Product: Might and Magic|Publisher: Gameloft|Format: Mobile
|Genre: Adventure, RPG
|Players: 1
|Format: J2ME
|File size: 182KB
|Reviewed on: K810i other handsets|Version: Europe
Everyone's got their talents. Normally it's being good at football, or dancing, or singing, or remembering tonnes of boring information so you get straight As in exams.
In Might and Magic, the characters' skills are a bit more diverse. One is good at sword fighting and grappling, another can shape-shift to become a bat or a bit of wispy fog, while a third is a mean shot with a bow and arrow.
Admittedly, these are better skills to have given the circumstances you're forced into in Might and Magic than being able to do an X Factor-winning rendition of 'It's Raining Men' down your local after a bottle of wine. Because here the king has been kidnapped, and you've taken it upon yourself to save the day. Cue a long and treacherous trek through numerous lands and past increasingly canny enemies to rescue him.
Just as the characters and skills content is impressive for a mobile game, so is the trek a vast and action-packed one. There are few mobile titles that manage to pack so much in, set out with so much ambition and successfully pull it all off.
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To put it into context, this is a very similar experience to a Legend of Zelda game – which is quite a feat when you consider that it's been made on a platform with considerably more limitations than those typically hosting Nintendo's classic adventure. Yet this has the range of items, the intelligent puzzles and the same level of strategy, which makes Might and Magic undeniably special.
And universally appealing, too. Far from from being a hardcore role-playing experience, like the games in the Might and Magic series it takes after on PC, this is a broad-reaching adventure with real-time battles.
Things begin with you in control of just the one character, Ewan. He has a sword and can jump but that's about as interesting as he gets. However, as your quest continues, you find iron boots to walk across spikes that are blocking your path and a grappling hook to swing up to higher levels. These new skills are unlocked gradually and the game walks you through using them with hints until it decides you should be able to do it for yourself (this is usually exceptionally well judged).
Lorean the archer is the next character found, which is when you learn you can switch between them using the '0' button. Lorean can shoot switches through gates to get to new areas in levels. But not all, of course – as is standard adventure game design, you'll often walk past an inaccessible area that remains so until you've found a new item that will grant you access.
Kayu the shape-shifter adds the most diverse skills. As a bat, he can fly across lava and spikes, and as a spiral of fog can blow through locked gates, then be transformed back to a man to stand on pressure pads, for instance. Might and Magic's puzzles really are sufficiently complex and expertly engineered to stand up to the very best, and many will have you thinking. They involve exploration, trial and error and serious contemplation of the various skills you end up with spread between the characters.
But the journey isn't all puzzling, of course. Combat against adversaries such as bats, fire-throwing bosses and huge spiky-ball wielding monsters features prominently. Some just require a few sword-slashes, while others need to be stunned with the appropriate item before moving in for an attack.
Controlling the action is as easy as it could be, considering the game requires quite a few buttons (you need to scroll between items, jump, fire and activate special weapons, too). It can be a bit tricky to pick up – especially with the isometric view making the up, down, left and right controls seem a bit clumsy – but the game helps you along as much as it possibly can.
It all looks very detailed, too, and every one of the 15 levels is different. It's particularly refreshing to find plenty of imagination on top of the typical snowy and fiery levels. One of them, for example, is completely pitch black, requiring you to keep lighting lamps to see where you're going.
Might and Magic is a huge game, in more than one sense. It's one that is also packed with creativity and puzzles that seldom repeat. Gradually building up your characters into a multi-talented team of specialists and making them work together to solve these challenges proves hugely satisfying.
But it's the overall experience so expertly crafted by the developer that most impresses. Simply put, there aren't many mobile games out there as good as this. If you're looking for talent for your phone, you've found it.
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