MIght and magic is a great series all around, but to me, the first two games hold a special place in my heart. hard as a mug, i don't even know if i can finish them, but they are great none the less! like bards tale, wizardry, so on. i believe bards tale is freeware now, so look them up their great. but my question is this: is there ANYONE out there who would rather play might and magic 1 or 2, then any that came afterwords?

I hold a special place for these old games as they were my first. Wizardry1-3 MM1-2, BT1-3, and others. I still love to play them and am currently playing the Wizardry Llylgamyn Saga - A Japanese only SNES Release of the first three games (using emulator and english patch on PSP). I absolutely love the updated wall textures and mob graphics.

In answer to your question - Yes (I have both one, two and six installed on my PC) and I dabble with them from time to time. I really liked six as well ;-)

MM2 is my favourite Might&Magic game.
It has the best and most tactical combat of any of the M&M games, and I loved the loot system, where powerful items were alignment restricted and you could find items with pluses up to +32 (+64 on the Amiga, I think).

MM3-5 had better interface, but the combat was much simplified. I don't remember much about MM4-5, but MM3 was just too easy and you maxed out on equipment too soon. Halfway through the game most of the equipment was Obsidian, while in MM2 just about every encounter was a possibility for better equipment. Also in MM2 if you played normally without grinding you constantly met tougher enemies, and you might not even meet the most powerful ones before you completed the game.
MM1 was also good. A slightly simpler combat system than in MM2, but no Ninjas or Barbarians. But no automap is the worst turn off for me now.

After MM2, MM6 is my favourite. Huge open world to explore, excellent loot whoring system, and while the combat leaves a bit to be desired (neither the real time nor the turn based option feels right) it's great fun to carpet bomb groups of enemies with Star Burst and Meteor Shower while flying over them. :-)

MM2 is also my favorite. I started playing it when I was about 12 years old and finished it when I was in my late 20's. I've probably put 1000 hours into it over my life.

If any game was recreated from the old days, I'd want MM2 rebuilt. The world is awesome, but sadly devoid of interaction. I'd love to see lots more NPCs, more quests, and a crowd going berserk when you win the Black Triple Crown.

The combat can stay the same.

But even with its faults and failures, it's still a game I can pick up today and enjoy.

MM8 was my next fav, followed by 6. I never go around to playing 7. I had all the others, but they never really moved me much. I played them briefly and then put them away to keep working on 2.

I played 8 a few years back (bought it on ebay or something) and it was quite rough -- but still the best soundtrack ever. For me, the others are just not playable anymore. Just MM2.

My personal favorite in the series is still World of Xeen (MM4-5), but that could largely be nostalgia since I haven't played them in a long time. When I bought the 6-pack from GOG more recently, I decided to tackle the games in order and so far I've gone through MM1 and MM2, and they were both great. While the improvements in MM2 were quite nice, I think I might actually prefer MM1, due to its really imaginative level design. MM2's open outdoor areas made sense, but I kind of liked how the "walls" in the outdoor areas of MM1 created the illusion of dense, magical forests or mountain ravines.

Overall I was really impressed with MM1 and MM2, even though they couldn't quite surpass my nostalgic memories of Xeen. I'd probably take MM1 and MM2 over MM6, though. I liked MM6 but not as much as the earlier games.

I have only played 2 and 6. For some reason I had trouble with one running, I forgot why. I started two which I like but my lv 13 wizard is missing in action somehow. So frustrated, I just started on 3. Am enjoying it so far (sharing time with Fallout), so I am not deep into it yet. I had 1-6 from the disk before. That's when I played 6 which I really loved. Was close to the finish when my computer went belly up and had to get a newer system,..which was too new for the game of course. But now thanks to GOG, I have all the M&M's. I will play a little 2 now and then to build up another wizard. But also thanks to GOG, I have so many great games, it's like a kid in a candy store...what do I play with my little free time?

