captaind's Full Review: Might and Magic 8: Day of the Destroyer for Window...
I play a lot of freeware RPGs, (Role Playing Games) but for the first time since… ever? – I actually decided to buy one. For reasons known or unknown, even to myself, I went for Might & Magic 8: Day of the Destroyer.
Overview
Big earth-shattering event… evil unleashed… small party of warriors must save the world against incredible odds… the storyline is all pretty standard RPG fare. The intro movie was fairly impressive, though.
First Impressions
My first thought was “this looks pretty much like Eye of the Beholder on my old Atari ST”!
That aside, after generating my character (plenty of character classes to chose from and you can even define the voice they use), having not read the manual (I mean come on, who does?!!?), I found myself getting killed very quickly at first (though you do always manage to “cheat death” and end up back in the village, you lose all your money and may have damaged armour etc when you do so). Once I got the hang of a few things in the game I started to make a bit of progress. It looked fairly promising…
Interface
Using a combination of cursor keys to move and mouse to navigate the various options (along with keyboard shortcuts for attack, quickspell [which you can define for each character], cast spell, etc), the interface can feel a little “busy” at times but generally works well. Right-clicking on an object will show a description of it, which is useful.
One very good ability is being able to switch from real-time to turn-based action by hitting the return key. In battles against some of the monsters found in the game, you just have no chance in real-time unless your character has been levelled up incredibly high…
The character development system is very well implemented, and probably the best part of the game. It really is possible to hone your characters to exactly your style of play or what you want them to do.
Difficulty
… which leads to quite a lot of repetitive levelling up to gain access to new places. On the other hand, there are quite a few things you can do to add extra skills and abilities along the way, which is good, and a lot of useful abilities you can give you characters (such as “Repair Item”). You seem to get huge amounts of experience points for completing quests, but this doesn’t stop the need for a lot of arduous work to level up sufficiently to survive in the more difficult places.
There’s a lot of going backwards and forwards to find which quest you are actually strong enough to complete, which can get quite annoying. The game automatically logs new quests, where trainers are to give you “Expert, Master, & Grandmaster” abilities in various skills, potion recipes, etc. It’s all very well thought out and there’s loads of different quests to complete, not all of which are essential to further the game plot.
The balance of difficulty is slightly on the wrong side of frustration as opposed to challenge, but the game is quite addictive despite this.
Aesthetics
The outdoor graphics aren’t all that impressive, with basic 3D, not that much variety, and join points visible so that you quite often feel like you’re walking across a giant patchwork quilt. The gameworld is huge though with lots of little secrets so it’s worth exploring. There are occasional movie sequences in the game, which are quite impressive although not exactly breathtaking. The inside of shops etc is depicted by beautiful pre-rendered 3D scenes, which if anything point out just how primitive the outside looks. The faces of your characters (shown at the bottom of the screen) are quite animated, and show their condition (“insane” is quite funny to watch!), and they sometimes look around of their own accord – presumably because they’re bored?
There are a couple of graphical glitches in the game but they’re not of major importance. Also the graphics can be a little on the gory side, so it’s definitely not for everyone.
The sound effects are pretty good and the samples are crisp. The voices are good (especially the Troll’s!), and the comments given by shopkeepers when you look at their wares and then leave without buying anything can be quite funny. Music is atmospheric but overly repetitive.
Will You Still Be Playing it in 6 Months’ Time?
Probably, but not necessarily for the right reasons. It’s certainly challenging, but also very frustrating at times. A maniacal desire to complete quests and do the necessary levelling-up in order to do so will probably engulf you, but you won’t actually enjoy all of the ensuing gameplay.
The dungeons in the game are fairly small but well thought out, with some interesting puzzles to be solved along the way. Personally I can’t stand mazes, so it’s a good thing that they’re not too big!
As a side-note, a lot of the NPCs (Non Player characters) in the game are very stupid – for instance, the peasants say “someone should really sort out those wolves in that cave over there”, you receive the quest to do so from the tracker, you complete the quest, return to the tracker for your reward, and what do the peasants say? ” someone should really sort out those wolves in that cave over there”…
Is it Worth the Money?
If you like RPGs and especially if you’ve enjoyed any of the previous games, you’ll probably enjoy this – but perhaps not as much as you should be able to. It’s a solid game and there’s plenty to like about it, but there’s just too much frustration involved with getting anywhere in it for it to be a true classic.
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