Might and Magic III: Summary and Rating

I'm not sure there's anywhere in the game that you encounter a dude of this description. I wonder if it's supposed to be Sheltem.

      

Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra

United States

New World (developer and publisher)

Released in 1991 for DOS; 1992 for Amiga, FM Towns, and PC-98; 1993 for Macintosh, SEGA CD, and TurboGrafx CD; 1995 for SNES

Date Started: 27 August 2017
Date Ended: 12 October 2017

Total Hours: 68

Difficulty: Easy (2/5)

Final Rating: 52

Ranking at Time of Posting: 248/265 (94%)

Might and Magic III is a good entry in a superior lineage. It moves the game from "Wizardry done better" (which characterized the first two titles) to its own category, with an engine that is still turn-based but seems somehow action-oriented. In doing so, it preserves most of the best parts of the earlier games, including an open world, nonlinear gameplay, a hidden-but-interesting plot, and copious special encounters and side quests. There are many absurd moments in the game, but never a boring moment.

It does, unfortunately, introduce a couple of problems. The 1990s start to present an issue that is going to remain relevant all the way through the modern era: as the level of graphical detail of a game increases, we expect an equal increase in the level of content detail, and it becomes jarring when it doesn't appear.
      

Are we supposed to be envisioning hundreds of residents milling about this town square? It's hard to force yourself use your imagination to fill in the details when the water is animated and the ground tiles are cut into irregular rectangles.

      

When I say "content detail," I'm talking about the realism of the world and the way the character interacts with it. Maybe "realism" is the better term overall. I'm making this up as I go along, so forgive me if this theory isn't 100% polished, but I think it generally works, and it explains some of the problems people have with modern AAA titles like Skyrim. When developers were only capable of showing us wireframe graphics, we understood that everything was an abstraction. We didn't complain about lack of realistic layouts or an absence of obvious NPCs because we understood that we were meant to fill in those details with our minds the same way we fill in the very walls of the dungeon. But as graphics improve to show us individual bricks, we start to question the plausibility of the dungeon's very existence, how lighting and sanitation work, and so forth. This is part of the reason that Ultima Underworld will be such a breakthrough in 1992, presenting for the first time a dungeon as a (semi-) realistic ecosystem.

No one makes fun of the food systems of games like Ultima where you have an enormous feedbag with thousands of meals that deplete at a regular basis, but we do make fun of a game like Skyrim, where you can stop combat to ingest 30 cabbages. Once you get to the point that a game can graphically depict individual cabbages, you expect it to treat them like real cabbages. (In fact, let's call this whole thing my "Cabbage Theory.") Abstract hit points? No problem. But you build an engine in which you can graphically make "headshots," to the point where the arrow remains sticking out of the enemy's head? You'd better believe that I expect it to cause more damage than a torso shot. NPCs are little white icons that run around the screen? Sure, I can imagine that they only represent a fraction of who's supposed to live in this town. But when you get to the point where I can see and talk to every NPC in voiced dialogue and they all have individual homes in the city, I'm going to start to question why the capital of the entire country only has 20 people living in it.
       

Walking across an ocean that feels nothing like an ocean towards mountains that feel nothing like mountains.

      

Note that we don't seem to care the other way. Roguelikes often offer absurd content detail in the way that individual objects react with living things (and each other) but only the most abstract graphics. Thus, my theory is that you want your game to remain at or above the line in the graph below. If it is, players aren't drawn out of the game by its lack of "realism." If not, the resulting dissonance will probably damage the game for some players and completely break it for others.
        

       

Thus we return to Might and Magic III, where the added detail in graphics and sound raise issues that you'd rather not think about. Why, for instance, can I see all the monsters in each city but not the residents who presumably inhabit them? Terra seems hauntingly empty of people, aside from a handful of NPCs you encounter behind desks plus the people who staff the stores. When the statues in Castle Dragontooth talk about armies of thousands clashing in the northern islands, you can't help but laugh. Individual enemies are as tall as mountains; you could fit maybe six of them on the island that the stories say held 6,000.

Look at the world size. You can walk from the top row to the bottom row in 10.5 game hours and in the process pass from icy tundra to parched desert. (And this isn't an artificial world like VARN or CRON.) The 16 x 16 standard for Might and Magic's game maps is far too small for this more detailed world. The developers took pains to try to give each map its own character and backstory, but you really can't make "Serpent's Wood" or "Enchanted Meadow" all that memorable when they consist of only 8 tiles each.
       

"Do you remember the Crystal Mountains of Might and Magic III?" -- No one.

      

Because of these issues, it's all the more disappointing that the game doesn't take itself seriously in terms of story and quest. Most of the limited NPC dialogue and quest paths that you receive are nonsensical at best and outright comedic at worst. Take the three kings, each wanting the Ultimate Power Orbs to conquer the others. You could have made a truly compelling plot out of this, with the "good" king envisioning a land of order and harmony, the "evil" king pushing for a world in which individual strength and will are paramount, and the "neutral" king looking for balance. Instead, each one is a ranting caricature of his alignment, and you end up siding with any of them only to move the plot forward, with essentially no consequences.

