Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor

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Review: Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor

But when you acquire one in Might and Magic VII, you also come to the attention of both sides in an Elven-Human War. Throw in a bunch of skeptical Dwarves, a Necromancer's Guild in rebellion, and dozens of monster types eager to loot and pillage, and you'll realize why real-estate values won't quickly rise againunless you sort things out.

You create and lead a party of four medieval fantasy characters through dozens of quests across a varied continent as you advance their skills, obtain more spells and better weaponry, and prepare to save the throne--or steal it for yourself. As in M&M VI, movement is free-scrolling, and you can switch between turn-based and real-time combat at any time.

This will be the M&M that fans remember as the first that lets you choose between Good and Evil. No role-playing is involved, but it does provide you with somewhat different groups of spells, quests, dungeons, enemies, and (ultimately) objectives.

The distinctions are nicely handled, too. The tests to acquire entry-level access to Light and Dark magic spells (extensively revised since M&M VI) each involve traversing a complex, dangerous dungeon, but the forces of good make success conditional upon killing none of the high-level enemies who try to destroy you in there.

Conversely, the forces of evil gleefully encourage you to kill all you want in their dungeon. If nothing else, this imposes different strategic choices on your progress.

Regrettably, the changes to the interface meant to mirror your ethical choice are awful: washed-out white (Good) or black (Evil) variations of unrealistic-looking marble. Atmosphere is further compromised by a soundtrack that remains attached to locations rather than events, as in the Ultima series. Nothing is stranger than hearing a wistfully romantic theme swell in the background as you're being pummeled into unconsciousness by swamp trolls.

The graphics aren't great, either. The monsters look indistinct and dull, 3D hardware acceleration notwithstanding; while pixelization remains a serious problem throughout. Unfortunately, the improvements to this release didn't include perspective-correct representations of monsters killed on slopes, so dead corpses still stick out horizontally against mountainsides.

But our serious criticism is reserved for M&M's dungeon-mapping system. Without question, it remains the least useful of any RPG mapper: a 2D, two-color system that's a disaster at detailing 3D dungeons, and doesn't support user notes.

Nonetheless, M&M VII is impressive. It creates a detailed universe that hides the necessary linearity of game design behind a seemingly bewildering variety of areas to explore and quests to fulfill. Both outdoor locations and dungeons are more distinctive in this release than in M&M VI--not so much in the terrain, which remains largely generic, as in the clever use of it to form memorable challenges. For instance, you'll travel to a titan's stronghold by running along a bridge over a pond infested with acid-blasting sylphs. And quests are more complex, with multiple goals.

In a series marked more by the creative reuse of materials than innovation, M&M VII also sports two attractive new features. The first is a simplified Magic: The Gathering-style card game that you play in Erathia's taverns. Arcomage is easy to learn and addictive, and its presence in a quest will give you an excuse to play it over and over again.

The other new feature is the ability of monster groups to attack one another. This lets you choose sides on some battlefields, or avoid a pair of antagonists who are momentarily distracted with each other's presence.

And if M&M VII seems overgrown with gold, reagents, and weaponry littering the countryside, it compensates with tough challenges in the midgame. The endgame skillfully avoids the "more of the same" syndrome which affected M&M VI and its nearly infinite dragons.

In effect, this game grows better as it goes on

Clearly, the M&M series, already fresh from a facelift, is in need of another. But once you get beyond that, it delivers consistently good, solid value. For a first-rate series of strategy-based dungeon crawls, MM VII is hard to beat.-- Barry Brenesal / GamePro