Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
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
Groups +
- Fantasy creatures: Dragons
- Fantasy creatures: Dwarves
- Fantasy creatures: Goblins
- Fantasy creatures: Minotaurs
- Gameplay feature: Alchemy
- Gameplay feature: Auto-mapping
- Gameplay feature: Character development - Skill distribution
- Gameplay feature: Paper doll inventory
- Middleware: Smacker Video
- Might and Magic series
- Might and Magic universe
- Physical Bonus Content: World Map
- Protagonist: Female (option)
- Sound engine: AIL/Miles Sound System
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Credits (Windows version)
83 People (74 developers, 9 thanks) · View all
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Executive Producer | |
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Designers | |
Programming | |
Artists at New World | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 83% (based on 24 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 72 ratings with 5 reviews)
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
Excellent traditional cRPG. Graphics/audio sufficient for the fan.
The Good
The storyline and gameplay are extremely addictive. Until MM6, I have never been interested in playing a cRPG more than once in the same decade.
Like others in the MM series of RPGs, 'Mandate' focuses attention on storyline and gameplay rather than stats and treasure. Oh, there's plenty of numbers to churn and loot to boot, but you New World Computing doesn't require you to learn the details. There are no important penalties for skipping a minor quest, dying, delaying, or getting lost.
'Mandate' includes a fairly detailed political structure that is worth learning about (although, again, you can easily play without understanding it). The politics and economics of the land are less important. However, there's a wonderful sense of detail in the stories behind the various towns, provinces, and characters that has inspired many people to write some rather excellent stories about the game.
While the AI isn't brilliant, many of the monsters are tough enough on their own ability to make combat challenging. You can play Might, Magic, or a combination, but Magic is by far the most powerful in the game. Casting spells and using weapons is easy, although (alas) there are no keyboard shortcuts. You can fight in RealTime or phased (Turn-Based) modes, but only the most die-hard action player will be able to handle spellcasting in real time.
There are plenty of puzzles and quests. Too many are monty-haul or seek&return, but there are enough imaginative ones to keep most players happy. The bad quests weren't so onerous that I remember them 2 years later and the good quests were good enough that I still look for ones like them in other games.
The Bad
If you really care about graphics or sound, you will be disappointed by this game, even if you haven't played any other RPGs before. The environment and background music is definitely moody in the best sense of the word, but it's never profound or StarWars calibre. If you care more about gameplay, the multimedia shortcomings won't bother you at all.
The AI is clearly A but not very I. It's almost always possible to divide & conquer so that a clever player can defeat almost any monster combination at the weakest levels with a few choice spells. However, this is quite time consuming; serious melee will require brains and brawn (i.e. high character and spell levels and a smart player).
I miss the keyboard shortcuts from previous entries to the series. I miss being able to easily cast all my protection spells by creating a macro or at least not having to click the mouse on just the right spot. It can be quite time-consuming
The Bottom Line
I won't describe the storyline in detail. Plenty of reviews on the net do that already. Instead, here are my thoughts on how different types of players will react to this game.
(Incidentally, I played the game on a 166 MHz laptop with 1 MB of vRAM and 80 MB memory. The game ran well, except in a few dungeons with nearly a hundred monsters. I recommend at least 150 MHz, 48 MB RAM, 1 MB vRAM but 200 MHz 60 MB RAM, 2 MB vRAM would be better. 3D acceleration is not needed or useful.)
Fans of Might and Magic should really like the game. Other hard-core RPG and cRPG fans should enjoy it as well.
Wizardry and TES: Arena fans will mostly like the game. However, Wiz-fans will wish for harder puzzles, more involved storyline. Both groups will wish for more variety of character classes (although there really are plenty).
AD&D fans will be disappointed. Too little attention to numerical details. Not enough limitations on classes. Not enough role playing.
Action-game players will also be disappointed. Limited graphics, unexciting sound.
Adventure-game players will probably like the game, unless they really enjoy high definition cut-scenes and well defined storylines. The game allows you to travel pretty much where you want when you want (except for the endgame areas...and keep in mind, some areas will be too tough to handle).
Windows · by Tennessee Ernie Ford (16) · 2000
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
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.
References
In the town of Ironfist there is a 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
- 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
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Related Sites +
-
Mandate Mania
Colored maps and a whole lot more, including spells, artifacts, tips... -
Might & Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven Prima FastTrack Guide
featured on IGN -
Tennessee Ernie Ford's Guide to Enroth
A comprehensive site covering all aspects of the game. Includes strategies on party formation, spell casting, training, and combat. Includes extensive charts on all monsters, loot, and spells.
Identifiers +
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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, Plok, R3dn3ck3r.
Game added January 31, 2000. Last modified November 23, 2024.