1. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)5. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (PC)(RPG)6. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)(RPG)7. Drakkhen (SNES)(RPG)
8. Flight of the Amazon Queen (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)9. Shadowgrounds: Survivor (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)10. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (SNES)(RPG)11. BioShock (PC)(FPS)12. Jeopardy! Sports Edition (SNES)(Game Show Sim)13. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (PC)(FPS)14. Thief Gold (PC)(Stealth)
15. Call of Duty 2 (PC)(FPS)16. Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (PC)(RPG)Might and Magic III is perhaps the easiest of the Might and Magic games for new players to get into. It expanded upon the formula of the first two games with a new engine and began providing features that are now the norm, such as in-game mapping tools and the ability to use the mouse. However it also isn't quite as advanced as the strides made in later games, giving players the chance to move in and then work their way up through the rest of the series, particularly to the series highpoint World of Xeen(Might and Magic 4 and 5 combined). It also stayed true to the formula, incorporating the first person perspective of the series, the scifi influence that serves as the true undercurrent for the series, and providing turn-based combat and grid-based movement. Plus it incorporated an open world years before they became the norm, giving the player free license to go out and get trashed by monsters anywhere they want pretty much from the get go. I had a blast playing it, and I recommend it to all RPG fans.
Yes, it is open world. You can pretty much go anywhere you want at any point, so long as you have the necessary magic spells or passwords to travel and the strength to survive whatever enemies roam that area. Between this, getting the hang of navigating menus and combat, learning the basic controls, and trying to build up a little cash and equipment, the real difficulty of M&M3 is primarily front loaded. That's not to say that certain enemies which are encountered later in the game won't pose a challenge, but those challenges will be presented by the time the player has a much better understanding of the mechanics and will be working on a much more level or player-favored playing field. By the end of the first hour of play, the player will likely have built up to a point that exploration becomes possible, and from there the game pretty much stops holding your hand. You must explore on your own, because there is little really telling you what to do and where to go. Eventually these things start to be explained, particularly once you make it to the eastern swamp continent and find the skulls that advise on what to do, but mostly you'll simply pick and choose to go based on your whims and whether you believe you can survive the encounters. At first this will be the main starting continent on the western side of the map, but once you gain enough levels, spells become accessible which allow you to travel. At that point it all comes down to whether you have the right key for the door. If not, you then have to go explore some other dungeon to find it, and on and on.
Keep in mind, there are at least two ways around nearly every problem in M&M3. Need a key? Either explore a dungeon or find the NPC who has one. Need to get through a door? Either unlock it with your thief or ninja, bash it down with your fighter or barbarian, or use a magic spell to get beyond it with your arcane caster. Need to travel? Walk, teleport, walk on water, whatever. Even passwords and riddle answers are stored in one particular location, so if you don't know something, you can go there to find the answer instead of piecing it together yourself. You have a lot of tools at your disposal...most of the time. The few times you don't can be pretty jarring. For instance you have no means beyond certain arcane-only magic spells for getting past traps. A means to disarm them for someone with the thievery skill would have been nice, or someone with an alternate magic type.
There are three types of magic in the game: Arcane, Divine, and Nature. Each one has specific focuses, so Arcane hits hard with the most powerful offensive spells, Divine heals and buffs the best, and Nature has a combination of the two with some added in utility capabilities. While there are some crossovers between them(Arcane has some good mobility spells while Divine has some capable offensive ones), you generally want at least one of the three types of casters in your party. That's not to say you can't beat the game without any combination of characters; you totally can. But having access to a wide array of abilities makes things considerably easier. Starting up the game with a couple of tanks, a thief, and one of each caster type means you'll be able to do nearly anything you want to be able to do. If you prefer a more physical-combat oriented party, you can also nab the hybrid classes that combine physical tanks with more-limited caster abilities, though these have the downside of lacking focus. Noise played my hybrid Ranger(physical/Nature caster), and by the end he was mostly being used in a support role and for little else. He couldn't hit the way Ack the Fighter or Popo the Barbarian could, he couldn't pick locks like Fastbilly the Robber(who also worked well as a tank in his own right), and he wasn't as useful in an offensive magic role as either Bone the Cleric or Key the Sorceress. Instead he mostly cast Light or Protection from Elements and used his limited healing magic to make sure Bone stayed on his feet at all times. That said, that was still a necessary job, and his Walk on Water spell is one of the most important in the game, so he still had his uses. He just didn't work out so well in combat, where you spend a lot of time. Combat is where most everyone else shined though, whether it be mopping up trash(where the tanks did wonderfully) or taking down tough boss monsters(which Key brought down while Bone kept the party going). If I had to declare a game MVP, it would be Key for her ability to drop the magic hammer on folks and slay bosses nearly outright with her most powerful offensive magics. She certainly made my life easier, even if she had a rough start due to low hit points and didn't handle the day to day trash pickup that Ack and Popo took on.
I do have another complaint: lack of dice rolls. M&M3 uses dice rolls to understand combat and such, but you're never privy to that info. You don't even know how much damage you're doing, and while there are some rough estimations based on color codes, it would have been nice to know if I was doing 6 damage vs 60 to certain enemy types. Instead I was left hoping that I was doing enough and wishing that I could figure out more about the backbone. Even when spells do static values of damage or healing, you're never told. So that mid-tier offensive lightning spell you picked up? Yeah, it's doing 40 damage at best. That's not helping much against a monster with 1000 health. Or that ultimate Nature spell? Yeah, it's doing a randomized variable of damage(potentially even healing) to the enemy. Yet you have no way of knowing. Combine this with the general lack of info about where to go and what to do as well as the limited tools you have for understanding your gear's abilities and damage ranges, and it sometimes feels like M&M3 is a tough game to get to know even when you're steamrolling most enemies.
Despite my few complaints, I really liked this game. It left me to my own devices, and I had a blast picking and choosing where I wanted to go next. Hmm, there's a cave over there I could explore, or a dungeon beneath the nearby town, or a field to the south full of monsters to wipe out. Also, monster death is permanent, so if you only manage to kill one in a dungeon, you've made progress! Every single step feels like you're getting closer to your goal. For a game that can feel occasionally aimless, that was a huge boon. On the overworld this is a little complicated by the need to destroy monster spawners, and at least one location didn't seem to care and kept spawning monsters despite my destroying their spawn point, but each new area and dungeon tended to make me that much stronger for the next, so being too weak to handle the world was almost never a concern beyond the initial start. Oh, and there are some sidequests scattered about for additional loot and experience too. They don't need to be done, but you can easily gain levels off of them so every little bit helps. It's also rewarding to see the problems of the world disappear.
My ending verdict is that Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra is a marvelous game that has got me excited to play other Might and Magic games in the future. At first I expected this would be a daunting task, but M&M3 is an excellent gateway into the perks of WRPG design, and I found that I was generally pumped to be getting back to it each night for a new adventure. As it's only the first Might and Magic game for me to conquer, I have plenty left to check out. Yet it's an important first step into a classic WRPG series and a larger dive into the WRPG genre as a whole, making me even more interested in checking out games like Menzoberranzan, Pool of Radiance, or The Bard's Tale to name a few.