This lack of seriousness was present in Might and Magic II as well, and I guess it's just something we have to live with from this developer. My more important criticism of Might and Magic III is that the game went backwards in its magic and combat systems. I missed fighting battles against dozens of enemies. I missed carefully plotting battles against tough foes that would go for a dozen rounds or more. I missed launching powerful spells against wave after wave of enemies, and adventures in which I had to cast every last healing spell to keep the party on its feet. In Might and Magic III, the average offensive spell so under-performs physical attacks that you really have no reason to cast them. The developers had to make some enemies immune to physical attacks just to justify having a mage class. Mass damage spells are hardly necessary because the screen won't accommodate more than three enemies at a time--less for larger enemies against whom you'd really need those spells. Most of the spells in the game are the same as in its predecessor, when it perhaps needed a new approach to magic to go with its new engine.

      

There isn't a single enemy in this game that "Sun Ray" doesn't feel like overkill against.

      

I didn't like other aspects of combat, including the fact that all characters are in melee range and that archery--absolutely deadly in the hands of the right character in I and II--is relegated here to a "bonus" you get against approaching foes. After the first quarter of the game, it's mostly a waste of time.

Combat overall is too easy. Most foes are temporary annoyances to be brushed aside rather than true obstacles requiring just the right tactics. All the teleportation spells contribute to this lack of difficulty. If you get into a tough scrape, you just need to drop a "Lloyd's Beacon" and "Town Portal" to safety. The game isn't so big that it can easily justify these spells. Their absence, plus perhaps some nerfing of the fountains, plus perhaps an inability to save in dungeons, would have made more balanced gameplay.
     

As I often do, I've spent more time complaining about a good game than talking about its strengths. The paradox here is that a game must offer a certain level of complexity before you can complain about it in detail. Of course, the good points outweigh the bad. Might and Magic III kicks things to the next level in graphics, sound, and mechanics; it feels like a true 1990s game instead of a remnant from the 1980s like so many of its contemporaries. It's enormously addictive. I had to force myself to stop and write. The sense of character development is absolutely constant, the interface so intuitive that you could play in your sleep. It's the type of game for which you find yourself saying "just 10 more minutes" over and over again until suddenly it's 04:00 on a weeknight.
     

Nonetheless, I think the GIMLET is going to disappoint some fans. It will rank high, probably in my top 20, but I suspect it will rank a little lower than its predecessors, which in their more primitive graphics and sound offered better combat and more challenging overall games.

1. Game World. A strength that may seem like a weakness if you're not paying attention. Might and Magic III not only tells its own story but clarifies what was happening in the previous two titles. The manual's backstory and lore are well-written and complement the gameplay well, and I loved the "Corak's notes" feature that offered a little background on every map, outdoor and indoor. The party's cluelessness as to their ultimate goal is part of the charm of the series, so I won't dock any points for that. The game world could have been a little more responsive to the player's actions, but beyond that I don't have a lot of complaints. Score: 6.

2. Character Creation and Development. Someone unversed in Might and Magic could be forgiven for thinking that it draws directly from Dungeons and Dragons. During character creation, after all, you get a list of D&D-style races and classes, as well as a list of suspiciously similar attributes. But in character development, the series offers much more rapid and continual development than the typical RPG. A character might start with a might of 15 and end the game with 75. Nearly every dungeon provides a couple of character levels. The skills, while still binary (except for thievery), offer an additional means of development that most RPGs of the time didn't feature.
      
In fact, it's a little too much. I don't think I've ever complained about too much character growth before, but Might and Magic III skirts that edge if any game does. As I played, I routinely delayed training (after the first few hours) because it just didn't matter. If the developers had made Level 100 a distant maximum (instead of the actual Level 200) and essentially halved the game's experience point rewards, it would have resulted in better balance. Casses, races, and alignments still don't matter in any role-playing sense. Score: 4.
       

My ninja's final character sheet.

      
3. NPC Interaction. As with many first-person titles, what you get in Might and Magic is not so much "NPCs" as "encounters during which someone talks." Most of the NPCs are goofy, one-note characters who offer no role-playing options or dialogue choices. You don't even really learn much about the game world from them, with a couple of exceptions. I do like the NPCs who can join the party, but they're not really necessary and if I played the game again, I'd do without them. Score: 3.
   
4. Encounter and foes. Might and Magic offers a satisfying bestiary, with associated strengths, weaknesses, special attacks, and special defenses. Its frequent non-combat encounters with quasi-NPCs, statues, fountains, talking heads, and so forth are a highlight of the game. The riddles and puzzles are a little easy, but at least they're not frustrating. I would dock points for offering a "closed" system--you can kill every enemy in the game and have nothing left to fight--except that it ultimately doesn't hurt character development. Score: 5.
      

I should have done more with the Arena.

     

5. Magic and Combat. Discussed extensively above. A good system, but not a great one. Combat is a little too easy, magic a bit unbalanced. Offensive spells tend to fall into two categories: those so under-powered that it's a waste of time to use them and those that level with the caster and thus cost so much that you can only cast 5 or 6 before having to rest again. At least combat isn't tedious, though: even the toughest battle is over in well under a minute. Score: 4.

6. Equipment. Both a strength and a weakness. I loved all of the different types of equipment and potential slots; every treasure chest seemed to bring an upgrade for one or two characters. The "breakage" system is a little annoying but one of the only consequences to a character getting knocked unconscious. I wasn't as in love with the random generation of item materials and enchantments, and I would have liked to see some unique "artifact" weapons and armor.
       

Things got a little formulaic by the end.

     
Although they exist, I barely explored the use of magic items. You can find items that duplicate almost every spell, along with other items that recharge them, but I mostly just sold them to save inventory space. If combats had been harder, I'd probably have made more use out of them. I also didn't really explore the "Enchant" spell, which adds an effect to unenchanted items, because it doesn't work with the game's better materials. Score: 6.

