Waxing nostolgic, Might and Magic, and that damn imagination

[The Plucky Little Ninja]

Possible pointless rambling warning!

I snagged a copy of Might and Magic: Gates to Another World (Genesis) of of Ebay a few days ago. I've built up a decent collection of Genesis games over the years, but this cart brings me one step closer to replacing the ones I sold to Funcoland back in Jr. High. I managed to go through childhood only once selling carts to Funcoland. Even back then I just didn't see the point in getting rid of them. I knew that I'd get more joy out of them in the years to come than I would out of the $5 that selling them would have provided.

That one sale to Funcoland was, in retrospect, fairly stupid. OK really, really stupid. I let go the following, complete in boxes, with manuals and hintbooks: Shining Force, Warsong, Sword of Vermillion, Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi, and Might and Magic. What did I trade these for. What game was going to be so great that it would justify losing 6 of my favorite games.

Mortal Kombat II

Yeah....noodle that one for awhile.

I've managed to replace Shining Force, Warsong, a cart only copy of Vermillion, and now Might and Magic.

When I was younger I loved Might and Magic.

My brothers thought I was out of my damn mind. Watching someone play the game you can tell why. The landscape leaps at you block by block, your characters are little more than names and a list of statistics, and the enemies don't so much attack you as dance for your amusement while the text explains how you're getting your ass manhandled.

Over the years I must have passed off my love of this game as youthful folly, but I plugged it in for the first time in a decade and I haven't been able to pull myself away from it. They just don't make RPG's like this anymore. At least not for the consoles. It's so nonlinear. Hell, I beat it when I was younger and I still don't know what the story was about. There's just so much to explore, so much to do. I think it seems so much bigger than the games of today because it's so crude. Games with create-a-character modes give you a lot of choices, but the pallett is always going to be limited. Not so with the old dungeon crawlers. Your characters looked however the heck you wanted them to look. Well, at least in your head. The monsters you fought and the sounds of battle were only as big as you could picture them. I guess this is what I love most about the classics.

Games today have so much potential for exploration, but it just feels like it's wasted. GTA: San Andreas has a massive world to explore, but there's really no point in doing it. There are no real benefits to landing all the hidden jumps, and the rewards for finding all the horseshoes and clams just isn't worth the trouble. There aren't enough RPG/Character building elements to make it all worthwhile.

Modern RPG's, on the other hand, have grown so fixated on linear stories that they can't risk throwing the game balance out of whack by providing loads and loads of sidequests and game busting power ups. What's the last non-MMORPG that let you explore the entire world map right off the bat? The only thing that held you back was the fear of getting obliterated by strong enemies. Hell that's half the fun of Might and Magic. Growing so freakin' powerful that 99% of the creatures in the game can't even touch you.

So that's enough of my bitching for now. This wasn't meant to be a condemnation of modern gaming. I think many of the games being pumped out now are among the greatest ever made. I just needed to send a little love letter to some of the elements that seem to have been forgotten in recent years.

Here's to taking a first level character to a crypt he has no business visiting, and getting properly slaughtered because of it.

[puxley]

Excellent post! Thanks for reminding us of the quality we are all seeking in our gaming experiences: escape.

Having your imagination ignited by a game, getting to spending time in another world, that feeling of "a-HA!"........in the end, that is what I think we are all looking for.

Your post is also timely to me because I picked up Might & Magic just last week at a used bookstore. I was looking for something to break my Shining Force streak, since I'm playing 2 for the freakin' millionth time (which I started as a break from playing the SegaCD version.....).

Anyway, I spent an hour or two with M&M, and I'm sorry to say that it didn't pull me in.....I have no doubt I would have been able to dedicate myself to it if I had had the game back in the day. Today, however, my imagination is greedier -- it's been spoiled, it wants more, and it doesn't ever want to have to map anything ever again! Still, I certainly appreciated it's wide-open nature and the interesting character classes. I wish more console fantasy games today would allow you to truly create your own characters.

But here ya go - the novel-sized manual was absolutely COVERED with notes, drawings, and maps - the previous owner of the game had obviously played this thing to the bitter end. References to the elemental planes and notes for dealing with devils and a mega-dragon were all over the place. It was like an illuminated manuscript, a tribute to the escapism and entertainment that some kid (probably in Tucson) derived from spending time in this particular alien world.

To whoever this person was - Excelsior!
I hope you handed that mega-dragon his ass, kid.

So, I popped Shining Force II back in, and played until 3 in the morning. I love that chessboard fight, I tell ya.....

[The Plucky Little Ninja]

But here ya go - the novel-sized manual was absolutely COVERED with notes, drawings, and maps - the previous owner of the game had obviously played this thing to the bitter end. References to the elemental planes and notes for dealing with devils and a mega-dragon were all over the place. It was like an illuminated manuscript, a tribute to the escapism and entertainment that some kid (probably in Tucson) derived from spending time in this particular alien world.

Hell yeah!

That's it right there. There was so much to do, and so many different ways to go about doing it.

And one of the best features was that you didn't have to map anything (a really rare occurance in games of this type). In the first city you can buy once of your characters the mapmaking feat for 20 gold and from that point on every square you step on is added to the games auto-map. That's how I eventually beat the game. By illuminating every tile in every sector, city, cave, castle, and elemental plane I just stumbled across all the plot points, and there's a millon little side quests, encounters, and secret fountains and treasures to make all the trucking around worth it.

[puxley]

Really? Good advice - I'll try that out and let you know if I fare any better.
I get lost really easily in games like that, so I need the help. Thank you.

(If I still decide to return it, I have to by Tuesday to get my $5 back!)

[Haoie]

Well M&M2 [back way when] when I first tried it, was a masterpiece. Of course I was young then and really couldn't get anywhere, so I never finished.

Now that 3DO's more or less finished, I wonder how the M&M are going to go. People weren't exactly happy with the latest versions either.

[Kuros]

Ah, Might and Magic 2, one of my favorite games. One so much that I actually wrote a guide about it. :D

Anyway, I first played this when I was 10-11 or so and I found it hard because I couldn't get any new items. Then I figured out how to search for the items. LOL

Playing it now, I still find it amusing, but it's slower than I remembered.

I prefer Might and Magic 4-8 personally because they are faster paced.

The fact that 4 and 5 combine into one huge world made it even more of a great game. If you need better items, go from the Clouds of Xeen to the Darkside and do some simple quests.

6-8 were fun just because they were smoother than the previous ones. No more running on squares! 6 was the best out of the 3 though, it was the most challenging and it was a great way to kill a night.

The only M&M I haven't beaten is 1, and 9 doesn't count. ;)