Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

aka: MM6, Might and Magic VI : Le Mandat Celeste, Might and Magic VI: Boskie Prawo
Moby ID: 812
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Description official descriptions

After the corrupt Guardian Sheltem was defeated, the seemingly never-ending war between the Ancients and the alien Kreegans entered a new phase. Meteor-like spaceships populated by the Kreegans fell onto the technologically less advanced planet Enroth. The local king, Roland Ironfist, plans to attack the demonic-looking aliens, but is betrayed by a mage named Sulman and gone missing. Xenofex, the king of the Kreegans, establishes a cult teaching people that the Ironfist dynasty has lost its Mandate of Heaven to rule the realm. Meanwhile, the town of Sweet Water is invaded by the Kreegans, and four adventurers become involved in the battle and the search for the missing king.

The Mandate of Heaven is the sixth installment in the Might and Magic series, and the first one with the playing area done with a real 3D engine, allowing free exploration of the terrain (as opposed to the grid-based movement of the previous games) and camera rotation. Characters and many objects are represented by 2D sprites. The gameplay follows the formula of the predecessors with several changes, the most notable of which is the option to fight in real time. Real-time combat allows free movement, while the traditional turn-based one is stationary.

Character creation is somewhat more restricted: there are no other races but humans to choose from, and the party contains only four adventurers. Six classes are available: Knight, Druid, Paladin, Cleric, Sorcerer and Archer. A new skill system has been introduced, allowing the player to manually raise character skills (e.g. proficiency in specific weapon types) when the character levels up. Characters also gain access to skills of most classes, regardless of their original class designation.

Spellings

  • Меч и Магия: Благословение небес - 2003 Russian spelling
  • 魔法門VI ─ 奉天承運 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 魔法门VI:天堂之令 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

83 People (74 developers, 9 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 70 ratings with 5 reviews)

MM6: The mandate of perpetual repetitions

The Good
The character creation system was good, and the freedom of movement and non-linearity of the quests are all to my liking. You are free to explore whatever you want whenever you want.

I also like how the game is real-time for most of the game, but you can change it to turn-based when there is action.

The Bad
The "free" exploration isn't really free, is it? Heading out from town, you are attacked by a horde of enemies. So you switch to turn-based combat, and "fight" the enemies. This pretty much means clicking the enemies one after the other until they are dead. There is very little skill involved, as (at least in the early game) each character will have pretty much only one usable spell, or you will use whatever weapon is equipped. So you click and click and click. There will be a horde of enemies, so after a while you will need to run back to the inn and spend a night in order to regain health points. Then head out of town again, and keep clicking away. Run back to the inn, back out, click-click-click. Then you may find a dungeon, where you explore the different rooms and corridors until you meet another horde. Click-click-click. Run back out of dungeon. Run back to town. Sleep. Run back to dungeon. Run back to room full of enemies. Click-click-click. Get bitten by a bat/spider/rat and get poisoned. Go to temple and pay money to get healed. Go back to the rats. Click-click-click. Get poisoned again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I don't understand what the makers of this game were thinking and I cannot understand what the people rating this game highly are looking for in a game. I guess the storyline might improve, I gave up after hours upon hours of click-click-clicking, after which I had finished some mildly interesting dungeons. When I headed to the next map screen and was overrun by ten trillion skeletons, and it turned out I had to travel for five days, click-click-click, travel back for five days, go buy 10 days of rations, travel for five days, click-click-click, I gave up.

I don't understand why they made combat this way: rather have fewer, perhaps more challenging encounters? There is never a chance that you will die, as you can simply turn heels and run back to the inn and heal up. There is no way in which you can use skill in the combat in any way, unless you count getting a river between yourself and enemies with no missile weapons and then click-click-clicking for fifteen minutes.

The non-player characters are also completely dead. They pretty much have 2 constant comments each: a general tip, and then you can hire them. Another annoying detail is that all shops/town halls/etc. follow their opening hours very strictly, but the NPC's are running around equally busy whether night or day. So you come into a bustling town full of people, but everything is closed because its 3am.

The Bottom Line
What could conceivably have been an interesting (if lacking in character depth) game becomes a very pointless exercise in left button mouse clicking because the designers chose to create "difficulties" by swarming you with identical monsters and then compensating this by giving you a lightening fast dash which allows you to outrun everyone. Also, a night's sleep and two apples heal all damage.

Windows · by Dr_Bab (7) · 2011

It started out a ton of fun, but it's the first time I ever bought a strategy guide.