I love 1 and 2. I got 1 back in 1988 for my Tandy 1000, and bought 2 when it was new. So new, in fact, it had a bug that wouldn't let hirelings join, meaning you couldn't finish the game since you needed a hireling to do something critical! I never knew about the patch, so I never got to finish playing the game until I got the M%M 1-5 CD. I still didn't win it until last year. The cluebook isn't a must, but the listings of items and their classes and abilities is damn useful.

I also played the bard's Tale games, but Might and Magic were superior in just about every way. That's not to say the Bard games weren't great, just that the M&M series is so much better. I've loaded up M&M 1 on every PC I've owned for the last 20+ years. Yeah, the graphics are... mid 80's 4-color stuff you could surpass with ten minutes in MS Paint, but to me it's always been the gameplay that mattered, and the M&M series is unsurpassed in that regard. I'm just now playing M&M VI for the first time, and it is even better than I ever expected!

what i like about them, is that you just don't find that kind of gaming anymore! sure there are like 2 games out there noone's ever heard of that are like this, but otherwise the art of party based dungeon crawling in first person turn based where you fight huge party's of monsters at a time and its VERY difficult are nearly dead now!

thought i'd throw this one out there:

wizardry has a new game out that is great, just like these old dungeon crawlers we love so much. I think its only for the playstation 3 though...correct me if i'm wrong...

There's actually an indie dev who made a game heavily inspired by MM1 and MM2, and which he's now remaking into a fancy "Gold" version that features much better graphics in addition to other improvements. I haven't played it as I'm waiting for the Gold version but the original version got some decent reviews from RPG sites. People might be interested to check it out:

http://www.olderbytes.com/

Looks like it's been added to the GOG wishlist so if people want to get it from GOG they can vote for it.

Looks good. There is also a Bard's Tale type out called the Devil's Whiskey. Would like it on GOG. I may get it anyway later but it's always better on GOG.

I played Devil Whiskey back in 2004 or so. It was fun, but too easy. Very linear, like the first Bard's Tale, with just about every quest spelled out for you. Not much exploring or puzzle solving. Most frustrating was that you could easily win the game long before your mages could level even halfway to maximum spell level. I finished without ever getting to use the more powerful spells, and I never needed them. Unless they've updated it to improve on those things, I see no need to play it again.

Shortly after posting that I saw the announcement that Underworld Gold is coming out on Sept. 20. Hopefully this means there will be some reviews showing up soon.

Really? May wait till it gets cheap then......

Greetings!

could you tell a bit or a lot about more tactics in MM2?
Is it only about :
- front line and back line characters,
- ranged attacks (archers more useful),
- rumor: an option to split party (like in Fate)
- critical hits (ninja)

Are these make much tactic possibilities?

And most importantly: is level scaling tolerable (although I heard about great imbalance later)?

thanx.

Basically, yes.
In later M&M games there is no such things as front and rear ranks. In MM2 the size of the ranks (both the party's and the enemy's) are based on terrain. In narrow corridors only two character may have room to fight in melee, for example.
Archers make for good buffer characters since they can wear most armour and they are equally effective with a bow in front as in rear.
Robbers can get backstab attacks and ninja critical hits, but only in melee. Ninjas are restricted to Ring Mail and can't use shields, so they tend to have poorer AC than Robbers and Archers, making them more vulnerable in melee.
You can compose the party any way you like as long as it contains at least one player character. This is especially useful when doing the class upgrade quests.

In addition to your party having more options, the enemies are also much more varied in size than in MM3-5. You can face anything from 1 to 255 enemies, and the combinations are virtually endless. And with loot going from +1 to +32/+64 (depending on system) and most of it being alignment restricted means there is always the possibility of finding better loot.

All in all this makes MM2 my favourite of the old M&M games. It's only downside compared to MM3-5 is that dungeons are not saved when you exit them and are respawned if you re-enter. The level scaling is tolerable, but noticeable. I don't think it's imbalanced, since it prevents you from facing enemies that are much higher level. IMO it tends to make the game too easy in some areas.
But some areas are scaled too high, since the fixed, non-scaled encounters are too weak. So if you enter the Ice Cavern or Nomad's Rift (which are off the beaten track) when lvl 30 there will be huge discrepancy between the fixed non-scaled encounters and the random scaled ones.