Might and Magic: Is it back?

[Painted Lady]

It is available on Steam for $24.99. There is also a deluxe digital edition for $5 more. Windows only. I'm about to pull the trigger.......

The full name is Might and Magic X: Legacy.

[sirdilznik]

It is available on Steam for $24.99. There is also a deluxe digital edition for $5 more. Windows only. I'm about to pull the trigger.......

The full name is Might and Magic X: Legacy.

For those wondering, the deluxe edition nets you a free copy of Might & Magic VI, an exclusive dungeon (presumably with nothing game changing in it, I haven't gotten to it yet so I can't comment) and a free copy of the yet to be released first DLC.

I'm still only maybe halfway through the first act (of 4) since I'm taking it nice and slow, reading all lore, talking to all people, taking everything in. It seems like approximately 10-15 hours for the first act. I don't know if all acts are the same length, but if they are then that makes for approximately a 50 hour game, which is pretty doggone good for a budget title. I can say that a lot has changed since Early Access, which is definitely cool. It;s almost a whole new experience playing the first act I already went through before.

[noname]

Anything you don't like about the game? I've heard that there is no fast travel but you are stuck in the grid lock for every step and this gets tedious for long trips. Some also think that the battles are too tough with enemies appearing out of nowhere behind you. What you think?

[sirdilznik]

There are ships and caravans where you can pay to fast travel to other towns. As far as combat difficulty, I like it. I'm playing on Warrior (hard) difficulty, and some battles can be pretty brutal. You need to really use your head and all your abilities to survive. That's exactly what I want out of Warrior difficulty. I played on Adventurer (normal) during Early Access and it was definitely significantly easier, though you could still get your behind handed to you if you tried to sleepwalk through some fights. I have had enemies ambush me from behind, but this had been pretty rare so far. I'm fine with it as long as it doesn't happen all the time (/glares angrily in Dragon Age 2's direction). Movement is always grid based. I have no problem with it. You can move at a decent rate. I guess it may be too slow for some people, it's fine as far as I'm concerned.

[noname]

A reviewer on Amazon said that the game cannot be played offline and requires an account with uplay. Do you know if this is true or not? By the way, thanks for your input.

[sirdilznik]

A reviewer on Amazon said that the game cannot be played offline and requires an account with uplay. Do you know if this is true or not? By the way, thanks for your input.

It does indeed require UPlay (everything recent from Ubisoft needs UPlay). You need internet to download and activate it initially, after that you can play in offline mode with no need to connect.

[sirdilznik]

My characters are all up to level 8 and I'm just starting Castle Portmeyon, which is the final main quest dungeon in Act 1, if that hasn't been altered since Early Access, after clearing the Lighthouse. The boss fight in the Lighthouse was pretty epic. It took me 3 tries. I'm glad I stocked up on potions before the fight, because it;s a lengthy one. That's one battle that would have been significantly easier if my party was more mage-heavy as Mamushi (the boss) blocks physical attacks like crazy (and also does retribution damage when hit with physical attacks, whether he blocks them or not).

A few tips for people just starting this game:

• Level up Primordial Magic to expert and buy the Identify spell early on. It will save you tons of money in the long run
  
  Buy the Cure Poison spell early
  
  You may want to put a skill rank into a ranged weapon skill during character creation for each character. They will give you a free starter bow or crossbow as long as you have at least 1 rank. You're going to want ranged skill for each of your characters eventually anyway, might as well get a free weapon out of the deal.
  
  Certain shrines only work during the day or during the night. You can put your own notes on the map (shrines are not automatically marked on the map) and the shrines' effects last long enough that they can help immensely in dungeons.
  
  There is a Dark Magic spell that reveals secret locations (I forget what it's called), it's very useful.
  
  Certain secret entrances test against certain stats. Strength to break through a wall, Magic to dispell a ward, etc. It's useful to have as many high stats spread across your characters as possible. If you make a balanced party (e.g. not all fighters or all mages) this will likely happen naturally, particularly if you have more specialist characters rather than hybrid types that you would likely distribute stats more evenly for.

[noname]

Thanks for the tips. I haven't got the game yet. On Ubisofts website they have a 'boxed deluxe edition' but no way to order it. That would certainly interest me if there was just a way to order it. Maybe they aren't as good at doing websites as they are at making games. Keep us posted on your progress, we still have 3 weeks before Book 3 comes out. Looks like I will be getting both games.

[sirdilznik]

I'm well into act 2 now and I can say with a wide grin on my face that this game is delightfully old school, with all the good and bad that comes with that. The game will thoroughly punish you for trying to sleepwalk through battles or using poor strategy, but it's fair, and everything can be beaten if you're prepared and use your head. I like that there are areas you can wander into where you will thoroughly get your ass handed to you if you're not powerful enough, and the game will not stop you from going there. They will drop some hints or have a warning message carved on a rock, or whatever, but if you want to wander in and have the cyclops rip your arms off, that's your prerogative. Good times!

Granted we're only a month into 2014, but this is my favorite game of the year so far.

[sirdilznik]

So now that I'm level 12, I went back to the cyclops. He still thoroughly crushed me. At this point, the battle is probably possible, but I'd have to burn through a silly amount of potions to have any chance. Not worth it. I'll try again around level 15 or so. I'm finding that mana is maybe even more important than health in this game (obviously even more so if you go mage-heavy). This makes the Mysticism skill all the more valuable. My Shaman can only master in Mysticism, while my Freemage can grand master, so obviously my Freemage will have a larger mana pool during late game. On the other hand, my Shaman can grand master in Arcane Discipline (which raises magic resistances), and I'm guessing magic resistances will become as important, if not more, than health and physical resistances (armor) later in the game. It's one of the primary reasons I chose a Hunter and a Shaman (both orcs, coincidentally) for my party, since they can both grand master in Arcane Discipline. This, combined with orcs' natural ability to shrug off status effects, should make those two characters very difficult to disable later in the game, they can then revive/dispel effects off the other characters, raising my survivability greatly. That's the theory, anyhow.

Man, this game is great. I hope it sells well so that Ubi has Limbic do another one.

[sirdilznik]

Finished act 2. There is only one mandatory dungeon in act 2, as opposed to four in act 1, but there is a lot of outer world to explore. The game is not quite open world, in that there is a lot of room to roam around and go in a bunch of different directions in the order of your choosing, but there are also areas blocked off until you trigger an event or acquire a certain ability, much like a metroidvania.

The highest compliment I can pay this game is that I've played pretty much nothing but this game since it released. I originally planned to split time between this and some other games, but whenever I have gaming time, I forget about playing any of the other games and immediately boot into Might & Magic X. I also wind up staying up too late playing this game and missing out on TV shows or other things I would normally do. I fall into "just a few more minutes" syndrome when playing and it becomes very hard for me to stop and pull myself away until I realize "holy crap, it's super late, I'm going to pay the price tomorrow at work".