Ubisoft’s latest release in the Might & Magic series takes an old-school approach to role-playing games. Designed to resemble the original games from back in the day, Might & Magic X Legacy is a truly brilliant and nostalgic role-playing experience. And while it replicates its classic predecessors, Legacy still uses a modern 3D engine and includes features that are still available in some of today’s role-playing games.
Legacy’s main story is divided into individual acts with their own objectives. Despite this, the game world is still an open-ended sandbox that allows the player to explore. This is the beauty of Might & Magic X Legacy – you don’t have to progress through the story until you’re ready. The game world is also massive; it can easily overwhelm the player the moment they begin to explore.
Due to the size of Legacy’s environments, you can easily encounter high level monsters that can kill you in an instant. Once you have gained a few levels and have acquired the appropriate weapons and gear, this becomes less of a problem. But when you first start the game, you need to be careful of where you travel.
Legacy offers a fair amount of character customization when designing your party. There are four different races and three classes per race. The characters you create play a role in the main story, regardless of who they are. Unlike previous Might & Magic games where you can choose from just about any race from the Dungeon & Dragon universe, Legacy limits the selection to humans, dwarfs and orcs. And since the classes are race specific, there is no option to build a human druid or an elf runepriest.
In the beginning, you are only allowed to add four different characters to your party. However, as you progress through the game, you can hire mercenaries and even recruit additional characters to your party. This gives you enough flexibility to interchange party members without losing your main characters. The mercenaries can be changed out at your discretion. The mercenary system makes up for the lack of party members you can have in the beginning.
Legacy’s classic gameplay is absolutely brilliant. It revives the classic turn-based combat system that appeared in some of the best role-playing games for PC. When you enter combat, you will no longer be able to move freely around the environment. At this point, you will need to select the actions of your party members.
Your party members can only attack once per turn. The available actions are reduced to three options – Attack, Defend and Cast Magic. Since each character in your party has their own turn, the only way to skip to a different party member is to choose ‘Defend’. This will place the prior character into a defensive stance, reducing the damage they will incur when attacked.
There is an option to select each of your characters manually during combat, but this method is not recommended. Skipping over a character or forgetting to issue an order during combat could have dire consequences for your party.
Sometimes it’s required to turn the 3D camera to the left or right to see creatures that are trying to flank you. The combat system prevents your party from moving during an enemy encounter, but the camera system gives you enough freedom to pan 360 degrees to evaluate your surroundings. The enemy AI (Artificial Intelligence) is crafty and will attack from every direction if given the chance. Your party’s ability to move can be restored when an enemy flees from combat. However, you are still limited by the parameters of combat until the creature is either a certain distance from your party or killed.
Legacy’s graphics are a stunning display of bright colors and smooth-looking 3D graphics. The particle effects for some of the spells are vibrant displays of vaporous, transparent gases that fill the screen during the casting processing. Screams and groans round out the experience as your party hacks away at the various monsters that inhabit the dungeons.
Might and Magic X Legacy is a remarkable role-playing game; it is easily one of the best Dungeons & Dragons games available on Steam. And thanks to Ubisoft, we no longer have to play hybrid first-person shooters in the guise of role-playing games; the real deal has finally arrived.
James ‘Daripp3r’ Pittaro
Platform: PC (Available on Steam)
System Requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8 (all 32/64 bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 @ 2.6 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ @ 2.7 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8800GT or AMD Radeon HD3870 (512MB VRAM with Shader Model 4.0 or higher)
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 10 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card with Latest Drivers
Additional Notes: Using the Minimum Configuration, we strongly recommend to use minimal settings in order to not experience low framerate.
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
ESRB: N/A
Price: $24.99
Might & Magic X Legacy’s Official Website
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |  |
| Legacy’s graphics are a stunning display of bright colors and smooth-looking 3D graphics | |
| Sound | |
| Screams and groans echo through the dungeons as you engage the enemy. | |
| Gameplay | |
| Classic role-playing at its finest. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Might and Magic X Legacy is a remarkable role-playing game that any self-respecting PC gamer should own. | |
