Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World

The Good
...then you'll love this.

After Book One, you entered the Gates to Another World. It was not long until you arrived at the other side. Remember in the good old days when getting the sequel to your favorite RPG was only a year away because they used the same game engine to continue the series? Well that's what they did here. Its the same game with a few touch ups.

Now you can have special skills and they added a couple of new classes. The spell list has been revised and expanded. You can now add two NPC characters to your party. Graphics are updated and best of all this game now has an automap.

Hardcore RPGers will appreciate the fact that the automap is an option, it is actually a skill which you can choose to learn or not. So its up to you if you want build mountains of graph paper or not. I happen to like it because like the first game this one is HUGE! Dozens of outdoor and indoor locations. The original let you visit the astral plane. Part II has four elemental planes to explore. With a non-linear plot, many quests to complete and dozens of places to explore you will definatly get your money's worth.

The Bad
While it was nice not having to wait years for a sequel, using the old engine means the same problems are here. The big one being only able to save in the town inns. Resetting of the dungeons is annoying. The real time ending of the game is unexpected. You have been warned.

Graphics are improved but at times it looks like they are trying a bit too hard to be pretty. Because of the limitations of EGA graphics the IBM version uses blue as the skin tone! This is not the case when I played it orginally on the Commodore 64.

The new skills and character classes don't really add much to the game (or detract from it).

The Bottom Line
This was the last game in the series that I would say is truly "old school". VGA graphics and a mouse interface were to follow. This is an excellent RPG that every old schooler should play.