Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

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).