7. Economy. Useful but badly balanced. After the first few hours, you don't have to worry about money except in a general sense, as you watch training costs grow and wonder where the "tipping point" will be. After your initial purchases, you really don't need money for items. You spend it on spells, training, healing, and training, and it would be nice if the whole system were both more challenging and not closed. I offer a slight bonus for the interest-earning bank accounts and the "money sink" fountain. Score: 5.
       

There's not much logic to it, but it ensures that every gold piece is worth something.

      
8. Quests. The game's primary strength. "Side quests" have still not crept into the average developer's lexicon in 1991, not even with Might and Magic showing how it's done since 1986. Might and Magic III excels at them. Even the main quest has a couple of choices--though more would be welcome--including that final optional area. Score: 6.
      

My mage's final accomplishments. What are those two blank spots and what could I have improved on?

      

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. I thought the monster graphics could have used a bit more realism, but they're certainly an upgrade from II. I was less enamored with the overall graphical quality than with the creative use of graphics as part of the interface. Consider how the character portraits change to match their conditions (diseased, curse, drunk, in love), the use of colored gems to depict the character's relative hit point total, the way the gargoyle waves to signal a secret or the bat opens and closes its mouth to show that enemies are near. In melee combat, you can tell how much damage you inflict from the size of the blood splatter that appears when you hit (and none appears at all when you miss). Lots of games have good graphics, but Might and Magic III is one of the few of this era to start incorporating true graphical feedback; to make graphics a key part of the interface rather than just something nice to look at.

Sound is sparse but effective and realistic where used; honestly, no game is going to do great in this category until we start hearing more ambient sounds. The interface is one of the best I've encountered, aside from casting spells, where it would have been nice to have a shortcut or a "favorites" list or something. Score: 7.
       

The well-detailed and animated shop images will continue for the rest of the series.

     
10. Gameplay. As you know, I use this category for considerations like linearity, pacing, difficulty, and replayability. It definitely gets points in the first two categories. I'm generally happy if the number of hours doesn't far exceed the final GIMLET, and here Might and Magic III does fairly well. I personally played it longer than was warranted, spending a lot of time experimenting and dithering around; it's easily winnable in 40-50 hours. And even though I didn't do much with it, the nonlinearity was welcome. On the other hand, balance issues made it a tad too easy (as did the ability to save everywhere), and it's hard to think of it as "replayable" except perhaps for a particular challenge. Score: 6.

This gives us a final score of 52, right about where I suspected it would fall. It ends up at the #19 spot and falls below both Might and Magic I (60) and II (58). Those who would give more weight to graphics and who prefer fast action combat to tactical combat will probably invert those scores across the three games. It is the fourth-highest rated game of 1991, and again I don't dispute the order. There are things I like better about the Might and Magic series than the Gold Box series, but when it comes down to the final assessment, I prefer the relatively more serious nature of Pools of Darkness and Death Knights of Krynn, the more tactical combat, and the greater challenge that they offer.

If I could play it again, I'd try something more challenging. Perhaps only four characters, or perhaps a party of nothing but knights, forcing me to make better use of special items with magic effects. I'd like to hear from someone who gave that a shot. I resisted the temptation to try a speedrun, mostly because I saw that it had already been done a few times. One guy did it in about 5 minutes, but he used cheat codes at the teleporter to get an Ultimate Power Orb and a ton of gold early in the game. A more honest one took about half an hour. He did what I would have done: got a little money early in the game, put it in the bank to earn interest for about 10 years, collected it, and donated so much to the fountain in Fountain Head that he was able to take characters to Level 150 all at once. He then bought the necessary teleport and damage spells and a ton of might potions for smashing doors and getting the pyramid key card, visited the central pyramid for the teleportation box, and used it to zip to each dungeon to collect orbs and hologram cards.

I did spend some time trying to raise my high score, fighting about 10 arena battles and donating a few million to the experience fountain before returning to the endgame. I went from 1.1 billion points to 1.2 billion.
      

I'm sure much higher scores are possible.

      

Computer Gaming World featured Might and Magic III on the cover of the May 1991 issue, and a review by Johnny L. Wilson is all positive, focusing primarily on graphical details. It was a nominee for "Game of the Year" in the magazine's November 1992 issue, which makes no sense, but lost out to Ultima Underworld, which is hard to dispute. If it had been evaluated in its actual year, it's hard to see how it wouldn't have beaten Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (which itself was being evaluated a year too late, as it's a 1990 game). Dragon gave it 5/5, which for once I understand, but again I have to comment how a magazine dedicated primarily to tabletop role-playing never seems to focus on actual role-playing mechanics in its reviews of computer games. It's always about graphics, sound, music, interface . . . anything but combat rolls and attributes.
    

The copywriters fell down on this one. Is the title called Power and Magic? I don't think so.

     
Even Amiga magazines rated it well. Percentages range from 81% (Amiga Joker) to 93% (Amiga Action). To the extent that these reviews have complaints, it's primarily about frequency and speed of disk access on the Amiga specifically. I almost always find something that bothers me in an Amiga Action review, but here they were actually quite fair and thorough, calling it the "best role-playing adventure available on the Amiga."

In a 2012 RPG Codex interview, John Van Caneghem recalled that his team went "all out" on III, eager to meet expectations of gamers primed on two excellent predecessors. He notes that it was the "smallest seller" of all the titles, probably because many fans of the series hadn't upgraded to the 1990s platforms, but the best reviewed and highest-awarded.

