1. Painkiller - PC2. Front Mission 4 - PS23. Wasteland 2 - PC4. Arcanum - PC5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-167. Unreal - PC8. Shadowrun - SNES9. Warcraft III - PC10. Dungeon Keeper - PC11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS312. Descent - PC13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC15. Sokobond - PC16. Hybrid Heaven - N6417. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis18. Castlevania - NES19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES20. Castlevania III - NES21. Castlevania II - NES22. Castlevania Rondo of Blood - Turbo CD23. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - PC24. Fractal - PC25. Kirby's Adventure - NES26. Pillars of Eternity - PC27. Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - PC28. Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour - PC29. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - NES30. Punch-Out!! - NES31. Doom 3 - PC32. The Even More Incredible Machine - PC33. Contra - NES34. Dark Forces - PC35. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - PC36. X-Wing - PC37. TIE Fighter - PC38. Bloodborne - PS439. Gradius - NES40. Marble Madness - NES41. The Witcher 3 - PC42. Mega Man X5 Zero Playthrough - PSX43. Wolfenstein The Old Blood - PC44. Might and Magic Book 1 - PCGot my old school on and finished this classic. Might and Magic is a game that is in the tradition of Wizardy and The Bard's Tale before it, but it manages to add its own flair that makes it an interesting game beyond just the historical value of it.
Unlike the other two games I mentioned, Might and Magic does not start you off with a goal. The subtitle of the game "The Secret of the Inner Sanctum" is the closest you get to an end goal and even the manual only tells you that you should explore the world and see things. And the game is really set up for you to discover things on your own.
The biggest thing that makes Might and Magic stand out is that it has an overworld. Now, for JRPG fans this doesn't sound like much, but back in the 80's this was unheard of for first person dungeon crawlers, with the Ultima series being the only one to transition between first person dungeons and an overworld. But unlike Ultima, the overworld in Might and Magic is still first person. This ends up creating a fairly mazelike overworld, though some of that comes from false walls. For example, if a wall is a line of pinetrees you almost always can walk through it; the goal is to simulate a forest. On the other hand, a wall of mountains is impassible. The game uses the different wall textures to create a fairly coherent fantasy world that matches up with the stylized world map provided in the game. There's a desert in the northeast, a swamp in the southeast, snowcapped mountains in the northwest, and an ocean in the southwest. It's all very cool when you stop and think about it, especially for 1986.
Now, as you explore the world and start mapping everything you're going to start to run into quests. The very first quest you get is designed to help you explore the world, as it requires you to visit all five cities to get the clues necessary to find a key item elsewhere in the world (and that item doesn't spawn until you do the quest, so you can't skip it with spoilers). The conclusion to this chain leaves you with a key and no idea of where to go from there. But once you can successfully complete this you have enough experience under your belt (both in game and out) to start exploring the wider world. You will stumble upon clues and NPCs who give you hints about what's going on in the world.
The actual conclusion to the game comes very quickly, though. You learn that a king is being impersonated and upon confronting him you're tossed in a dungeon. This dungeon has a really neat puzzle in it; the secret is literally hidden in the walls of the dungeon, in that if you look at the dungeon mapped out the walls spell out a message. Upon solving this puzzle you get a large hint to the nature of the world and are told to embark upon what turns out to be the last step in the game. This last step involves the most frustrating dungeon ever created that doesn't involve teleports or spinners. Instead, the gimmick is that aside from a handful of walls around tiny rooms, every wall is invisible. The only way to map is to run face-first into everything, which includes having to spin around and hit the walls to the side of the corridor you're going down. Additionally, on this map your locate spell (which gives grid coordinates and facing) doesn't work and the game doesn't have any sort of sound when you take a step. I said "fuck that noise" and looked up a map for it; I have better things to do with my time than painstakingly map out invisoland and get occasionally wiped out by monsters that decide they don't like my face. Upon completion of this dungeon you are told the truth about the world and are given the notification that it's time for you to search out the sequel.
The game manages to keep your spellcasters and physical fighters pretty well balanced, so that all classes feel pretty essential to have. The mapping adds a lot to the enjoyment and there's a real satisfying feeling to having a completed map of the world. Definitely glad I played this, but I probably won't pick up the sequel for a while because this game definitely requires your time and attention. I had my keyboard on one leg, my tablet on the other and used my tablet for mapping and looking up spells (the game chooses spells by number with no in-game help, so you need to look up the table) and equipment (games of this era don't tell you shit about equipment).
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
