chat 342

I played MM7 for the first time last year more than 15 years after its release, and it instantly leapt to a very high position among my favorite games.

But a few weeks ago I tried restarting for a second playthrough -- and I just couldn't. I was so perfectly happy with the party I put together the first time around that I just don't want to play through the game as anyone else.

The character building is so good as to make the game, for me, un-replayable -- because I got it exactly right the first time.

#obscureself-inflictedgamerproblems
 
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MM6 & MM7 are my two favorite MM games. Between attributes, skills, and gear, both games deliver a constant feeling of progression in terms of power and ability. And I still love their snap-on 'paper doll' inventory model - so satisfying.
 
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Yep, I finished a run just last month and I enjoy VIII too. Weaker than 6 or 7 but still decent against the rest of the dross out there.
 
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I tried MM3 the other day and was surprised how much it held up. Not the same as MM6 or 7 but still very good.
 
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MM7 is fantastic with fan patches, I played through recently, especially GrayFace patch allowed me to begin with a dragon.

The dragons advanced breath spell is broken though[does nothing], but who cares if he had lots of HP and could fly?
 
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Ah, just 17 years ago, people weren't ashamed to release a truly high fantasy game. What do we get now? Hipster crap like Pillars. :'(
 
Sacred_Path said:
Ah, just 17 years ago, people weren't ashamed to release a truly high fantasy game. What do we get now? Hipster crap like Pillars. :'(
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I know. There are more and more games every year and less and less that I have any interest in playing. Indie devs need to kickstart games that emulate Might and Magic and make some real money:

Give a nice paper doll or a high detail characters that I can see my loot represented as I find it. These guys don't need a story, these games are about killing stuff with your found weapons and spells.

Combat. Make a lot of it, but the battles are more about showcasing your spells and weapons than difficulty. In M&M games you mow through combat, it isn't very tactical.
Most battles are won with bows or a few spells or swings of the sword. Quick is key.

Have gobs of dungeons with a theme and lots of loot.

Have a wide variety of stats and skills and the ability to improve these every level or two.

Have an interesting, but easy to use alchemy system. Today you can add crafting, but it needs to be easy to use, not a clusterf*ck like D:OS.

Have a ton of quests all related to cleaning out hordes of monsters quickly and collecting loot.

Seems simple but nobody has done it.
 
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Sounds like your best bet is Dungeons of Aledorn and Bard's Tale IV. They will both have more tactical combat than M&M, but as far as sensibilities go, they're 100% Tolkienesque fantasy.
 
This is one of the games I reinstall anytime I get a new pc immediately. I don't see that ever changing tbh, games like this one I fall back on during droughts.
 
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M&M games are a constant on my machines. Replay them every so often when I get the itch.
 
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I remember I played MM VI and VII one after the other in 2001, a couple of years after their official release. At first I did not think much about them, but after a few weeks... oh boy... what an incredible experience. I played again VI last year and although the graphic sucks I spent another 100 hrs with it.

Come to think of it, the games I had little expectations ended up to be some of the best for me. Recently, D:OS. After Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity, I had very little expectations for D:OS. Oh boy, was I wrong....

Some of the others, in no particular order: Eador (if you like strategy, don't be a fool, this one is probably the best fantasy 4x ever made), Deus Ex (the original), Fallout (yeaph, snatched from a garage sale for a few cents...), UFO Enemy Unknown (the first time I played I disliked it so much I did not touch it again for months...), Heroes of M&M (I started with 2), Planescape (this is sort of a miracle for me, since I hate RTwP with a passion, and yet this one is at the top of my list), Valkyria Chronicles (I don't even like JRPGs)....
 
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I've enjoyed all of the Might & Magic games except for the abysmal M&M9… The only one I never finished. My favorite was M&M3… Although tedious at times, I miss mapping the levels on graph paper. My memory of M&M6-8 are kind of a blur, since they were all developed using the same engine and released only 1 year apart… but I seem to remember 7 as being the best of the three, and 8 felt rushed and like just more of the same.
 
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3DO had milked as much money out of that engine as was possible. By the time VIII released, it was really looking old. However, it looks better than about 90% of current indies, so it is all relative :) There are a few mods out for MMVI-VIII but nothing that is truly satisfying.
 
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Matt's LP's are the only ones I care to watch. He seems blissfully ignorant most of the time (sorcerers can't GM alchemy, and luck didn't influence drops IIRC), but he just has a heck load of fun, half of which happens in his own head.
 
Sacred_Path said:
.... but he just has a heck load of fun, half of which happens in his own head.
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Isn't this the same for everybody? This is why 'fun' is so subjective, most of it resides in our own head...
 
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I'm tempted to send him a decent beer for his drinking horn. He does drink some godawful muck.
 
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mbpopolano24 said:
Isn't this the same for everybody? This is why 'fun' is so subjective, most of it resides in our own head…
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Maybe. But I often find that there's an exchange with the game going on; that I'm constantly evaluating the experience. Like, was that NPC's line really witty/ in character? Was that quest a proper roleplaying opportunity? Should I do more/ less damage at my level to these enemies?

Matt doesn't seem to do much of that, in his videos. He's like "WHOAH man I love that intro movie. There's a green goblin, cool! Ooh, I got a rat quest. Man I LOVE rats!" :)
 
Funny, my name is also Matt and what you just described sounds like a lot of my own RPG Let's Play videos. :)
 
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