To the best of my recollection, Might and Magic IV and V uses an update of the same engine, but perhaps with a better story? I honestly don't remember anything about it. It will unfortunately be the end of 1992 before I get to explore the pair, but the prospect of playing them is almost enough to get me through the rest of 1991. Before then, we'll be looking at another New World production: Planet's Edge (1992), which has a completely different interface but shows art director Louis Johnson's influence in the cut scene graphics. The title also shares several of the same programmers; I know virtually nothing about it but look forward to it.

For now, we have 13 more titles to finish in the interminable 1991. I want to do it by this blog's 8th anniversary in February.

Might and Magic III: Mounted and Mastered!

"And on the pedestal, these words appear . . ."

      

There wasn't much Might and Magic to play after the last entry. I could have finished it in another 15 minutes, probably. That it took me a few more hours was reflective less of my savoring the last moments and more that, because I didn't know what was coming, I spent a lot of time in needless character development.

The session started when I gave all my remaining Ultimate Power Orbs to "Tumult, King Chaotic," the neutral king, who had initially struck me as a good halfway choice between the zeal of the "good" king and the clear maleficence of the "evil" king. It turns out they were all jerks.

     

Guys, we might have made a mistake here . . .

     

Once Tumult had the orbs, he apparently used them to lay waste to the other two castles. They were no longer accessible, in any event. I got what I needed from the process, a "Blue Priority Passcard."

      

Sorry, king. But I suspect you would have done the same thing.

      

It's curious how the developers pitted "chaos" as the neutral point between good and evil, rather than the opposite: order for its own sake, irrespective of the ends. I wonder if they were making a point about the absurdity of classic D&D "alignments" in general. I think they disappear from the main series after this, and my understanding is that the alignments offered in the Heroes series are more nuanced.

After this, I dropped all of my gold at Gringotts and began the process of working odd jobs for 50 gold per week. To finish getting all the rewards from Greywind and Blackwind, I needed to wait until Day 50 and 60 of three consecutive years, and I figured I might as well earn interest in the meantime. As I started the process, I had 20 million.

     

Unfortunately, there's no option to burn weeks while resting leisurely.

       

Both Greywind and Blackwind had three thrones. One of them permanently raised attributes; the other two delivered gold and items. (Some of those were Precious Pearls of Youth and Beauty that I spent several days offloading one at a time to the Pirate Queen.) When I started the session, I had this idea that you could only use each throne once, but now I'm not sure that's true. Maybe I'll fire it up again and experiment before the summary and rating.

       

Not that I really needed any more advancement.

      

During the three-year period, I also turned in two more seashells to Athea on Day 99 and brought my love-struck party members to Princess Trueberry, finally curing her doldrums.

      

Yes, the solution to this puzzle was quantity, not quality.

      

Trueberry gave me the alicorn horn in return, which I brought back to the shrine in Orc Meadow. Something happened there involving a galloping unicorn. I didn't really understand it, but I got a few million experience points from the deal.

     

Isn't an alicorn supposed to have wings?

        

Just for the hell of it, I had my characters continue working odd jobs for another few years, rationalizing it with my belief that it's obnoxious to try to accomplish too much before you're 30. As I was wrapping up the process, I realized that Terra's years are only 100 days long, so a 30-year-old Terran is only a little more than eight years old by our standards. I've been practicing child endangerment this entire game.

     

Back at the vault, I retrieved my earnings. I had gained 15 million in interest in five years. Not bad.

      

I have to wonder who his other clients are that he can afford a 12% APR.

      

I immediately spent 13 million leveling my characters about 7 levels each. The average was 115 when I was finished, with the two NPCs now asking for 250,000 each per day. I still had plenty of money, and I could have leveled up some more by scattering some of it into the central fountain in Fountainhead, but at this point I didn't know how much longer the game would last.

      

My party as we head for the endgame.

   

I figured it was time to explore the central pyramid. I'm not going to keep mentioning it, but during the explorations below, I wasted a lot of time visiting buffing fountains before entering the pyramid and its various sections. The enemies weren't hard enough to justify all the additional buffing, and I'm not sure why I was being such a wuss.

The tunnel led to the Central Control Sector of the great space ship resting under Terra's oceans, the various storage and engine areas of which I had explored last time. Immediately as I entered, I was attacked by "Death Agents," who despite their name died in single blows without doing any damage to me.

      

Death needs better representation.

      

The area consisted of a central room with a bunch of side-rooms off of it, and one long corridor heading off to the west. I naturally explored the side rooms first. They held robots, including a new kind called a "Terminator" that couldn't be damaged in melee combat and was capable of "eradicating" my party members if he got lucky. I had to destroy them with spells; "Implosion" did particularly well. I had to resurrect slain characters a few times.

        

If they were going to give it this name, you think they could have tried harder on the graphics.

       

The rooms held a few boons, including chalices that added a few million experience points to the character who drinks from it. One of them served up an "Interspacial [sic] Transport Box," which is capable of visiting any of the game's maps by entering its number. It's a cute idea, but by this time I already had the ability to zoom to any game map with a combination of "Lloyd's Beacon," "Town Portal," and "Teleport." Since the box would have required a lot of fiddling to determine which number corresponded with which maps, I didn't waste a lot of time with it. Getting to this location ASAP would be the key to a successful speed run, however, as the box seems to remove the need for keys to the various dungeons.

     

Next time I swallow a good single malt, I'm going to think, "Ah, there's another 4 million experience points."

