So I finally beat MM6 for the first time. Overall I did enjoy playing it, but I am unable to see how people consider this to be the best between 6,7 and 8. With it being the first game in this style it is good. But I feel that there is a lot of unrefined aspects. In my view MM7 is a complete over 6. Classes are better, the skill system makes more sense, finding skill trainers is easier. The only part that I feel that could be argued about is which story is better. Again I prefer 7, but I can see other liking 6. Adding all this up I already know that when I want to replay a might and magic game that I will always choose 7, I'd even choose 8 over 6. So I want to know what other people think.
What do you guys like about MM6 that isn't improved upon in MM7?

Six is the toughest. At least until you get Lloyd's Beacon.

all hail the almighty Lloyd!!

his beacon has been a necessary staple of the series, i used it all the time in M&M 2, world of xeen, 6 and 7 myself

as for some people considering 6 the best it may be that they grew up with teh game and have a nostalgia thing going for it
as a kid i played the stuffing outta #2 on my commodore c64 .... gods i feel like an old man now XD

Size of world, dungeons, ability to level as you want without having to choose Dark/Light stuff and without being stuck with low tier (non/Expert/Master/GM) skills. Castle Alamos, Castle Darkmoor, Corlagon's Estate, Temples of Baa and many other places - there are simply no such places in MM 7+ (outside maybe the Maze and Nighon Tunnels, but that's it). I actually found it other way around. MM 7 (and definitely MM 8, if you don't use high level premades and dragons) is much smaller than MM 6, so you end up with lower level characters. Survivability of Sorcerers was also heavily nerfed. Being much smaller, MM 7 and MM 8 also lack !real replayability!, e.g., in MM6 areas respawn as you go, but in MM7+ with only a few areas you quickly end up with empty world. MM7+ feel like they should be rather expansions to MM6 than stand-alone games.

Might and Magic VI is a much bigger game than VII, and while I prefer M&M VII's more polished and contained experience (it being somewhere around 30 hours instead of 50+ certainly makes it easier to justify a replay), there's something to be said for raw ambition. VII doesn't have very many "eff you" big dungeons and the addition of the Invisibility spell makes it a lot easier to cheese through certain parts of the game.

MM7 - searching for all those skill trainers became annoying.

Also, I take it you played 7 before 6? If it was the other way round then with VI you'd be "wow this is some pretty neat new stuff", while with VII "meh, I've seen this before...".

might and magic 4 n 5 > 6,7,8 :D

I agree personally, but it's interesting to see the split in opinions for the series. A lot of players who like carefully designing a party to handle the toughest of challenges, getting the most out of spells, skill choices and equipment, tend to like MM6 a lot. They also enjoy the opportunities for similar strategy in MM1 and MM2 (both of which I also like a lot, although I mostly enjoyed the exploration and mapping aspect). But I personally prefer the more colorful, varied, puzzle-filled adventure of MM4 and 5, and found MM6 to get tedious when slogging through huge swathes of enemies. Of course, maybe that's because I hadn't developed the perfect strategy for clearing them all out. I did like a lot of the dungeons in MM6, which all had their own feel, and exploring the world was cool, but it felt like it took me forever to fight through the huge armies I encountered.

I like the whole series (of the ones I've played) but personally like the feel of MM4-5 the best, even though they're probably the easiest ones. Incidentally, they're also the first ones I played so maybe it's all just nostalgia.

For the record, I haven't played MM3, or 7-9 (yet). I've played all the rest.

pretty fair assement of the series, as might and magic 4 and 5 are more classic dungeon crawlers then 6-8, but all might and magic games (except 9) are good games. :)

7 and 8 plays like a more balance and streamed line of 6, while mm 3 plays like a pre version of 4 n 5. Should play those games when you are hungry for more might and magic in the future :)

I liked 3 better than 4+5 (which I find the weakest in the series 1-8; but a great game nonetheless). Again it could possibly be due to the novelty factor of 3, which was not present when I started 4.

The main reason I dislike 4+5 is that towards the end you reach a stage where your party is way too powerful, and can breeze through most dungeons just kill all enemies way too easily. This is especially seen in those "combined" stages after you kill both bosses, some of which just felt tedious.
Also, if you finish Clouds first, your party is going to be too powerful through the first town of Darkside (maybe starting a new party there would be a good idea).

The best dungeon crawling elements were in 1. Too bad the interface was crappy.

Great series overall.

I'm definitely planning to play them, I just haven't gotten around to them yet. The real question is whether I will play MM6 again when I get to it... honestly, like the OP I'm not that excited about it, but I also want to try it again to see if my perspective on it has changed. I first played it on release and haven't tried it again since then, I wonder if I'd like it better now. I'd also like to have it more fresh in my mind before I tackle 7 and 8.

Of course, I still have to find the time to play them, so it probably won't be for a while!

Glad you have plenty of time to play plenty of games, as that is the curse of being a pc gamer, having access to too many games! Just have fun playing the games when you feel like to play a dungeon crawler :)

I feel *precisely* the same way, in fact I could have written this exact OP. out of all from 3-10, 6 is easily the one I enjoyed the least. I do intend to try it out again sometime, since I also learned 3D M&M for the first time playing it, but yes, I enjoyed 7 and 8 and even 9 SOOO much more than 6.

I've only played M&MVII and liked it a lot. From what I hear, M&MVI is better for some people because it has bigger dungeons packed with monsters. For me, that's actually a disadvantage. There comes a point when exciting dungeon exploration becomes an annoying slog because the dungeon experience has overstayed its welcome. You push to the end of it to complete the quest and move on to something different, but you hate the experience. That's why I'm in favour of the smaller, tighter dungeons of M&MVII. You never stay too long in any one of them so that they become tedious.

It's obvious that later games have some tweaks an fixes, but few things make "Mandate of heaven" stand apart:

1) From the paperdolls (that seems more alive than later games CGI) to oponents six part has distinctive look. I like it better than later ones,
2) World is bigger, more open, has tons of secrets. There is no "tutorial island", you just start before entrance to New Sorpigal and it's all up to you.
3) Character development, though less balanced maybe is also more open. It's easy to create team that will have acces to all spells
4) More enemies, more challenge. But it sometimes becomes tedious, I admit.

I'm currently playing "Mandate...", so it's fresh look, not nostalgia googles mode.

Still, it's great we have choice beetwen different flavours of awesome.