Might and Magic IX (that’s 9 for those of you who are Roman numerically challenged) is definitely a step in the right direction for the M&M rope playing game series. You don’t get much of a back story with this one – just something vague about invading hoards and having to unite six clans in order to defeat them – an off you go. This time though the RPG element is combined with an adventure game style conversation interface, so you can ask questions about various things as you meet the inhabitants of the land. This adds an extra dimension to the previous method of character interaction used in the earlier games, and also is done in a way that the storyline progresses through what you learn from various characters.

The whole game engine has been changed and the graphics are much better than previously, with a fairly convincing fully 3D world (this time, when you go into a house / shop, you actually go in rather than simply being presented with a screen portraying that location). The graphics overall are very good, with nice textures used and excellent geometric mapping (i.e. you never find yourself falling / walking through solid objects!). The trees don’t look too good from close quarters but that’s not a massive problem. The models for people and monsters were admittedly a little on the simple side, but some of the monsters still looked pretty good. The sound has been given a revamp as well – the music is excellent and there is a bit more speech in this game. At the beginning you choose your party of four heroes – initially divided simply into the might and magic camps (fighters or initiates). There are a few races to choose from – human, elf, dwarf, half-orc, that sort of thing. Real RPG fans might be a bit disappointed with the limited range of races and classes, but the class progression system doesn’t really come into the game until later. The fun bit is assigning voices to your characters – you can give them attitude, i.e. arrogant, assertive, cowardly, dim, etc. As you play the game, their reaction to things will be voiced according to this personality. Not particularly helpful, but still quite a fun feature.

The game interface is very simple but with enough extra options to make it quite complex. For instance, on the main game screen spacebar is pick up or interact with object / talk to person, left mouse button attacks, right uses the set spell. This of course can be changed and if you press B to bring up the spell book, you can select any of the available spells that you have enough manna for. Learning spells is done through obtaining spell books – either buying them or getting them from a defeated foe in battle. There are four magic types – Elemental, Light, Dark, and Spirit – but you can only learn spells you have the necessary skills for, and some require a level of expertise in more than one magic type. You can also learn skills from books obtained in the same way, whether they be combat skills (ability to use certain weapons) or other useful skills like Body Building (increase hit points), Meditation (increase manna points), Disarm Trap, Identify Item, etc. Skills and magic type can be learned to Expert, Master, and then Grandmaster levels – if you have the right class for it, of course.

The classes come in the form of “Promotions”. For instance, a Fighter can earn a promotion to Mercenary by completing a specific quest – he then might be able to go on to be an Assassin or something else. Each promotion opens up new possibilities, but also closes other doors so be careful which ones you take – if, of course, you can complete the quest.

There are many quests in the game (only a few limited to promotions), some big, some small. There is a good variety of things to do, 3DO really tried to get away from every quest being a case of “go somewhere, kill some monsters, get an object, bring it back” – though those sort of quests are of course still present in the game.

Playing the game is quite fun and while not exactly intuitive, you soon get the hang of using the interface to its best advantage. Movement is more important than ever in this game, with some parts requiring careful use of jumping and timing to get through (or a huge amount of armour and health points!). You can also go underwater, which is a nice extra feature from the older games where touching water meant starting to die (unless you had the “Walk On Water” spell). This is however where the graphics engine struggles most to keep on top of the action, not in terms of frame rate but what it should be showing you. Often if you are near the surface you just see the water line but underneath the water looks the same as above it. Still, it adds an extra dimension to the game.

The game world itself is huge. It would take you hours simply to wonder through each location without any enemies, people to talk to, or quests. There’s a lot of atmosphere, largely due to the sound effects (things can happen around you without you actually causing them, meaning of course that you will want to investigate – or possibly run for your life!) The environment feels quite dynamic, with people wondering around the town talking to each other without your causing it, monsters opening doors (and you thought you were safe!), and the healer at the church demanding payment if you used the church windows for target practice. There are some terrible jokes hidden in the game – one of the early quests is to find the manuscript of an author named Ludwig Van, who’s lost it in the sewers under the city – these sewers are called “Beet Hoven” (groan). Strangely though, these bad jokes make you smile anyway.

There is a certain level of simplicity built in to stop you being overwhelmed with options. No need to worry about food, for instance.

Unfortunately, now we come to the negative aspects. The NPC’s (Non Player Characters) are still quite stupid, often saying things like “I wish someone would find Ludwig Van’s manuscript” when you’ve already completed that quest. The same character graphics are used for many different people throughout the game, so trying to find a particular trainer to enhance your skills is often a case of just going round talking to everyone – as they move freely, apart from store owners etc you’ll never be sure where people are. There are some weird anomalies – you can jump while swimming, for instance! – and characters often don’t respond logically when attacked.

By far the biggest problem though is its tendency to crash between major areas. When you enter a different place the game will ask you if you’re sure, and should autosave – though I’ve got into the habit of quick saving (F5) beforehand anyway. When the new area is loading, a map will come up with a ship travelling to and fro. As happens far too often, if the ship doesn’t appear it means the game has crashed (even worse, after a few crashes, it’ll crash without being able to get out of the game and need a hard reboot of your system). The v1.2 patch (download at http://www.internetrpg.com/mm9_1.0to1.2.exe) solves a few problems but not all by any means. If the crashes were never fatal requiring a complete reboot of your system, I might still be tempted to give this 4 stars, but with the problems as bad as they are (and not helped by running the game in Win 98/Me emulation mode – the game is supposed to be compatible with XP anyway but I thought it was worth a try), I can’t recommend it. This seems such a shame as this really did look like a huge improvement over the previous games, but there you go. If the bugs were fixed this’d be a great game… but I doubt they ever will be.

The game is rated 12+. (There are a few grisly bits in it, though some effects can thankfully be turned off.)

System Requirements

CPU: 400MHz
Graphics card: 16Mb
DirectX 8.0
RAM: 64Mb

Tested On:

OS: Windows XP Home Edition SP2
CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz
RAM: 768Mb
Graphics card: 256Mb (GeForce 5500 FX)
DirectX 9.0c

(If anyone has managed to get the game to work without problems, can you please leave a comment here or email me!)

The game comes on 2 CD-ROMs and the installation process is very easy.


Other Might and Magic Games

Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honour
Might and Magic 8: The Day of the Destroyer

Heroes of Might and Magic 3


Available from Sold Out Software



Recommended: No