Customer Reviews

Might and Magic: Platinum Edition

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Taking a look at some other RPG series on the market, Final Fantasy, Baldurs Gate/Everwinter Nights, all that fun stuff, there comes to leave a genre of game that fits the RPG bill perfectly: Might and Magic. This is the best of the M&M series into 1 package.

MM6 - Although the dungeons were incredibly lengthly, and the character selection graphics funny, the game itself took me months to complete in its entirety.

MM7 - Easily the best of the M&M series, this game shows some of the best points an RPG can have, especially how you get your own castle and choose your side (good guy or bad guy). Another one that took me a month or two to complete.

MM8 - Not as good as story line as MM7, but the game engine features some impressive enhancements over MM6 and MM7 that make the game very worth while... Although, as soon as you get Dragons in your party, their strength alone allow you to be able to maul anything rather easily. Took me about four months on and off to play.

MM9 - New game engine, which was sparked by the complaigners getting what they wanted... This game wasn't as good as previous games, but the mechanics of the game somehow mutated the original M&M game elements into a more "fit for the future" perspective (ie: taking it into a more rigid hiearachyal system of advancements of character class). Although the graphics were nice and the game play wasnt really that bad, the game was easily completed in about a 2 weeks time, and the Lich advancement wasnt able to be reached until 3 dungeons till end of game (where as all other top character advancements were done easily within 7-10 dungeons of the last dungeon, ie: lich quest wasnt able to be completed until WAY TOO into the ending parts of the game). Not bad, but could of been much better.

Althought MM9 wasnt as good, Im looking forward for 3DO to make MM10 top of the mill... They have the engine made, all they need now is a killer storyline and some awesome graphics and it will be a 5 star....... if they take their time and do a good job.

I got Might & Magic 7 to work by the following:

1. Right-click on the icon on your desktop and select Properties. Click on the Compatability tab. Click the box that says "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and pick Windows 95. Then click OK at the bottom.

2. Click START on your desktop. Select ALL PROGRAMS, then select 3DO, select Might and Magic VII, then Might and Magic VII Configuration Utility. Under Video, select Software 3D, then launch Might and Magic VII.

The sound for the game might not be perfect, but at least you get to play!! I love this game! You will want to play at least twice so you can choose the Light Path and the Dark Path.
If you do choose the Dark Path, be careful.. there is a bug in the game. There are two quests where you have to pick up "lich jars". It is best to get both sets of lich jars in your pack before you turn any of them in, because if you fulfill the wrong quest first the other set will never be there for you to find.

The four most recent additions to the classic RPG franchise, "Might & Magic," bundled in one fairly priced compendium, make for an excellent purchase. While none of these games are, or ever have been, ground-shaking in terms of originality or graphical finesse, they make make up for their shortcomings with deceptively addictive gameplay. One of these games alone might be worth the price of admission (save perhaps for the disappointing 2002 installment, simply called "Might & Magic IX"), but combined, for fans of the genre and those "Might & Magic" die-hards, it's a splendid bundle worth your attentions.

There are some reviewers that say that this will not run on XP. I can only say that you need some help. With your computer , that is. I have XP home and this whole package runs perfectly. If this will not run on your XP system, just troubleshoot. It does support windows XP. Hope I've shed some light. Happy new year!
ADDED : I see a reviewer or two that can't get this to run. Sorry if you can't figure out how to get it to work. But, like another reviewer said, go over to a fansite and they will tell you what you need to do. Just type in the complete title into a search string. It's really not that difficult. Unless you're an angry gamer like some folks. :-)
S'all good. Also, to the one who asked why 'should' we have to troubleshoot... good question. It seems every other game you buy for the PC involves troubleshooting to get it to work properly. Or a patch. That's the nature of the beast, i guess.
But, seriously guys, relax. People may have to work a little a getting this to run, but the rewards are soooo worth it.
Just be patient with it. It'll work for ya'.
UPDATE 2/14/09 : Well, it seems like the newer versions of Windows are now causing issues with this program. Especially service pack 3. Also, just about all sources for support have gone south. So, if you know how to install multiple operating systems on your computer, i would recommend doing that and having one operating system either be WINDOWS 98 SE or WINDOWS XP with service pack 1. Sorry, things changed a lot in the last 5 years since i posted this review. Good luck, all! And, please, be patient. This series has been and will always be worth the extra effort.

Well, I've played and completed all of the MM games in this package, and enjoyed them all, even though MMIX was not the most straight forward of games when it came to actually learning how to gain the classes you wanted, it was still extremely rewarding. They all are. They are all long games ( with perhaps MMIX being the shortest, but still long, if you get my drift !)

