by Ack Mon Sep 30, 2019 4:10 pm
Might & Magic II
Yes, I ported the party over. Ack, Marurun, Elkin, Key, Prfsnl, and Noise now found themselves level 7, with higher stats than they started with and no gear but a decent chunk of change. I swapped off the weapons that the base starting characters in M&M2 get, and with a stop off in the shops, I was off to the races. Having level 7 characters with solid stats instead of level 1 chumps allows you to move past some of the initial difficulty curve, which returns from Might & Magic I, though it doesn't let you bypass it completely. Once again, there are some tough things hidden in the world out there, so expect to get your ass properly kicked.
Still, let me give all of you RPG fans some advice: if you can port in a party, do it. Always. I don't care if the party gets reverted to level 1 and loses everything, it's still worth it just to have an understanding of how this party will function together.
Back to the game, I took my startup capital and bought a few spells. Yep, here's where a change occurred in the series. In the first M&M, you gain spells by leveling up. After M&M2, you buy them in shops or find them in the world. And while this game also suffers the lack of spell and gear explanation that the first game did, you can at least access a checklist of spells you know by hitting the 'C'ast button while in a character's stat page. Another change: M&M2 is where the skill system started, so I also bought the ability to map the world, because hey, yet again, this is where in game maps began!
Now with some magic and the ability to get maps, I fully explored the starting town, Middlegate, and then hoped a portal to the next town, and the next, and the next, gearing up as I went and exploring each. Finally, with a ton of kick ass gear in place and a little experience under my belt, I headed back to Middletown and took my first quest: find a goblet in the dungeon under town.
To do this, I had to venture down some stairs and then search the dungeon for the goblet's location, past a bunch of nasty goblins. I killed them fairly easily and took the goblet back upstairs, to then be told to visit this guy's sister for yet another quest. I followed up and returned to the dungeon to rescue her sons, unlocking the first hirelings in the game. M&M2 also introduced the hireling system to the series, where you can pay people to join up with you, though you have to be wary about resting because they charge you on a daily basis. As I like to sleep a lot, I decided against hiring them. But she also recommended I donate to temples, so off I went.
I raised a few levels, bought a few needed skills, such as the ability to scale mountains and dense forests, and visited each town via the pay-to-portal system so I could donate to the temples. This resulted in my getting the Fe Farthing, which in turn I tossed into a fountain in Middlegate to discover a Castle Key. What does the Castle Key do? Why, it lets you visit castles without having to fight your way inside. With this puppy under my belt, I also bought a green key for sale in the starting town and headed out into the world.
The overworld of M&M2 is no longer the dungeon maze of M&M1; it feels like a legit world, though combat is still done in a separate battle screen as opposed to the wandering monsters visible in later games. It makes for a strange hybrid between what I experienced in the first game and the third game which served as my real entry to the series. Most fights are located in specific spots, so once I find them, I can avoid them, though that doesn't mean I haven't wandered into a random encounter happy to kick my ass. Thankfully death is less of an issue here than in the first M&M, where resurrection meant a permanent drain on Endurance. It makes up for the fact that I have randomly stumbled across dragons and the like more than once.
Anyway, after going out and exploring the world, I explored a cave for Corak and found the spell Lloyd's Beacon. I also wandered over a river and found a guy who willingly taught me Walk on Water, so I'm doing well for mobility. I discovered a mountain with Judges that informed me of promotion-type quests, which must be performed by specific classes (and only specific classes). I also wandered into a nearby castle, accepted a quest to bring back a magic ax that I found easily enough, grinded on castle guards, and then found the green bishop, who gave me some experience and informed me that I'd get more for beating the Green Triple Crown.
What is the Triple Crown? There are three arenas in the five towns; you must buy colored tickets and then go battle in the arenas. For each colored ticket, you have to battle in all three at that level. Each color represents a rising level of difficulty, from green to yellow to red to black. So if I want to best the Yellow Triple Crown, I have to buy three yellow tickets and use them at the three arenas to engage in combat. In fact, after my meeting the green bishop, I went back and completed the Green and Yellow Triple Crowns. I also returned and freed the green bishop again as well as the yellow bishop in a different castle. That means I now need to do the red and black versions and save those bishops from the other two castles, though the Black Triple Crown will likely feature some tough fights. Still, I bested the Yellow Triple Crown easily enough, so hopefully the Red won't be too bad. The experience and gold gains are nice too. I managed to boost my characters up a few levels during all this time, so the party is all level 10 now.
I have also encountered several of the promotion quests, for the Knight, Paladin, Archer, and Cleric, though I'm nowhere near strong enough for them, and the Knight one is the only one I can easily get to due to skill limitations (and it requires I cast Walk on Water before swapping to just my Knight). Thankfully, the Robber quest involves simply helping any other class do their quest, so Prfsnl will be backing up everyone in their journey and likely getting a boatload of experience in the process. Completing just one of these nets the fight bonus along with 5 million experience for the upgrade; for comparison, it takes around 150k to level right now, so yeah, this will help.
Where do I go from here? The Red Triple Crown is high on my list, as is continuing to explore the landscape and find out what else I can uncover. There is a druid cave which requires a password, but the fights in that area are stupid easy; druids only silence the party and don't actually do any damage, so I just hack them to death and grab loot. The password is spread across rocks in the area, though considering I've uncovered a D, R, and S so far, I'm guessing the password is "druids." One way to find out. In the meantime, only two map squares are currently fully mapped, and the map is composed of a giant 5x4 grid, just like the first game, so I have 18 more squares to go.