       

Most important, the half a dozen side chambers held talking heads that, when prompted with a password (CREATORS) that I got from another one of the ship's sectors, were quite explicit about the plot of the game. Together, they said:

       

Spanning the farthest reaches of the universe, two super-developed societies, the Ancients and the Creator, are engaged in a galactic race for power. The Creators exist in a nebulous realm where they construct their plots and create vile, chaotic armies to disrupt the civilizations of the Ancients. [The in-game text uses the singular "Creator" the first time and then "Creators" everywhere else.]

The Ancients draw their power from the heat and light of stars to create the intricate mechanisms of society, then send these civilizations to cultivate developing worlds. 

      

      

This mission has been code named The Great Experiment. It extends further away from the seat of the Ancients than any other colonization. It is under much greater threat from the Creators.

Because of the interference created by the renegade Guardian, Sheltem, the CRON and most of the VARNs carried by this vessel were lost in the Great Sea of Terra.

     

Okay, lots of exposition there. We'll learn more about Sheltem in a minute, but let's talk about the implications of the above. First the ship we're exploring is clearly the same vessel that held the CRON and VARNs of Might and Magic I and II. Now what do they mean that "most" of the VARNs were lost? Were some saved? Did the creatures from them supplant or merge with the existing life on Terra? How long has passed since this all happened, anyway?

What happened, I wonder, to the party that occupied this ship at the end of Might and Magic II? My pet theory is they somehow became the "Death Agents" that attacked me when I entered. There were only like six of them, and they're not found anywhere else in the game.

The background of the Ancients seeding worlds with their little CRON/VARN biospheres makes sense, but did they have to add vampires to the mix? How do undead in general fit with this backstory?

For that matter, how do the legends of the Elemental Lords fit? Are they the "Creators" mentioned here? (I suspect not, given what follows.) Either way, how were we able to visit their dimensions from CRON?

Finally, who are the "Creators"? Are the Kreegan of the VI-VIII series part of their "vile, chaotic armies"?

Seeking answers, we pressed forward down the long hallway. Well, no, actually we left the ship, returned to town, leveled up some more, visited the fountains again, and so forth, which again was all unnecessary. Then, we returned and pressed down the long hallway. The Blue Passcard from King Tumult was necessary to get through one of the doors.

       

       

I can't remember if there were any battles in the hallway. I don't think there were, meaning that one of the random combats with a "Terminator" was the last necessary battle in the game. Actually, I suppose those side rooms aren't technically necessary to win, so those pushover "Death Agents" were the last necessary combat in the game. There may have been one or two robots in the corridors; someone else might remember.

    

In any event, at the end of the long hallway, we ran into a scene that I wish had been illustrated but instead was only described via text:

     

The air is filled with the smell of ether and the flickering of colored lights, like horrible lightning. Down the corridor to the left, two robed figures battle among the plasm of magic so thick it hangs in the air like fog. It is Corak and Sheltem, locked in mortal combat among the sparks of their supernatural clash. Sensing your presence, Corak looks away long enough to give Sheltem the chance to pass into a nearby transport tube. Cursing under his breath, Corak beckons you to follow before disappearing into the same transport tube.

     

Would it have been too much to show Corak and Sheltem?

      

It's not a huge surprise that Corak is alive; the party from Might and Magic II reunited his soul with his body as part of the cleric's quest. I don't know how Sheltem came back to life. More important, though, the party from this game has no idea who these people are.

The player can turn left at the screenshot above and immediately proceed to the endgame, but naturally I had to explore the rest of the map. The automap clearly shows it shaped like the front of a ship:

     

Though not so much like the Enterprise.

   

At the ends of the corridors that look like guns are levers that say things like "Torpedo Launch Control" and "Primary Phaser Batteries." They didn't seem to do anything when activated, though its mildly amusing to think that the party is causing destruction and chaos all over Terra while they frown and flip the levers back and forth.

      

On the surface, an entire island is vaporized.

      

The whole area was swarming with robots, including a ton of those "Terminators." I fired off volley after volley of "Implosion . . ."

      

       

. . . but still had to reload a couple of times when everyone capable of casting "Resurrection" was eradicated.

     

Things aren't looking so well.

       

At the nose of the spacecraft were a couple of talking heads that congratulated me for making it through a difficult optional area. One of them offered the game credits. The other told me to use the special code "KTOW" when reporting my success to New World, to prove that I had made it to the optional area. It promised a "special reward" for this. I will wonder for the rest of my life what that award was.

     

Well, that's clearly me.

       

Time to win! Heading back to the location of Corak and Sheltem's duel, I found the transport tubes that they had entered. Entering myself, I found a couple of round doors . . .

     

       

. . . opening into the cockpit of a small two-seat craft:

       

As we presumably took the seats, a holographic head (accompanied by a digitized voice) appeared on a screen and asked us to "enter init sequence," which I correctly guessed to be the six-digit number offered by Kings Greywind and Blackwind. The five hologram cards I'd been collecting in the game's last hours were needed here.

     

     

The head then offered the final exposition as text on the screen:

       

The Grand Experiment of the Ancients: to use the technology of Elemental Manipulation to create a completely viable ecological and social microcosm. This microcosm was then to be transported to a distant biosphere (Terra) to supplant its indigenous ecosystem. The need was acknowledged for a central controlling unit capable of compensating for unexpected anomalies. 

