Ugh, Might & Magic. Possibly the longest and most tedious NES RPG, at least the most tedious to get a North American release anyway.
Ugh, Might & Magic.
Ugh, Might & Magic. Possibly the longest and most tedious NES RPG, at least the most tedious to get a North American release anyway.
k.. keep me posted
i've heard of the Deep Dungeon games but those were only in Japan
Those aren't as long as M&M.
There's a reason why CRPGs are a niche genre only enjoyed by losers stuck in the past while JRPGs are still thriving to this day.
cool, take it to his youtube channel comments section
I've beaten it. This is what I wrote
Released in 90 (92 in the US), a port of a one of the biggest first person computer CRPGs from the mid 80's, and first game of that major series. While console ports of such games have bad reputation by enthusiasts, I would say this version fares really well. Compared with other versions nothing seems to have been compromised, and on the contrary graphics and musics seem a lot better on NES and there are some QOL and a simpler interface. This might just be the best version of the game (blasphemy!).
This is it, the big it. The biggest RPG on the system, or so people say... Having beaten both I would say it's about equal in scope and content with Megami Tensei II but that still makes it a HUGE game loaded with content. It took me almost a month to beat (while using fast-forward for the slow combat text), including 4-5 days in that month during which I did nothing but play the game all day.
There is a total of 55 16*16 areas, in comparison the size of the world in Deep Dungeon IV or The Bards Tales are less than a third of that and those already take 30 hours to complete. There are also more than 250 items and almost 200 enemies and you must create a party of 6 from 5 races and 6 classes.
Alignement also comes into play, there is also food, a second consumable to cast spells (on top of MP), age, gender, I'm probably forgetting something (for instance, there are 3 forms of death: faint, dead, and annihilated)... You get the point, the game is massive. But is it good?
Technically speaking it is amazing, simply the best I've seen on the system. Moving around is fast and smooth, there is a small animation when turning which makes it feel 3D, in combat there can be up to 4 different enemy graphics at the same time (big ones, this is probably what they mean by Magic), graphics are great and musics sound really good although they get repetitive fast as you'll be hearing the same 3 tracks for most of the game.
(cont)
>The biggest RPG on the system, or so people say
Not the biggest in ROM size as it's a 256k game and there are 512k RPGs like DQ4 and FF3 but they may not be quite as lengthy.
Well the difference is, when it comes to first person RPGs, it is very simple to make huge dungeon layouts which take very little space
i see they didn't nerf it like NES Wizardry where you can save your game anywhere you want and you can't die of old age if you take too long to finish
It has the hardest start of any RPG I've played. Some Famicom RPGs are known for having rough starts but they are nothing compared to this game, the difficulty at first is high, but the main problem is understanding and getting used to the mechanics which are nothing like in other RPGs.
Why can't I deal physical attacks sometimes? Why do some enemies get more turns? Does lvling up even do anything other than raise HP/MP? Those are some of the basic questions that took me a WHILE to figure out.
Even past the start of the game the game remains filled with death traps for a while, it took me 20 hours of stumbling around, making 2 steps forward, 1 step back, before reaching a cruising state. After a while though I didn't just become strong, I became a GOD with powers such as being able to teleport or warp behind walls in dungeons, casting spells on 16 enemies at once or duplicating any item.
Regarding progression, the player must find quests to advance, most of things are given by Kings in castles (this too took me longer to figure out than it should have). There is more or less an order to things but the player is free to do anything in any order.
A lot of quests can be solved in several ways, and a lot of things are optional.
As soon as you have a Wizard with lvl 3 spells you can even fly to any location on the world map, you can go anywhere and it's up to you to figure out where things are. The game comes with a mini map for indoor locations which fills up automatically as you explore (as long as you have light), there is also a world map for the overworld but that one isn't very helpful.
You're still going to want to make your own maps for everything due to several reasons.
There is lvl scaling (to some extent) to accomodate for this freedom but you shouldn't hesitate to lvl-up, it's not really possible to get screwed by the scaling (except when you reach a certain threshold but that doesn't last long).
(cont)
One thing I didn't like is that it was impossible to tell what items did, even when trying them out in every way possible sometimes, and there isn't even any complete data on that anywhere online. Weapons you can't tell their strength in game either except trying them out in combat or checking their price.
Also while graphics were very varied in the world map, there are only 3 sets of graphics for dungeons (with pal swaps).
Pacing in combat was way too slow, even with text speed set to fast it was a bit of a slog.
Ending spoilers: I hated the last dungeon and the ending. It was exactly like the first SD Gundam RPG: no enemy in the final dungeon, no final boss, instead your reward is being teased for the sequel (on SNES this time). If you want a "final boss", try and beat the horde of Volcano Giant in E1... that should keep you busy!
I could go on forever but in conclusion, despite the VERY rough start, the issues with balancing (how do you balance a game in which the player has this much freedom though?) I ended loving this game. It's clearly underrated and I feel most people are just too afraid to start it up because they know about the length and the rough start.