Whilst these games are not the most graphically appealing games on the market, in my opinion, they are some of the best RPGs out there, even now, with a wonderfully designed magic system and a fabulous realtime OR turn based combat mechanism ( you choose). Epic adventure, 1000s of baddies, tonnes of quests, you really cannot go wrong. My only issue, is as far as the original releases go, only numbers 6 and 9 work on the awesome XP operating system, so 7 and 8 are destined to be played on your old WIN 98 pc. Unless, that is, they have modified the games for this boxset.

To sum up, longevity, playabilty and a gameworld that you get to feel very comfortable in, I spent so long playing these games they became almost like a familiar friend or a second home. It may just be me, but I found myself getting very involved in the vast MM world. I really cannot recommend these games enough. Just buy them and enter a whole new world.

The Might and Magic Platinum edition puts three of the best titles of this series together with the final title. FOR XP USERS : please make note.. These games can be played on XP, just install the program, right click on the icon on desktop, select properties. Click on "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and select your favorite O/S - Win98/ME works well.

MM6 is by far the best of the lot, although a game within the game - Arcomage - a card game is built into MM7. MM9 was released too early so outside of better graphics there is much to be desired from the game itself. Despite the previous review, 3DO.com makes no distinction where you bought your game, the tech help remains excellent, plus they do have a message board that allows you to get game and tech help from other users.

This compilation contains:
* Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
* Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor
* Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer
* Might and Magic IX
On a total of eight CDs in a cheap paper folder. Note that this collection overlaps two games with the previous "Millennium Edition" collection (IV-VII).

Also included are:
* A map with The Land of Enroth (VI) on one side and Erathia (VII) on the other
* A map of The Land of Jadame (VIII)
* A map of The Land of Chedian (IX)
* Installation instructions on the paper CD folder
* No printed manuals

This is labelled a "Value Pack" for a reason. If you want the most games for your money, don't mind reading or printing the manuals from the CDs, and don't like to pay extra for packaging, this collection fits the bill.
I can't say anything about the four games themselves, since I haven't actually installed them yet.

I've tried for years now to get MM6 running on XP home. What most solutions out there do not tell you is that they are geared towards XP Pro, and simply will not work with XP Home. I recently went ahead and bought Platinum Ed. (well worth the money for 4 games worth your time)and ran across a method to get MM6 running on XP home with minimum effort. If you are getting an error after installing this game about MSS32.DLL not being found, do a google search with the terms "NT Compatible Might and Magic VI Mandate of Heaven" and hit I feel Lucky. The second post links to a replacement exe file that will allow you to run the game with the compatibility mode turned OFF. Hope this helps some of you out there.

I'm sorry, but when a game says it is WinXP compatable, but you have to modify it to make it run on XP, then it isn't compatable.

I had 2 of the original games, and had to do a lot of work to get them working. I can live with that with the originals. But I got the platinum version because it implied that it worked, out of the box, with XP. It doesn't.

To the reviewer that said that you can troubleshoot it, why should we have to?

Since just about everyone is using XP, stay away from this, unless you like messing with it. Even IGN sites don't have a "this will make it work on XP" patches or fixes.

Great games, if you can get it to work. If you aren't computer knowledgable enough to get them going without worrying about grabbing virus laden programs, stay away! I have it 2 stars, because if you can get them to work, these are great games.

I have been a fan of Might and Magic since the release of the sixth series (The Mandate of Heaven). This collection is, as far as I'm concerned, the ultimate Might & Magic collection, even though MM9 is in it. There are several other collections available that include the earlier series, but since MM6 was the first to be run in Windows, visual appeal on the earlier versions would not be a compelling aspect of those games. Then again, Might & Magic was never about the great 3D engines that games nowadays are bragging about. Might & Magic is about the adventure in a beautifully made fantasy world - and, of course, the occasional 12-hour session in front of the PC and realizing that the sun is already up.

Something that might disappointment people is the packaging.3DO/NWC did not even bother to put the precious disks inside a hard plastic case. Instead, the 8 CD's are placed on a three-fold CD thin cardboard sleeve where the CD's keep falling out of. There are, however, small poster size maps of all 4 games and the CD's have a good design on it. Once again, you should realize that M&M is not about the size of the box or how hard the case is or how beautiful it looks, its about the magic it brings... hahaha

Windows XP Issues:
There are issues regarding running the game in Windows XP. Some say the these games will run only on Windows 95/98/ME. I have WinXP and they work fine now. For those who have problems under WinXP, first make sure that all these M&M games are in compatibility mode (after installation, right-click on desktop shortcut, click on COMPATIBILITY tab, enable "Run this game on compatibility mode", and select Windows 98/ME). For MM7-MM9, the games ran immediately with no problems at all. MM6, however, had a unique problem : a SHRINKER problem regarding the game file "mss32.dll". Apparently, this problem is due to the compressed DLL file mentioned above, and not about Windows XP (?). Use a file called DESHRINKER (just Google it 'coz I lost the URL already) to solve this problem - this worked for me. If the problem persists.... then... I can't help you. Sorry.