Might & Magic 10: Legacy

Tenth of the legendary role-playing series: a godsend for fans easily daunting everyone else. 

A series of turn-based role-playing games with a first-person Might & Magic was launched on the Apple II in 1986 year. Then a project were only three people – 24-year-old game designer from Los Angeles Van Kanengem John, his wife and a friend Michaela and Mark Caldwell. Their studio New World Computing – sample happy Californian startup. Having started his business right out of college, friends invented a game, fascinated contemporaries. Within ten years, they will release five (six, ate considered addons) and make two sequels bold step aside. The first is called King’s Bounty (1990, not to be confused with the eponymous Russian game), second – Heroes of Might & Magic. It was after the release of “Heroes” Kanengem decides to expand and sell the company is not very successful publisher 3DO for $ 13 million.

Under the leadership of a new publisher projects New World Computers have become cash cows. Heroes kept a stiff upper lip, but the Might & Magic after the sixth issue began to decline. In 2003 it 3DO went bankrupt, and the rights of the universe passed to Ubisoft. The French paid for the franchise only 1.3 million – 10 times less than it cost in 1996. Bringing back Heroes and seeing renewed interest in the genre dungeon crawler (From sensational Legend of Grimrock and ending endless mobile RPG), Ubisoft has decided to ride the wave of industrial nostalgia. Developer Might & Magic X spoke German studio Limbic Entertanment, before vspahivavschaya happy farm social networks and participate in creating Heroes VI. Strange happened.

Annals of the fictional world rewritten in accordance with the new canon Heroes from Ubisoft. Unusual for fantasy Greek, Slavic and Arabic names remained. But spaceships hovering over former world Might & Magic and gave him an interesting theosophical aspect, departed, promising to return. In the story noticeable bias towards dark fantasy in the spirit of “Game of Thrones”: already in the starting clip used for such unusual tales terms like conspiracy and separatism. In a small town, where will decide the fate of the empire, with all its ends are pulled together heroes. The player directs the four immediately.

Generation characters recall the classic Might & Magic – a few races and classes, countless pumpable parameters and skills. The plot is quickly falling by the wayside, replaced by sweeping dungeons and walks in the woods. Logistics is the same as in any series Wizardy, Dungeon Master or Diablo: city, quests, raids, pumping, trophies, shops, new quests – and so thirty hours. Some turn-based battles resemble a game of Magic: The Gathering, but most of the hassles like a very, very slow massacre of Dragon Age. Approached, fired from bows, bewitched, enticed, hacked to death with swords, and went away. If we add to this that the camera only rotates 90 degrees, and run on the cells is necessary even outside of battle, it can be uncomfortable. One consolation is that Ubisoft decided to recreate the last parts of the gameplay, rather than the first, where there was a hardcore text adventure. Interestingly, by the way, that in some previous series, the navigation was free.

Graphics stuck at the level of out-dozen years ago, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, But cross-platform Unity engine promises fast moving game on gadgets with iOS and Android. There’s this strange artifact from the past will feel like home. In the end, many of the best mobile games comes from the nineties. On the PC, a tenth of Might & Magic seems a white crow. In relation to it is hostile to newcomers, and her fans today is clearly not so much free time as twelve (or twenty-eight) years ago to jump on the clock cells

The long history of Might & Magic, nice places, and sometimes tragic, was a chronicle of searching for the ideal genre form honest trial and error. Terrible to say, but in the first series was not even dungeon maps – it had to draw by hand in notebooks in the box. And the second – a diary with quests. In what part appeared animated avatars characters no longer remember. With each series Might & Magic invent something that immediately became the standard.

Tenth version of Might & Magic forgot this mission. She is here to clip coupons.

Pros:

The entire game – a great find for fans of the original researchers and antiquities

Most meaningful in the history of Might & Magic script

Cons:

Even in peacetime, have to navigate through cells

Huge amount of time spent on economic affairs, which other RPG long automated

Frankly outdated graphics

Might & Magic 10: Legacy