Posted June 19, 2023
After having grinded through MM1 and MM2, after my dismal performance in the last challenge in MM2 playing MM3 has been a very different experience. It offers you many easy ways to make fast and good progress. There is no need to lose hours in increasing your attributes... yes a bit of repetitive grinding is included but much less. The puzzles are nice not too difficult - but you need to play the English Version because at least on one Occasion the Translation into German just does not work. For many of these puzzles there are even back up options - places where you can find the answers, often however in places where higher level Party is required. The auto-mapping is very helpful as well and provides the comfort needed for players of my generation. But here my simple key take away
1) If you like to use Walking on Water to explore the oceans consider taking in a party member that is able to learn the Natural Magic. Neither Priest, nor Paladin nor Sorcerer are capable of doing this. Yes you can take a Druid as a hireling and yes you don´t need walking on water to finish the game but for exploring the sea and its monsters this would be helpful.
2) Save Money as of the first day. Especially if you want to max out the Level of your players.... In this game money is the limiting factor not so much the experience. This is also why I would recommend to avoid using hirelings especially the very expensive ones. 50K per day may not sound a lot but once you pay 150K for a promotion to the next level... you will think differently.
3) One of the annoying things in this game is that your armor even if it is the best possible will be broken quite frequently. And yes you can fix them but fixing is as expensive as the armor itself. And can be 100K... So again a source for losing money..... But there is an alternate approach. At some stage just play without armor. Yes it reduces your AC but... there are so many ways and items to increase your AC that you will not even feel the absence of armor. You can reach AC of 150 just via using various rings (Obsidian, Diamond, Saphire, etc) or different type of cameo or broach or medals or single cloak, Crown, or gauntlets. The key advantage is that none of these are generally broken in this game . This game really breaks primarily armor, on a few occasions also the weapon but armor is the main nuisance here. Only right at the end you face an opponent that in may case once but only once in 50 plus engagements broke for one character the whole set of rings etc. So just try it, it worked very well for me. Pease of mind - no need to repair - saving of money etc.
4) Leverage the fountains near your first City. Once you have cleared the areas around your starting City you can really make your Party much much stronger and impactful. Yes only till you rest again but it really allows you to much faster and with less issues through a number of Dungeons and places.
5) For those that want to maximize the Levels of your party - I would recommend to not chase increasing the attributes of your characters too much....as after 80% of the game there is a chance to gain plus 20 levels.... with some major hit on the Attributes.... Unfortunately I did not realize this and increased those attributes as much as possible so that when I had the chance to increase the level by 20 levels it was not anymore an appealing option.... So i did not do this. On the other side I ended with my Party having on average a level of 125 - my sorcerers a bit more my front line a bit less.
Finally - while I played MM1 and MM2 because of the good old days and my memories of my how much I enjoyed playing them as a Child MM3 actually also was fun for me 30 years back, primarily because the "stupid" grinding, that is also common to current games such as Fallout 76....is much less needed to be successful and you really can play this quite fluently.
1) If you like to use Walking on Water to explore the oceans consider taking in a party member that is able to learn the Natural Magic. Neither Priest, nor Paladin nor Sorcerer are capable of doing this. Yes you can take a Druid as a hireling and yes you don´t need walking on water to finish the game but for exploring the sea and its monsters this would be helpful.
2) Save Money as of the first day. Especially if you want to max out the Level of your players.... In this game money is the limiting factor not so much the experience. This is also why I would recommend to avoid using hirelings especially the very expensive ones. 50K per day may not sound a lot but once you pay 150K for a promotion to the next level... you will think differently.
3) One of the annoying things in this game is that your armor even if it is the best possible will be broken quite frequently. And yes you can fix them but fixing is as expensive as the armor itself. And can be 100K... So again a source for losing money..... But there is an alternate approach. At some stage just play without armor. Yes it reduces your AC but... there are so many ways and items to increase your AC that you will not even feel the absence of armor. You can reach AC of 150 just via using various rings (Obsidian, Diamond, Saphire, etc) or different type of cameo or broach or medals or single cloak, Crown, or gauntlets. The key advantage is that none of these are generally broken in this game . This game really breaks primarily armor, on a few occasions also the weapon but armor is the main nuisance here. Only right at the end you face an opponent that in may case once but only once in 50 plus engagements broke for one character the whole set of rings etc. So just try it, it worked very well for me. Pease of mind - no need to repair - saving of money etc.
4) Leverage the fountains near your first City. Once you have cleared the areas around your starting City you can really make your Party much much stronger and impactful. Yes only till you rest again but it really allows you to much faster and with less issues through a number of Dungeons and places.
5) For those that want to maximize the Levels of your party - I would recommend to not chase increasing the attributes of your characters too much....as after 80% of the game there is a chance to gain plus 20 levels.... with some major hit on the Attributes.... Unfortunately I did not realize this and increased those attributes as much as possible so that when I had the chance to increase the level by 20 levels it was not anymore an appealing option.... So i did not do this. On the other side I ended with my Party having on average a level of 125 - my sorcerers a bit more my front line a bit less.
Finally - while I played MM1 and MM2 because of the good old days and my memories of my how much I enjoyed playing them as a Child MM3 actually also was fun for me 30 years back, primarily because the "stupid" grinding, that is also common to current games such as Fallout 76....is much less needed to be successful and you really can play this quite fluently.