Introduction

Might and Magic VIII. Like MM1 through 5 were the Corak vs Sheltem saga, 6 through 8 were the "Kreegan" saga since they all in some way relate to the Kreegans' fuckery. 6 was about preventing them from devouring Enroth. 7 was about dealing with the consequences of their causing the Silence(collapse of the gate network) and shutdown of the Heavenly Forges. 8... is in the 7 vein of being a bit more tangentially related, but it's still very much related to their pulling their evil bullshit.

Not that the intro really tells us much about what's going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1iViEpppfw

It just tells us that some weirdo makes a crystal that kills a shitload of people and also flattens a forest. Also most of those people are minotaurs or trolls, dang.

In fact, you might notice there are no humans in sight in the intro at all! Unless our Mystery Crystal Man is a human wearing a funny hat, which is possible, but unknown.

And there's a reason for that. MM6 was set in Enroth, MM7 was set on Antagarich, and MM8 gets its own continent, Jadame, which features in no Heroes games at all! Thus the developers could go hog wild. The race/class combos of MM7 are gone, and instead there are now a bunch of classes that are a race. Let's give them a welcome, shall we?

Clerics
Like always, Clerics get access to Master(and when promoted), Grandmaster Body/Mind/Spirit magic... but unlike MM7, they now always get Light Magic access in the same way, even in their base class! This rules. They're also good with maces, shields and merchantitude. Thanks to their GM Light access, you want a Cleric. You NEED a Cleric. I need a Cleric.

Dark Elves
The first of the races-as-classes. They're fundamentally the Archers of MM8, with GM Bow and Master elemental magic. They also pull part time as MM8 thieves since they get GM Disarm Trap and Merchant, Master Perception, ID Item, Leather and Dagger. On top of that, they also get their own Dark Elf spellbook which have a couple of nice utility spells, a stunning spell and a very asskicky offensive spell. In general a solid recruit.

Knights
As per usual, Knights are huge meatheads who can faceroll their way through buildings. No magic whatsoever, of course, but they hardly need it since they're mincing machines. They're not very interesting, but they're still very effective. Most of their skill options are the same as in MM7, with their only real utility strength being item repair Grand Mastery.

Minotaurs
Minotaurs are the only option in MM8 I'd call bad, since they're like a shitty paladin. Only up to Expert cleric magic, and in exchange all they get is GM Axe and GM Perception. They're functional, but liable to be outdamaged by most other combinations. Absolutely still better than MM7 Rangers, though, since they at least get Master Armsmaster.

Necromancers
Necromancers are the new Sorcerers, and like Clerics they've been greatly improved by giving them Dark Magic from the get go and, of course, as always, they're Grand Masters of elemental magic. Utility-wise they've stolen the Druids' GM Alchemy, and they're Masters at most things involving knowing stuff about the world.

Trolls
Trolls are magicless minotaurs that focus on maces and staves rather than axes, and I'd absolutely rate maces as the better option. On top of that, they also get a special skill that only they* get access to: a Regeneration skill. I'm not sure exactly how busted it can get, but I'd definitely rather have it than not.

Vampires
Vampires are kind of like lightly rogueish paladins. Master Cleric magic, know how to stab people real good(GM Dagger) and their own Vampire spellbook. It comes with a pretty powerful basic attack spell that I think might ignore resistances entirely, a utility copy of Water Walk(but slightly better) and a few other things. Once again, it's hard to comment on them because they're not actually bad. The class balance for MM8 is yonks better than MM7 and even 6.

Additionally there's one last class we can only find in the game world and recruit, not play as. Wait, what? Did I just say FIND and RECRUIT?

Surprise motherfuckeeeeeeeeeeers, MM8 has one more twist. There's only one PC in the game to start with, every other character must be recruited, sometimes after being rescued or some other quest being completed, and additionally they upped the party size to 5 for this one.

Thus: I'll be taking votes on who the starting character should be. Early on I'll be hoovering up every recruit in sight to get the party to full strength, but once there are actual choices to be made, the thread gets to decide who gets kept and who gets left behind.

The Let's Play Archive

Might & Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer

by PurpleXVI

Introduction

Table of Contents