Might & Magic III: Isles of Terra

[Muz]

Okay, nostalgia kick time: Does anyone out there remember the third Might & Magic game, released in 1991, Isles of Terra? This was the first computer RPG I ever played (or one of the first--I forget if I played this before or after The Bard's Tale 3). I actually bought M&M2 before then, but I couldn't get it to run on my old 286 at the time, so I never got to play that one.

I loved this game. My friends loved this game. The Ancient Temple of Moo, "Obsidian <object>s of the GODS!" The monsters were all animated 2D sprites (the sprites thread got me thinking about this) on a 3D grid. I can recall wandering around the world, not really sure exactly what I was supposed to be doing beyond just exploring, and eventually, after a lot of fun in dangerous dungeons and terrain, stumbling onto the deeper plot and getting excited about the discoveries. I created characters named after my friends and trying to decide who was going to be the half-orc (there were only a few available faces for NPCs, though character creation itself was quite open, IIRC). I even remember playing this game to get me through some nasty food poisoning gotten from a seafood salad.

I don't still have it, but I expect it could be found out there online somewhere, if only I can remember how to work DOSBox again.

So am I alone in my nostalgia?

[tyckspoon]

I still play through it again from time to time. One of these times I'll go ahead and actually try it as a challenge run.. caster-less, perhaps? Although I'm not sure the game is actually beatable without the omni-buff spells, and certainly much more obnoxious without Wizard Eye/Teleport/Jump/Town Portal. Not to mention Implosion for rapid removal of some of the obnoxiously-overpowered-but-surprisingly-low-HP endgame enemies, although that could be handled with lucky generation of spell-casting items.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Wasn't there a dungeon that was impossible without Jump/Teleport? Or am I thinking of MM4/5?

[Domochevsky]

Hm, WoX certainly had various critical situations where it was impossible to proceed without jump/teleport.

Didn't play much of 3 through. Not sure why. (Maybe because i played it after WoX, so i was expecting more out of it.)

[Winterwind]

Overall, I like it more than World of Xeen. Mostly because it took itself a fair bit more seriously, and as a result, felt much more epic. And, all those poems and prophecies and riddles all over the walls really added to the mood. World of Xeen felt a bit too silly at times, especially the Dark Side, with all of its goofy-looking inhabitants - Isles of Terra never did. And things like having an individual description of every smithy, tavern, town and, indeed, every single quadrant of the world, either explaining what the smithy/tavern/whatever actually looks like, or giving a story to the place you are currently exploring, in words that wouldn't have been out of place in a fantasy novel, just further enhanced the mood.

Though one thing that World of Xeen did better (IMHO) was doing away with the obscurantism. Having really tough puzzles is one thing, and my 10-year-old-self was really proud when I managed to actually puzzle out some of those riddles all on my own, but "Be exactly at the location X on the 90th day of the year, no, you don't get any clues for that" is overdoing it a bit.


EDIT: Jump/Teleport being required at some spot or another is fairly normal for all M&M games of that era.

[BlackSheep]

This is one of my favorite games of that era. I think it was the first game that made me take notes while playing. My brother and I would see who could rack up the most arena wins. Before we'd picked up on the main plot, we'd spend our time making sure to explore every single square of every single map.

I don't know whether this was a feature or just an exploit, but with the right timing (i.e. mashing the button) I could fire off two volleys of arrows for every square the enemy would advance. I could also retreat a square and fire before creatures could follow. It seemed like cheating at the time. :)

[Winterwind]

This is one of my favorite games of that era. I think it was the first game that made me take notes while playing.

Heh. Now that I think about it, I think for me, too.

I don't know whether this was a feature or just an exploit, but with the right timing (i.e. mashing the button) I could fire off two volleys of arrows for every square the enemy would advance. I could also retreat a square and fire before creatures could follow. It seemed like cheating at the time. :)

That's not the worst exploit that was in that game by a huge margin.
The worst exploit that I'm aware of was, if you were in a combat, and it was character A's turn, you could change the order of your party and swap character B into character A's slot. The game wouldn't realize that slot was no longer occupied by the character whose turn it was, and it would be character B who would act. But then, the game would realize that character A - whose turn it actually was - still had not acted, and hand the turn over to character A again. So you could swap some other character into character A's slot again, and repeat this ad nauseam, getting basically infinite numbers of attacks in, with the monster never getting to act (I forget, maybe it worked only if character B had more speed than character A, but in either case, you could get infinite amounts of attacks).

[Muz]

Overall, I like it more than World of Xeen. Mostly because it took itself a fair bit more seriously, and as a result, felt much more epic. And, all those poems and prophecies and riddles all over the walls really added to the mood. World of Xeen felt a bit too silly at times, especially the Dark Side, with all of its goofy-looking inhabitants - Isles of Terra never did. And things like having an individual description of every smithy, tavern, town and, indeed, every single quadrant of the world, either explaining what the smithy/tavern/whatever actually looks like, or giving a story to the place you are currently exploring, in words that wouldn't have been out of place in a fantasy novel, just further enhanced the mood.

Though one thing that World of Xeen did better (IMHO) was doing away with the obscurantism. Having really tough puzzles is one thing, and my 10-year-old-self was really proud when I managed to actually puzzle out some of those riddles all on my own, but "Be exactly at the location X on the 90th day of the year, no, you don't get any clues for that" is overdoing it a bit.

Now that you mention it, I think I liked World of Xeen a little less than MM3 at the time, too, though I liked both. MM3 somehow seemed bigger and more wonderous. I may simply have been more used to cRPGs by then, however, and had played D&D for the first time in between.

I miss SOME of the obscure puzzles in modern games. Though it's never fun when you get stuck (what did I ever do without the Internet?), I liked the sense of accomplishment upon figuring things out. Having to be at a certain place at a certain time on a certain day lent a bit of an epic feel to things, too.

And, okay, I liked the shiny status jewels, too. So sue me.

[hobbes543]

If you are looking to get this game legally, gog.com has Might and Magic 1-6 in a single bundle for $9.99. All the games come with a pre configured DOSbox install as well, so you just run their installer and you are ready to play.

I haven't played any of the games in this series though, I am intrigued. Just have far too much to play at the moment and not enough hours in the day.