Sheltem was created to be the Overlord and Guardian of Terra--the Supreme Law--but his conditioning was flawed. Seeing himself as the Guardian of Terra, not of the Ancients' colonization experiment, he rebelled against the "invading army" that was to be sent to "his" world. Sheltem was contained but later escaped, determined to undermine the Grand Experiment.

Learning from their earlier failure with Sheltem, the Ancients created a new Guardian named Corak. With his conditioning properly completed, the Grand Experiment was launched on its journey through the Void. Corak's first duty was to eliminate the threat of Sheltem, then assume the role of Guardian and Overlord of the Terra colonization.

Unable to stop the colonization of Terra, Sheltem has succeeded in disturbing the balance between the three alignments of men, a balance Corak must work to regain upon his return to Terra. However, Sheltem sees this as only a minor compensation and has set out to exact revenge by sabotaging other experiments the Ancients have scattered throughout the Void.

Two escape capsules have disembarked from this vessel, the first occupied by Sheltem, the second by Corak. At Corak's request, a third has been prepared to follow their course for a rendezvous at whatever world Sheltem seeks to exact his revenge upon. Having proven yourself as an Ultimate Adventurer, Corak and the Ancients ask your help in the adventures yet to come . . .

     

The scene then shows a small vessel departing from the main ship under Terra's seas . . .

     

      

. . . and launching itself into space.

    

"Fineous and Allan, I think it may be time to renegotiate your daily rate."

      

As we know now, of course, that vessel--called the Lincoln--missed its mark. While Corak and Sheltem ended up on Xeen, where a new party of locals would have to continue their fight, the Might and Magic III heroes somehow crashed into the seas of Enroth, found some SCUBA suits, and walked out of the ocean and onto a foreign shore.

     

Ah, but we're getting way ahead of ourselves.

(Side note: I never did find Tolberti or Robert the Wise, the two other canonical NPCs from VII. Where were they supposed to come from?)
      

From the exposition above, it sounds like the Ancients are the creators of the Elemental Lords, and all the backstory from the manuals in II and III about the elementals creating the worlds are mythological interpretations of a real creation process.

Sheltem and Corak are described as creations of the Ancients, but not robots, I assume, since Corak had a "soul" in Might and Magic II (although maybe that was an abstraction for something like a CPU). 

Sheltem being briefly "contained" seems to be a reference to Might and Magic I, where the alien (an Ancient?) described him as an escaped prisoner. It's hard not to agree with Sheltem's cause, incidentally. Isn't "supplanting" the life on an existing planet a bit evil? Especially when you're supplanting it with vampires and giant poisonous spiders and stuff? And if Terra is a real world, not a created one, why is it so small and flat? What condition are we leaving it, having taken Sheltem's existing "disruption of the alignments of men" and apparently carried it to an extreme conclusion?

As we ponder these issues, there are three other things I'm wondering for the final entry:

          

• What's the highest score that anyone has ever achieved? On the surface, my score above (1,106,212,020) seems likely close to the maximum because I solved just about every quest in the game. I'm sure I could have gotten it higher by spending more time in the Arena and using the fountain in Fountainhead. However, when you consider that I could have worked my party at odd jobs for another 20-30 years, earned tens of millions more interest, thrown most of that in the fountain, and leveled up accordingly, I'll bet I'm nowhere near the top.

• Even more interesting: what's the lowest score you could win with? That's related to the next question:

• How fast could you win the game in a speedrun? I suspect you could do it in less than an hour. You'd probably solve Fountainhead's quest (to get the experience fountain active), put the reward gold in the bank, work odd jobs for a decade or so, use the interest to pay for 10-15 levels and the needed transport spells, and make the "Interspacial Transport Box" a priority, bypassing the need for a bunch of keys. After that, you'd have to go to a series of dungeons, zooming around for the Ultimate Power Orbs and hologram cards. The big question mark is to what extent you can avoid combats. I didn't mark the location of individual enemies on my maps, so I don't know how hard it would be to avoid monsters even if you could "Teleport" around. If there are a few major combats that you can't avoid, you would need the appropriate levels and spells to deal with them, which would result in a higher score.

         

Maybe I'll experiment with these things for the final entry.

*****

If any of you are following the progress of Felipe Pepe's CRPG book project, it appears it's almost done. It is done, I think, to the extent originally envisioned, but Felipe keeps adding more games and reviews. Right now, he's seeking dedicated fans to complete short reviews of a few remaining games, including Eamon, Fracas, Rogue, Questron, Divinity: Original Sin, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. You can see the full list here. If you're interested in contributing, you can reach Felipe at crpgbook@gmail.com

Might and Magic III: Main Quest and Methuselahs

I don't even have a theory as to why a skull impaled on a stick is helping me out.

      

I ended the last session saying that I had no idea what was going on with the main quest. That resolved in a hurry. Following the Tomb of Terror, the rest of Map F2 was basically a bunch of speaking skulls stuck on poles who outlined the steps of the main quest somewhat literally, in Van Caneghem's usual no-attention-paid-to-meter verse:

Seek the castles on the Isles of Illusion

And right the curse that was cast in confusion

Before the mages slip into eternal slumber

They will each give half the magic number

In the heart of Minotaur Marsh you'll find

The dungeon of a thousand halls that wind

Enter the halls with the golden key

And an Ultimate Adventurer you're likely to be.

Deliver eleven orbs to your King of choice

And give his followers cause for rejoice

Take the reward you will then acquire

To the ancient pyramid on the Isle of Fire

Enter the pyramid on the fiery isle

To face the final test and trial

The Hologram Cards of six will gain

Access to the computer's brain.