The Good
The story line was engrossing. This game really hit home with me and helped me break my addiction to an on-line text RPG. Well-picked background music really helped set the tone, and this was one of the first games where I closed my door to drown out other sounds.

The interface was fairly well done, though I used turn-based almost exclusively in battle. The few times I didn't I was launching ranged weapons at the enemy and strafing side to side to dodge the return fire. It worked fantastically, but it felt cheap. It wasn't hard to confuse or screw up the AI.

Gameplay was also balanced. There were good and bad things about pretty much every character.

The backgrounds changed with the weather.

The Bad
Considering how good I think the game is, a lot. Maybe I'm just more of a story line/gameplay type guy.

Graphics were shoddy. The box said something about 3D acceleration, but I'm still looking for it. Backgrounds looked like they came from a cartoon, and didn't move much.

Sound effects were definitely not high on the priority list in development. They're there, and they are useful to know when someone is dying or being attacked, but if a ball of lightning goes whizzing past you, it doesn't make a sound.

The AI was really dumb. Sometimes it helped because enemies had so many HPs it was ridiculous, but often I felt I was taking advantage of it.

There was really very little in terms of AD&D rules. Stats could be jacked way up (over 100, I think), and getting another +1 to Strength just got old.

There were far too many ways to improve your character, and the story line was so un-linear, it was like Baldur's Gate where you wonder what will happen if you finish something out of order. While it was nice to have side-quests and such, I often felt swamped with too many to complete, and not sure which one to do first. There was also no real clue about where to go next. I found myself fighting level 3 monsters at level 20, then thinking it would have been a lot easier to have fought that before doing whatever it was I did.

It was very long.

The Bottom Line
It's a great game. I never played any of the other M&M's before this one, but I didn't really feel that I missed anything. After getting part way through the game I went back and read some of the history, and it's actually quite interesting.

I wouldn't try to finish the game without a strategy guide (personally), but it's a lot of fun even if you don't finish it.

As inspiration, you may want to watch the intro a few times. It really sets the tone.

Windows · by Cyric (50) · 2001

Mighty and magical -- not.

The Good
I liked the huge five year long gap between parts 5 and 6. Was anxious to experience all the vast improvements that would justify this gap.

I also liked the quirky touches in the manual.

The Bad
Others might disagree, but I think the main assets of any CRPG are supposed to be NPC interaction and atmosphere. When the emphasis shifts to anything else, like constant leveling upwards, the overall game experience comes off as hollow. Sadly, this is just what gives in M&M6. Prepared to get immersed in a deep, involving adventure, I found myself in a rather generic quest-fest, required to meet impersonal and laconic NPC's on non-interactive 'conversation' screens who proceeded to send me on repetitive killing sprees over and over again. Not even the most important NPC's are developed or memorable (Nicolai, Wilbur etc.), everything they have to say directly or indirectly triggers yet another XP-boost session (or quest).

I'm not rating graphics, audio or the like, because these are not what I'm looking for in an RPG. In this one I haven't found what I'm looking for, so enough said.

The Bottom Line
A glorified hack&slash game with no real depth or personality, almost like a 3D Diablo. All throughout Enroth, I felt a bittersweet nostalgia involving New Sosaria (aka Serpent Isle).

Windows · by András Gregorik (59) · 2004

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
MM6 guide Rain Ungert (1) Jan 18, 2014

Trivia

Hidden dungeon

There is a hidden easter egg dungeon in the game. More information can be found in the tips & tricks section.

References

In the town of Ironfist there is a not-so-subtle reference to Star Trek; the Original Series - when you leave the temple you are told to "Live long and prosper", a common Vulcan greeting. In the Tomb of Varn there is another original Star Trek reference; unfortunately it would be a major spoiler to reveal it here!

Awards

Might and Magic 6 was voted #39 overall (tied with Curse of Monkey Island) in PCGamer Magazine's Readers All-Time Top 50 Games Poll (April 2000 issue). * Computer Gaming World + April 1999 (Issue #177) – Runner-up as Best RPG of the Year * PC Gamer + April 2000 - #39 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games Poll" (together with The Curse of Monkey Island * Power Play + Issue 02/1999 – Best First-Person RPG in 1998

Information also contributed by DJP Mom and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by DarkTalon.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Jeanne, anneso, lord of daedra, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Igor Pokrovsky, Tom Chen, R3dn3ck3r.

Game added January 31, 2000. Last modified February 13, 2024.