I liked Might & Magic X a lot. It is well designed, it goes back to the roots, it has really good combat, it has lots of hidden references to older games and it captured the "spirit" of the old games quite well.

The only downside of the game are the bugs. It was incredibly buggy, unplayable for many people. They fixed half of those issues but then ran off with a post saying "We have to move on to new things now". That was quite disappointing. If they invested another year into updates to make it fully stable and balanced, the game could have easily made it into my Top 100 of all time.

The indie game Sword and Sorcery: Underworld is basically a tribute to MM1+2 and has a similar (but higher resolution) graphical style. Although the author actually reworked and updated it since I played it, looks like the graphics have changed, but they still look fairly old-school. I thought the game was pretty good.

I swear the worst thing about those indie games is the font.

That's what people said the last time I mentioned it. Is a font really enough to prevent you from playing an entire game?

I brought it up again because it seemed like exactly what Dartpaw86 had asked for; a retro-styled game in the vein of Might and Magic with (partially) retro-styled graphics. I guess I should have also warned that it contains a font that many find offensive.

Yeah, font is that important. If the game feels cheap, I can't really get immersed into it. RPG Maker games have the same problem with their font.

Hmm, I just looked Swords and Sorcery screenshots and font seems ok. It is also quite big which is a big plus to me, though I can see why some might not like it (while for me small font became a no-go for other games).

Also RPG Maker allows using custom fonts of custom size.

Well, to some extent, the game is cheap. It's a single developer without much budget, using simple artwork and interface presentation. But it does a good job of capturing the feel of an early Might and Magic title, and I enjoyed exploring and battling through its subterranean world. Not as good as the actual Might and Magic games, of course, but still quite fun.

The sequel will supposedly have a full, open overworld to explore, and sounds like it may be closer to something like MM1 or MM2 in scale, which would be pretty cool. It will probably still have a cheap-looking font, however.

Is it just that such fonts are often associated with amateur, low-quality games? So it makes this one feel low-quality also? I'm not sure that the font used in MM1 is particularly nice-looking either, but perhaps it just has connotations of older games, rather than anything about the quality of the game?

As for RPG Maker, as Sarisio said it actually lets developers alter fonts and the appearance of menus, tiles, etc. completely, and there are some really nice-looking games made with it. But I've even enjoyed some games that use the stock art. Sure, many games with the stock art are pretty bad, but not all of them, and I think it's cool that tools like RPG Maker allow people to make games even if they have no talent for artwork or interface design.

But I can understand being put off by a game's aesthetic, so no worries if you're not into the look.

It's worth noting, however, that when I took a Game Design class in college, RPG Maker was the one game engine that was banned.

It was before RPG Maker was moved to Ruby. Old RPG Makers didn't allow to do many things and had very primitive scripting language with tons of limitations. Ever since RPG Maker XP+ situation changed. Though I still wouldn't call it a great engine.

I'm not surprised... I view it as a tool for people who want to make a game WITHOUT having to take a class on Game Design.

EDIT: Not meant as a disparagement of Game Design courses at all, they sound pretty cool.

If RPG Maker users put in some effort and create an actual good font or just one of the many good ones from existing RPGs rather than default one, then I play them too. :-)
I didn't mean to come off as generally against RPG Maker games, I've actually played quite a lot of them. But none of the Aldorlea games for example because of the horrible font and battle UI.

That Sword and Sorcery font just looks real cheap and it doesn't fit a western dungeon crawler RPG at all. For me it's a huge turn-off. Just can't convince myself to buy a game with such a font. ^^; It's not just association, it simply doesn't feel appropriate for the genre. It looks like a font appropriate for a school book maybe, but not for an RPG. And that ruins immersion for me.

The font in Might & Magic 1 might not be the best ever, but it tells me "You are playing an RPG". It's perfectly appropriate for the genre.

Where would I buy it?

Oh never mind, found it on Steam.

It's also available direct from the developer if you prefer a DRM-free version. The developer website is olderbytes.com.

(Sorry for late reply, I was traveling)

I bought direct and played the DRM-free version, but that was a while ago, before it was upgraded to the definitive edition.

Looks like there's a demo available from the developer's site also.