Okay, so I have to give 11 orbs to one of the three kings, become an Ultimate Adventurer in the Maze from Hell, then descend into the central pyramid and use the Hologram Cards I've been collecting. I still don't know why, but at least I have a blueprint. Of course, in the tradition of the previous games, by the time you get all of these messages, that's probably what you would have done anyway.
     

The final map of the surface of Terra.

    
F2 also had a pyramid, which again I saved for later. I would note here that Column F basically abandoned the "lair" system used during most of the game, by which you find and destroy enemy "spawn points." Those didn't exist in any of the column's maps. I think there were a couple areas of Column E that lacked them, too.

Before continuing, I made 4 or 5 rounds in the Arachnoid Cavern and sacrificed gems to increase attributes. You'll recall that the caverns have a set of about 12 crystals that increase a single character's luck, accuracy, intelligence, or personality when you touch them. Paying 5,000 gems to an NPC in the caverns "resets" the crystals so you can do it again. Based on the fact that I continued to collect copious gems throughout this session, I really should have made more like 10 rounds.

Moving on to F3, representing the southeast corner of the large swampy island, I found it crawling with trolls. There were a bunch of statues that said they would "remember me" for vast amounts of money; I didn't know what that meant, but I had plenty of money and said "sure" to all of them. One statue said he would "make the others forget me." I assume that being remembered by the statues confers some benefit, and then having the other one make them forget allows me to pay them and get the benefit again.
       

          
The most important feature of F3 was the Maze from Hell, a large dungeon that really wasn't all that bad. Its major combats were with minotaurs and medusas. Minotaurs are extremely hard to hit, but not so much for fountain-enhanced party members. Keeping a "Lloyd's Beacon" set next to that 100-point fountain and another one set to wherever I needed it meant that I could zip out of the dungeon and back every time I needed a boost.
     

      
Medusas were more annoying since they have a ranged attack that turns one or two party members to stone. A couple of characters have "Stone to Flesh," so it wasn't a huge deal, but I learned to "Teleport" or "Jump" to melee range the moment I saw them so I could avoid the ranged attack.
        

I rather prefer my medusas with long red hair.

    
There were "whirlpool traps" at many intersections, but I just "Jumped" these when I could. The corridors held chests that usually caused instant death for the character opening them (unavoidable, not dependent on thieving skill), but I still had to open every damned one because one of them had the final Hologram Sequencing Card. I also got a few more Ultimate Power Orbs.
      

      
The center of the dungeon had a fountain of "Water Mane, fabled ruler of the Great Sea." Drinking from the fountain bestowed us with the Ultimate Adventurer title.
      

     
After I finished with the Maze from Hell, I almost immediately returned to the Tomb of Terror. The vampire king's chamber held four thrones which had rejected me because I wasn't an "Ultimate Adventurer" yet. It turns out that each of these thrones offers a permanent +30 increase in character level, but at the expense of decreasing all attributes to 3.

I agonized over this for a while. 120 levels is a pretty massive boost (my characters all hit Level 100 after this session). They wouldn't be worth much if I couldn't hit or damage anything, but I could conceivably solve the attribute problem with fountains, barrels, the crystals in the Arachnoid Cavern, and the slot machines in Slithercult Stronghold, if I ever found any more Quatloo Coins. It would be particularly simple if I had a single character sit in all the thrones. On the other hand, the thought of doing all that exhausted me a bit and the extra levels felt terribly unbalanced. It's not like the game was giving me much grief as it was. In the end, I made what was probably a dumb decision and reloaded, leaving the thrones behind.

I had a handful of Ultimate Power Orbs, which I gave to the evil king for 1 million experience each. When I was done, I think the good king had 6, the neutral king 4, and the evil king 8. I'm walking a fine line here. I ultimately want to favor the neutral king, I think, but I don't want him to get to 11 too soon, because I'll lose the ability to give excess orbs to the other kings. On the other hand, I don't want to get to a point where I haven't given anyone 11 yet and I don't know where to find anymore.
     

The "awards" section keeps track of how any orbs you've handed off.

   
I hadn't leveled up in a while, so back in town, everyone gained about 10 levels, costing millions of gold pieces. When I was done, the NPCs valued themselves at 150,000 gold per day. This was the turning point. Although I still had about 15 million back in the bank, I could see it disappearing awfully fast.

I was just on the cusp of booting the two NPCs when I hit on a realization: if you don't have enough money to pay them at 05:00, they leave the party and return to the inn where you enlisted them. But they don't maintain the debt, and they don't ask for money up-front when they join the party. They also don't shed their items or even forget their default spells. So if you just "Town Portal" directly to the inn and enlist them again, they happily join as if there's no problem. Basically, once you have "Town Portal" and "Lloyd's Beacon," there's no reason to ever pay another NPC. You just warp to the inn when they leave, pick them up again, and warp back.
    

Sure, I'll pay. Welcome aboard.

    
Thus keeping the archer and druid in the party, I moved on to F4. It was a fairly useless map--just a continuation of E4 with the same desert island, same oases, and the same "vulture rocs" (now easy for my over-leveled party) that appear every time you find buried treasure. There were a couple of new wells. One of them gave me a bunch of high-level items for no reason. The other two wanted 10,000 gold each, one for a minor increase in temporary spell points, the other for a temporary +50 increase in levels. The latter stacks, I should mention, so you could get a character to absurd heights. I'll return to this one if I ever encounter a very difficult enemy again.
     

