About the roots of heroes and the Dark Messiah or the history of the Might & Magic series

In distant-long times, in the era, when the generation of ancient gamers played on Apple II, when the MSX1 computer and the very first prefix from Nintendo appeared, the 21-year-old student of the Faculty of Medicine named John Van Cunningham creates his company for the development of computer games New World Computing. This happened in 1983, and after another 3 years their first game Might and Magic: The Secret of the Inner Santum, which laid the foundation for the legendary Might and Magic series ..

Of course, you know such games as Heroes of Might and Magic, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, someone may remember Crusaders of Might and Magic-but all these games, games of the Games are just branches-spin of the original line of Might and Magic. In this video, I will tell you the story of this game series: how it began, how it ended and whether it ended at all. And for those who do not watch the video for any reason, I prepared this post.

All games of the series Strength and Magic, and in Russia, sword and magic are an adventure game in the RPG genre with step -by -step battles and first -person views in which we control a group of heroes. Our brave brave men travel to the backyards of the magic fantasy of the world, look for artifacts with which they fight the villains and save the world from disaster. Simply put, Might and Magic at first glance is a typical fantasy. But this is only at first glance. Distinguish a series of some elements of science fiction. The action takes place in a fictional galaxy, in which all planets are controlled by the powerful race of the ancients, creating everything that they only like. For example, an ancient named Sheleme loves to direct planets right in the sun, thereby destroying them. The worlds themselves, in which the plots of each of the parts of the series unfold, are not even planets, but giant flat spaceships, plowing space. The only game in the Might and Magic line, which the developers have deprived the science fiction background is the last, 10th part, but about it later.

The first game of The Secret of the Inner Sanctum series, translated the secret of the inner sanctuary, published in 1986, sent us on a trip to the “ship-world” called Varn (Vehicular Astropod Research Nacelle), where we, controlling 6 heroes, were supposed to stop the villain, which caused the spread of the spreadaround the world hordes of monsters and find the same sanctuary. The adventure trail led us through the cities, the desert, mountains and forests, the characters even fell into the astral world, where they were supposed to fight with the God of the volcano and eventually fell into the coveted sanctuary, where they were met by no other than John Van Cunningham, who congratulated the group with the end of the adventure and opened the portal for them to another world.

The game had 5 races, 6 classes and even 3 options for a worldview and all with their own characteristics in the form of bonuses to characteristics. The resources were gold, precious stones and food, and each character had its own stock. Gold was used for pumping, buying and selling things, precious stones for spells, and food for relaxation, it was also possible for each of these resources to pay off enemies. But if you couldn’t pay off or escape, then the battle began in which your heroes and opponents took turns stuffing each other’s muzzles in hand -to -hand combat, pouring each other with arrows and use an extensive arsenal of spells. That’s briefly, there was a gameplay of the first game.

The game received the highest grades and a sea of ​​positive reviews. It was called one of the best games of that time. The secret of the sanctuary was praised for the amazing variety of content and opportunities – such a huge card was not yet in any other game;for the nonlinearity of what is happening, for graphic achievements, especially 3D submits. Of course, the game also had disadvantages, but insignificant, so the pluses compensated them with the head, and therefore the project was commercially more than successful, and nothing prevented the developers from creating a continuation.

The next game Might and Magic II: Gates nonukcasinosites.co.uk/cashback-casino-bonus/ to Another World or Gate to another world was released in 1988. Adventors of adventure passing through the gates, open by Canningem, move from Varn to another world – Cron (Central Research Observational Nacelle). Heroes still pursue the villain from the first game – Sheltem, who this time is going to direct the world of crowns in the sun.

In general, the second Might and Magic was based on the same game, but supplemented and improved. The developers updated the graphics, introduced new options into the interface. There were also many innovations in the gameplay itself. If earlier the characters were created randomly, now the players themselves do it. The creators have added 2 new classes and now the heroes have already become 8. At the same time, the characters of the first game could be imported into the second, thereby the story turned out to be continuous and looked more natural. Mercenaries became an innovation – such inconsistent heroes whose work you had to pay. In addition, the characters were old and died. The main feature of the gameplay of the first part was the battle, and this feature migrated and in the second part. However, the quests have now boiled down not only to the search and destruction of the enemy, but also to unraveling tasks and all sorts of puzzles.

