After I played around 10 hours I decided to write a preview of the new Ubisoft creation – Might and Magic X Legacy. This is only a preview, something like first impression, because I haven’t finished the game yet!
Have you played Grimmrock?
No? Ok, something classic then – Wizardry 8? Yes? Great! M&M X is exactly
in this style – classic turn-based, first-person RPG in which you form a party
of adventurers and go offer your help to the people in the world of Ashan.
Before I get all technical
and tell you more for the gameplay there will be a little bit of the story –
you are controling the four students of a great adventurer and you have sworn
that you will bring his dust to the city of Karthal, BUT the city is in the
middle of rebellion and is off-limits. To get inside you should help a whole
bunch of people to solve their own problems. Also, the Emperor is dead and the
Empress is reforming all kind of things and not everybody is fond of that. The
story follows the end of Heroes of Might and magic 6, so if you have not played
it yet – SPOILER ALLERTS! Now, how the game works and what it have to offer?
You have to form a party of
four characters and for that you are given four races with three classes each.
The races are elves, dwarves, orcs and humans. Every race have an archer, a
warrior and a mage, exception are the humans, because they don’t have an archer.
They have mercenary who is a jack of all trades.
Every class starts with two
default skills which you can’t unselect, but depending on your starting skill
points (four for humans and two for the others) you can learn few more before
the start of the game. The skill variation is not bad at all – you can learn
all kind of skills – all sorts of weapons, dual wielding, two handers, shields,
magic schools (water, air, fire, earth, light, prime) and few more. But you are
limited in the skills each class can learn, so don’t hope your mage to swing
giant sword, dressed in all heavy armor. Oh, and if you really want a certain
skill but don’t have skill points for it in the beginning, don’t worry – you
can get it any time when you gain a level in the game. The skills have three
mastery levels – expert, master and grandmaster. To advance you will need to
have rised the skill to the needed level and find certain NPC which will teach
you the next skill rank.
Every class has one
advancement, for example – your Freemage can become Archmage or your Mercenary
can become Windsword and so on.
After you have chosen what
party members you want (By the way if you don’t have the patience to manually
create your party, let the game do it for you.), you are ready to start. After
some loading and veeery long cut-scene you start at the shore of
Sorpigal-at-the sea, located on the Angyn Peninsula.
You have just made ten steps
in this new world and an NPC jumps on you and starts to babble and offer to
take you on a city tour – accept or don’t, doesn’t really matters. The most
annoying thing for me is the movement – square per step so your party kind of
jumps around, but oh, well…
After you enter the city you
will see that it is nicely done and have the right character – of a resting
place for retired heroes. I personally couldn’t help but compare it to the
Academy faction in Heroes of Might and Magic 4, but it is actually inspired by
the Santorini Islands, Greece.
In this new Sorpigal (not to
be mistaken with New Sorpigal) you will find everything to start an adventure –
blacksmith, temple, inn, quests and NPC to talk with. Annoyingly enough you
won’t be able to leave the city until you don’t finish certain quest, but no
worries it’s a quick one. And if you think your first task will be to kill
spiders in a maze, well, you’re absolutely right!
But the NPCs will not only
give you quests but will also tell you about the world you’re in and if you
like game lore – hear them, but if you’re in for the gameplay, you would not
miss anything.
And mentioning quests
and gameplay, let’s talk about the battle system, after all this is RPG game – the
battle is main part of what you’ll be doing. If you have played other games of
this genre then the battle system will be nothing new to you, but for those of
you who have not played such, let me explain – after you get on a certain
distance from your enemy you engage in a battle. If you’re lucky, your opponent
will be at some distance and you will have time to fling some arrows at him and
throw some spells. If not, well, draw your swords! Turn changes after all your
characters do something and then all enemies play. The actions your guys can
perform are attack, cast a magic, drink a potion, and defend. The battles end
fast, even with stronger opponents which is always good.
I must say that I enjoy the
fights and they certainly offer challenge and need of skill synergy between
party members. That reminds me, you will not find useless skill in the game -
just some are more effective than others and in every magic school there is at
least one skill which you will use during the whole game.
Sadly, you cannot flee from
battle, you can’t choose which opponent to attack when they’re at distance and
you can hardly move when engaged in hand-to hand fight.
Talking about the enemies, I
must say that there is a great variety of enemy types, if you have played HoMM
6 then you will recognize all factions creatures from there and even some more.
Every enemy has some ability, which also adds to the challenge of the fights
and tactics.
Conclusion!
If you like these kinds of
RPGs, play it! If you have not played such games but you’re curious, go for it!
If you like The Might and Magic universe, but have not played the previous nine
Might and Magic (like me), don’t let this stop you, this game is related to
HoMM 5 and 6, not to M&M 1-9.
Don’t play it if you’re hard
core fans of the series, a lot of people like you are disappointed from it.
Don’t even get close to it if you don’t like turn-based games. Also if the
graphic quality is very important to you, avoid it by all means, M&M X
don’t impress with graphics but I don’t even think it tries to, after all - it
has “retro pixalization” option.
I like it and I will
probably finish it, for now I’m in Act 2, lost in elven forest.
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