And by what definition of "good"?

It's godawful, but since they have the rest of the series here it makes sense to finish it up for the completionists.

It's not great by any means, perhaps slightly better than some make it out to be (it's no Master of Orion 3. It's still recognizably a Might and Magic game) but they need to have the entire series for completion's sake.

I think it's at least worthy of being called an interesting game, if for the concepts and ideas presented rather than the execution. That's because for the most part, Might and Magic IX isn't so much aggravatingly bad as it is often boring and mediocre.

I agree with this. When I first played MMIX, I think I was expecting MM6 or MM7 still, but all I got was the same graphics and half the story. MM8 was also [pretty bad.

You should take into consideration that MM IX was rushed because 3DO was drowning. I know that it doesn't excuse its flaws, though many of them were fixed by community (the devs couldn't do it because they went down) with patch that is included with the GOG release.

I will still def play it again. Using the patch this time!

It tried many things that would have been an advancement over the older games but it ia so bugged and unfinished. I still had quite some fun with the game but would call it good.

One of the things I remember was that travel, even across a single map, was a pain in the ass. I don't have time to play through the game nd figure out exactly what I did way back when, but I seem to remember relying exclusively on teleportation. Taking out the fly spell was a really dumb decision.

For MM9... The story and quests do get pretty good if you stomach the first half of the game. The Dungeon crawling was/is really good in my opinion.

So there you have it from me; Its not really a great game, but If you play it to the end you'll probably agree it is between decent and good.

I've played worse but it's a sad installment of one of my favorite series (Ultima is tops with me!). The gameworld seems so lifeless and sterile. Thanks to Gog, I now have Might & Magic 1 through 9. I can group the titles into 3 sets. 1 & 2 were the beginning and they do feel like old games, with the ancient graphics. Still fun to play though. 3, 4, & 5 have the same look and feel and I group those together and a big step forward in graphics, gamescreen, etc. 6, 7, and 8 also belong together as they seem cut from the same cloth. Of course, this leaves 9 all alone in the backyard eating worms. If someone were to have me play this without telling me what series it belonged to I think I would probably feel it was like a dream. Something seems familiar but can't quite put your finger on it. It's a departure from the others to be sure and a sad one considering the preceding games but not a totally horrid game.

It has quit some good ideas, but the execution is really bad. The whole game feel unbalanced, unpolished, and somehow, unfinished. I actually quit like its character leveling system, and the decent loots of scrolls and equipments make dungeon crawling awarding.

But it really gave me a bad impression when I encountered those monsters hanging on the ceiling in the sewer of the first town. It kept spewing new monsters toward me so I could not hit it at all. I remember I spent more than five minutes keeping mashing the attack button, until it died by my accidental hits. And then there is another one around the corner......

I couldnt get in to be honest, i really loved the previous games.

Its an ok game, i bought it here on gog.com mostly because i allready have 6,7,8 working on vista with the old system, but couldnt get my mm9 to work, so i bought it as a christmas gift for myself :)
Will have to see how well it works on my vista when i get home from holidays tho !

As to the "greatness" its definitely the worst of the 4 though

Not sure what to say about it's greatness, but i'm already kinda stuck on the first island. The guy who pushed himself into my party says something about a locked door and that i should kill some fish, but... i have no idea where or what. >_>

(Go into the ruins? Get murdered by skeletons. Take on the sea monster at the ship wreck? Get murdered by it.)

Weird start. And... a pretty bad impression, actually.

Talk to him, he'll suggest you talk to Yrsa again. She'll give you the key to the turret. This is located around to the left of the ruins, so you don't have to go in there. Fight some skellies, loot the chest, and read the book you find.