Thursday, February 25, 2016

Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum (1986): Initial Impressions

The Might and Magic series has always interested me, though until now I have never sat down and played any of the games (other than the Heroes of Might and Magic spinoff games).  I always assumed the earliest games would be unbearably clunky crawls through endless dungeons, and in most cases I hate to start these kinds of long series of games somewhere in the middle, as going through in order often gives you a lot of insight.

My first memory of M&M was standing in Walden Software and deciding which game I would get for my Commodore 64.  Any kid into computer RPGs would immediately be attracted to the artwork on the cover on M&M1: even now you look at that and think, I want to explore every inch of that map.  I had finally narrowed my choice down to M&M and Ultima VI.  Based on past experience I was pretty terrified of making a poor choice and getting stuck with an awful game for the next six months or so, so I chickened out and got the tried and true Ultima sequel.  Sadly, although Ultima VI is an amazing game, the C64 port is pretty horrible outside of the excellent music that plays during the introduction, requiring you to swap disks constantly and even missing stuff from the PC version.

My next exposure to M&M came in the form of the Genesis port of Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World, which a friend owned.  It was actually an extremely faithful port and one of the best RPGs on that console.

At one point later down the line I bought one of the later games in the series, but barely even played it.

A year or so ago I bought the Might and Magic bundle off of GOG, and after reading some impressions decided to start off with the first game.



Might and Magic begins with a seizure-inducing title screen and a catchy tune.  To be honest, I was tempted to play this on my Apple II (which offers slightly more colorful graphics) or C64 (which has much nicer music)... but went with the PC version just because for the convenience of it (and there isn't much music anyway).

Instead of creating a party I just decided to go with the premade characters, as they start equipped with some items for a slightly easier time getting started.

The game starts you out in town, and one thing you learn very quickly is that not even towns are safe.  In addition to fixed encounters in some rooms, monsters also wander the halls (streets?)... and in the beginning winning even a single combat can be difficult.

After gaining a level or two and improving your equipment the game becomes a lot easier, and once you get used to the keyboard only interface the game plays very quickly.  In fact, the game is really a joy to play after the initial 15 minute period of learning how to navigate.

The game is played entirely from a first person view, and provides no map.  The game is huge, so you will need to draw maps as you go along.  I do not recommend downloading maps; the game was balanced assuming that you would be exploring every square, so if you just rush from objective to objective you will find yourself too weak to accomplish anything.  Besides, the whole point of the game is to explore this massive world and figure it out, and mapping is a central part of this.




Combat is simple but offers more to think about than just attacking or casting spells.  There is a rudimentary positioning system in place, and characters and monsters may only engage in melee if they are adjacent to each other.  Spells and missile weapons can be fired even from long range.

Although you get a crudely drawn image of the enemy when you first encounter it, once you enter battle it's all text.  It's not a bad interface, but I would have at least liked the game to have shown my HPs on this screen (rather than having to access another screen to check).

After a few hours I had mapped (most) of the starting town, a good portion of a dungeon underneath the town, and some of the wilderness area outside the town.
 


At this point I had some decent equipment and had reached level 4 for all six characters.  Battles in the town were all ridiculously easy, while battles in other areas ranged from easy to impossible.  Luckily, if you die you can just reset and reload from the last time you saved an an inn.

Overall, it's a great game and I would have absolutely loved this if I had been wise enough to choose it over Ultima VI!  Due to the open nature of the game you are free to set your own goals, and if you get stuck you seemingly always have a few directions you can started exploring in.  The plot wants me to go visit a wizard in another town, but I could just as well decide to ignore that for now and finishing exploring the town dungeon, or set off to explore the wilderness a bit more.  Anyone who is into computer RPGs and dismisses M&M1 as a clunky-looking dungeon crawl should really give the game a chance, as it plays much better than you might expect for a game released in 1986.

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