Back on my journey to explore all the Might and Magic games. In the past, I’ve played the first two. While they were fun, they just lacked some creature comforts to keep me around playing till the end. Might and Magic III so far might be good enough for me to play it till the end.

So far, the biggest improvements for me over Might and Magic I and II have to be the in-game map and being able to save while not resting at an inn to save the game. While these alone were not enough it’s shocking how much of a time saver just being able to save whenever you want. No more long runs through the map I had to recall like the back of my hand just to save after getting some experience.

I also noticed there is a lot less just randomly getting killed. Most of the zones I've encountered so far in Might and Magic III have dens you can take out to spot future spawns of creatures for the area.

While I do love grinding creatures for extra experience. These dens offer such a massive amount of experience for destroying them. It just seems like the smart play early on to get some quick levels.

There is also no cap on how many skills any of your characters can learn. So instead of trying to work out what skills would be best to buy for the group. Now I'm just going with the get everyone mostly everything if I have the gold on hand at the time to do so.

I also noticed quite early on that I unlocked rather important skills for getting around. Things like navigator, pathfinding, swimming, and mountaineer. This means I have no trouble just walking over mountains, through thick forests, and so on. Even after a while, I acquired a direction sense so I could see the direction I was pointing on the map.

The biggest one I was lacking was some way to walk on water. While my character does have swimming skills. That seems to only let me go across short bodies of water. Anything bigger than a tile from a connecting land mass and it’s a no-go.

I was hoping I could solve this with some kind of spell. The issue is the starting group the game gives you lacks something like a druid to cast water walking. While I have had items that give water walking casting ability. I ended up selling those not realizing swimming was not enough to solve my issues. It is however an item I'm now on the lookout for so I don’t have to hire a druid hireling that I leveled up anytime I need to cross some large bodies of water.

Since I've played the first two, I also got a better understanding of the map layout. They are set up like a giant grid like the first one. While they all don’t connect making it is a bit hard sometimes to find a way from where I am and where I want to go. My past game knowledge that now works in this game has come quite in handy.

There is also a little less of being lost about what area should I go clear next. If I come across a place like a dungeon that is far beyond what my abilities should be. I simply lack the key to enter into that dungeon. Forcing me to go out and explore for such a dungeon or method of acquiring said key.

I also feel like the characters I've started with seem a bit more balance between being worthwhile to have. In the first two Might and Magic II’s I'd try out some characters and just feel like they were so underperforming. I might as well skip over them and fill my group with something like sorceress only.

While my Cleric and Sorcerer can do quite massive amounts of damage in Might and Magic III. There came a point where melee caught back up and I feel even passed them up. Unless I use massive amounts of the caster's mana on just a couple of casts forcing me to rest to recover.

This overall I feel just makes everything feel a bit more balanced. At least with the starting classes you get. I’m sure there are still classes that are more powerful than the others if I wanted to try and min and max things. It is however quite an improvement over the first two games.

It also feels like gold and gems are not such a struggle in Might and Magic III. While it was an early game. After a while, I worked out some decent ways to get large stacks of gems for casting powerful spells and a decent amount of gold to keep up with item repairs and leveling.

This was something in the first two Might and Magic games that felt like quite the struggle. Even more so for gems. I would often have to go out grinding low-level areas for gems using my melee. Then blow those gems on my casters to clear harder areas. Just to repeat the process all again once I ran out of gems to cast the more powerful spells.

I also don’t miss the endless wave after wave of creatures I had to fight the higher level I was getting in Might and Magic II. Some of those fights would just drag on forever. To the point that ended up being a huge reason why I just stopped playing the game and releasing content on it.

With that said there are some things I do miss. Such as being able to see the amount of damage being done. Along with the exact health without having to go into a menu to find it. In Might and Magic III, you just get a bar that changes colors to indicate full health, damage taken, and near death. This new way of doing things makes it a little more time-consuming trying to work out on my cleric or even paladin who I need to heal and who I can expect to last another round to heal later.

Later in the game I also started to struggle with inventory space. Between all the different items such as keys, orbs, and just flat-out gear. I have some characters whose entire bags are almost full of just the gear they are wearing. It’s a shame the gear you have on takes up bag space.

I have almost been tempted to just hire some low-level hireling. Empty out any equipment they have. Just so I could use them as storage for items I'm looting and carrying around. You also can’t store items in a bank so you are kind of stuck holding a lot of stuff unless you want to risk just deleting things.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it has been quite a better experience and I find myself going on quite long grinds without the game bugging me if I'm having a hard time like the first two games were. I also just love the fact I don’t feel lost most of the time like I did in the first two games.

It has also been amazing seeing how this series of games has started to evolve. I can start to see some new elements in Might and Magic III that would later remain around in the sixth one in the series which was one of my favorite childhood games. I even feel a bit spoiled not having to play the first five in the series back then to get a true feeling of amazement I get to enjoy now.

As you might be able to tell. There is going to be a decent amount of content coming your way for Might and Magic III. I’ve been playing it for several weeks now I'm past the point where I was in the first two of feeling like I had my fill of the game and wanting to move on to the next one in the series as I'm still enjoying the third one.

Other Content

• Part 2: Might And Magic III | That New Yet Old Feeling

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic III.