If you like RPGs with a high degree of freedom and if you like to figure things out by yourself, this game is for you!
For me that roughness at the start only made Godhood even more sweet when I reached it.
(cont)
Oh, I see, it was just OP making a thinly veiled thread to dump his blog post.
I'm not the OP. I've played 100+ NES/FC RPGs but I didn't make this thread, just posted my experience with M&M when I saw it.
newbie
>"please don't bully the famibot, he's le board culture"
>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STOP TALKING ABOUT VIDEO GAMES STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT
Shouldn't you be in one of the containment boards?
I agree with this sentiment but I think that this thread's OP went over the line with that opening "Ugh" and the shallow complaint that follows it. That's just a horrible way to start a thread. Normal "famibot" threads are just neutral nodes from which discussion may grow, which is basically neutral and harmless, regardless of whatever intention may be behind it. But this OP sucks.
However Famicom JRPG collage anon has saved the thread by actually talking about the game, albeit only in copy-paste form. It does actually sound like a pretty cool game. I want to try it sometime.
>It does actually sound like a pretty cool game. I want to try it sometime.
good luck. you're going to need it.
Some playing tips:
-Make sure to play the US version, which came more than 1 year after the JPN version, it has bugfixes and extra QOL. However that version also took out a bit of content, there is a hack which restores it.
-The game gives you starting characters, you can re-roll them (everything + stats) somewhere in the starting town. You should do that for at least one of them, you lose your EXP so do that first.
-Don't use the Gnome race, no, not even as a robber.
-I recommend having two wizards and one Cleric. But don't be afraid to experiment and screwing up, once you're into the game, re-creating a character even from scratch is easy and there are many ways to easily grind for exp and gold.
-At the start of the game, equipping both melee and long range weapons at the same time is useful.
-Donating to get protection at the church also makes enemies stronger, do it at your own risk.
-Take notes for everything, look at those notes once in a while.
-Most things can be redone, even the important things.
-If you want a logical/smooth progression at the start: stay around Sorpigal and Portsmith (C2-C1-B2-B1), go to the castles.
-If you really hit a dead end, go look into another direction and come back later. Start by finding all the towns and the first 3 castles.
-Contrary to what a Japanese website says, the speed stat is very important! If enemies get extra turns, your speed stats are too low for those enemies. It affects the character but also the whole team.
________
That's it. Japanese version had some bugs which were fixed for US release which could explain the differences from player comments found on JPN sites. There is a romhack which restores some lost content from the JPN version too. As for the length, it has a reputation for being super long, but in fact I would say it's just as long as Megami Tensei II. In fact, MTII might be longer.
>it has bugfixes and extra QOL
What are the specific bugfixes and QOL?
There was quite a bit iirc but the only thing I remember is that in the JPN version, quest items are only registered by the quester if they're in the inventory of the first party member, but in the US version it doesn't matter who has it.
I checked on Youtube and I think there was only one other complete playthrough because nobody else wants to deal with this bullshit.
Every non-moron just plays it on PC where you can do actions with a single button press instead of endlessly navigating menues with your d-pad.
Keyboards are a must for CRPGs.
https://w.atwiki.jp/famicomall/pages/922.html
They took almost 5 days.
this game is tough. it's quite possibly one of the toughest in the entire NES library. it will make you want to cry.
i love how NESMania had viewers select games so he got many of the AAA and first party ones early on and the latter part of the run was sports games and other undesirable junk
>when the bugs in the game are quite literally bugged
Worse yet, along with the battle mechanic where the round starts over when a party member falls (which I assume is another glitch), your entire team can get BTFO by just one of these frickers.
The speed stat influences the number of turns of your entire party, and this is the case for enemies too. So I assume the Locust Plague just had an insane speed stat, but is that not intended? How is it in the other versions of the game?
Anyway it was a pleasure when I finally was fast enough to kill them; but at least these guys had the benefit of teaching me the importance of the speed stat and how it works. At least in the NES version it's the most important stat.
You can beat it very quickly indeed (and the NES version is faithful to that). However, gathering the knowledge required for you to do that would take 80-100 hours.
From what I've read the Locust Plague is unremarkable in the other versions, other than having a chance to inflict weak swarm damage on the party.
I can't imagine the developers intended ANY enemy inflicting 255 damage in a single blow or turn order being interrupted and restarting for any reason, but of course I can't state it as a matter of fact.
>I can't imagine the developers intended ANY enemy inflicting 255 damage in a single blow or turn order being interrupted and restarting for any reason, but of course I can't state it as a matter of fact.
I mean it would not be uncommon for games of that time for you to get into a battle and instantly die with no recourse.
Doubt unless the port is insane, on other platforms it's one of those extremely open world games that you could beat in 20 minutes
boot it up on FCEUX and get back to me in 3 months when you finally beat the thing
Wow OP, your writing is so creative, you should get off of /vr/ and make a youtube channel where you review these games 🙂
Just don't think of it like a jrpg where you get rewarded for being slow and diligent, it's the kind of game where you can skip ahead 15 hours by finding a good fountain