A good buffing point if I need it later.

     
The map also had a pyramid, making one pyramid in Column A, one in Column C, and three in Column F.
     

Whatever that means.

    
Day 99 was coming around by this point, so I went to Rainbow Isle and collected the seashell when it arrived on the beach.
     

This is so you can't get more than one per year.

      
I returned to the nymph Athea in Map A4 and gave her the shell. She gave us 250,000 experience points and gold and again made my male characters fall in love with her. Not bad, but that was it? I'd been following clues about Athea for the entire game. I think the minotaurs offered as much experience.

 
Reflecting that Princess Trueberry wanted me to bring her "true love" or something, I wondered if my male characters' status would do. I returned to her hut and "presented" each character to her. Clearly, that's what I was supposed to do because she had a reaction to them but concluded that "there is not enough love left in the land to release me from my sorrow." She did "cure" the characters at the same time, but otherwise I don't know what to do with her. The whole alicorn horn thing may go unsolved.
      

Clearly, this was the right thing to do, but it had no ultimate effect.

     
At this point, I had nothing left but the pyramids. I explored all but the central one. They took me down a shaft into what was clearly a space ship, and the sections had names like "Forward Storage Sector" and "Main Control Room." The walls offered clearly futuristic technology, and as I explored I was attacked by robots called "iron wizards" and, for whatever reason, "ED-409."
         

That's a disconcerting enemy type.

      
Each section had a couple of teleporters to other sections, but you don't find out the passwords until you enter those sections via the pyramids. I could see parts of other sections from my "Wizard's Eye" spell, making me think that the various sections are supposed to be a different scale than the normal dungeon, and in fact the space ship spans the entire continent. More on the implications of this next time.
    

The party samples absinthe.

    
As commenters have noted, crystals and heads throughout the ship offered explicit spoilers to the game's various riddles.
      

      
The Forward Storage Sector in A2 asked me for a password to "raise the sunken island in Piranha Bay." I knew from some dungeon ages ago that it was YOUTH. The island occupied about 6 squares that were formerly water, and it held a fountain that reversed magical aging. Some of my characters were in their 50s because of undead attacks and other aging effects, so it was useful for them.
    

      
A lot of the crystals in the ship magically aged my characters by 200 years, reducing their attributes to single digits accordingly. I could have used the Fountain of Youth to reverse this, but it was an annoying process and mostly I just reloaded, causing me to double my previous reload count.
     

That almost makes it sound like a good thing.

      
There were a ton of Ultimate Power Orbs in the sectors, and I think it's time to head to the neutral king and solve that part of the quest.

But as I ended the session, I ran into a huge problem. I noticed that my characters were performing poorly in combat, and when I took a look at their attributes, I saw that their might, accuracy, and endurance had fallen into the single digits. Then I realized that their ages had advanced to 216 years old--naturally, not magically. When I checked the current date, the game told me that it was year 698. It had been 506 just a few hours ago.

I have no idea what would have caused actual time to pass so fast during any of what I've described above. Does anyone have any ideas?
    

My real attributes are what you see here minus 100, minus some attribute-boosting items.

      
Figuring that if time had really passed that much, I'd have more than doubled my bank account, I visited the bank in Fountain Head and discovered that I had just as much gold in my account as my previous visit. So clearly I didn't earn interest for those 192 years. I wonder if I should take this as a sign that it's a game bug rather than a real passage of time.

My last alternate save game is from before I entered the pyramids. It wouldn't be torture to replay the pyramids, but I'd like to avoid it if possible. To see what happened, I hex-edited the year in my save game file back to 506, and the game restored my ages and attributes appropriately. I figure if the passage of years was a bug, I'm justified in keeping that hex edit. If it was intentional, I should roll with the punches or (more likely) reload and go through the ship sectors again. Opinions?

Other than visiting the central pyramid, the only things left on my list are side-quests, most of which I don't understand. For the record--and not because I want spoilers--these are:
     

• What was I supposed to wish for at the Wishing Well in E4?
• What was going on with those heads who said they'd remember me in F3?
• How do I cure Princess Trueberry and get the alicorn horn from her?
• Of what use is the Fountain of Kartera in D1?
• No mystery here, but if I waited another few years, I could get all the benefits from the thrones in Greywind and Blackwind castles.

     
No matter what, I suspect the next entry will be the last. We'll see if we can puzzle through what's really happening on Terra and how it relates to the VARNs and CRONs of the previous titles.

Time so far: 61 hours
Reload count: 41 

*****

A couple notes on upcoming games:

1. I need opinions and perhaps help with Die Drachen von Laas. First, I can't get the DOS version to work at all. Running the executable brings up a screen with a header showing the game's title, but nothing happens after that. I have an Amiga version that works. I haven't been able to find a manual.

How would you go about translating the German text from the game? I don't want to type it all into a translator, but my second solution--take screenshots, paste them into Word, PDF the Word document, run OCR on the PDF, and copy and paste the results into Google Translate--isn't exactly more elegant. I can't figure out a way to extract it from the original files. How would you do it?

If we can't come up with a workable system, I might have to ditch this one. It would be too bad, because it's the first RPG from some important developers, and it looks pretty. On the other hand, when I expanded my list to include non-English titles, I was thinking of having to translate things like "intelligence," "hit points," and "attacked and missed," not the full narration of a text adventure.

2. This is a long shot, but if anyone has won, or has the hint sheet for, The Kingdom of Krell (1987), I'd like to hear from you.