The game also received mainly positive reviews. Although at the same time a weak storyline and excessive emphasis on the battle was noted, this did not prevent the PC Format magazine with the game on the 50 best games of all time.

The release of the third game, Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra, or Terra Islands, took place in 1991. After the heroes again defeated the shelter on the crown, they go to his native world – the water planet Terra. Again, this bastard launches ships-worlds belonging to the other ancients in the sun, and again the heroes try to stop him. Having passed through the labyrinths of hell, they find the pyramids of the ancients, which turn out to be the center of the revival of life on the terra, after immersing its lands under water and eventually save the planet, but for the third time the villain manages to escape.

In connection with the technological progress and expansion of the developer team, changes have naturally occurred in the technical plan of the game. The graphics improved, sound accompaniment reached a qualitatively new level, the interdepace has been updated. But this time the gaming process has not undergone any special changes. Now it was possible to persist at any time, and not as in the previous parts in the hotel. The changes again affected the visual part: if earlier we met monsters, only having stepped on one field with them, now, we could see them at a distance. In general, the monsters began to respowed in the already passed area of ​​the map.

Isles of Terra was highly appreciated by both technical innovations and the gameplay itself, which may not have been a novelty compared to previous parts, but the old worked out scheme was polished to brilliance. A PC Gamer US magazine put it in 25 place in the list of best computer games.

Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen – Clouds of Xina – The fourth game in the series was released next year after a third. The action is transferred to the world of the Xin divided into two parts, one of them, in fact, is Obaka Xin, in honor of which the game is named, and the second is the dark side. Some Lord Xin seized power in this world, concluding the true Lord of this earth in his tower – Krodo, and sows chaos throughout the earth. To stop him and save Xin, we had to create a new detachment of adventurers and just like before to make reprisal against monsters, travel around the world and persecute the villain.

Outwardly the game remained the same. From the new, a section of notes appeared in which important information like quests, hints, passwords and location coordinates was monitored. The levels of complexity appeared, although the differences between the two levels were only in the complexity of opponents and only. But this, perhaps, is all. Otherwise, this was still the same isles of terra that I would not call a minus.

Ksin clouds are closely related to the fifth game Might and Magic V: 1993 Darkside of Xeen. The action will take place in the same world, but the heroes from the level of the clouds move to the dark side of Xin. Darkside of Xeen completes the storyline started at Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum, which narrated about the interstellar confrontation. Having called Alamar, sheltem subjugated local peoples and creates his dark as a night in Darkside. Heroes meet the character of the second and third parts of Might and Magic Koruk, who also persecuted Shelty, and together they destroy the bastard once and for all.

Together, the clouds of Xina and Darkside make up one system, which was later united into a single game World of Xeen. It contained full versions of the plots of both games, as well as additional tasks for a new ending: after the destruction of Sheltem, the heroes return to the pyramid of the ancients, where they are entrusted with a mission to unite the two undergrasses of Xin. Just as it was with the first two parts, the player could transfer the heroes of Clouds of Xeen to Darkside, which not only restored the logic of the story, but also eliminated excessive difficulty at the beginning of the game.

The last two parts did not bring anything new to the series, but if the fourth game repeated the experience of the third, which was considered the best at that time, then this was no longer a rolling. The dark side of Xin was met with more moderate reviews and, in general, was appreciated as a satisfactory completion of history. The plot in it was quite average, some publications noted the ease of puzzles, but again the technical part of the whole thing pulled out somewhat: the Darkside of Xeen was one of the first games that used animations and digitized dialogs, it was an advanced graph and, perhaps, the best that was established by the previous parts remained.

After that there is a break in the Might and Magic series. In 1996, New World Computing buys 3DO Company, which became the forerunner of its end.