Might And Magic II - Gates To Another World
 

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download (if available)

finally all Might And Magic the old school is complete (MM1-5). But dont forget to put it on News-Page. ^_^

You should rename the World of Xeen into Might and Magic: World of Xeen.

Also there is Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen still missing. Then you would have the entire M&M series completed. After that Heroes of M&M came out.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Sep 24 2007, 06:43 PM) [snapback]312958[/snapback]</div>Might And Magic IV + V: World of Xeen would be better. Yes, you see Might and Magic 4 is also there!

Is the pc version bug free? I remember I bought this for the C64 and recalling that i had save problems for the characters individual missions. Was utterly disappointed that I could not continue Not sure if it was my 1541 being out of alignment. Sure would like to try to finish it. excellent graphics on all platforms!

Great game, thanks for adding!

I can't tell you how many hours I spent playing MM1 and MM2 back in the 80's.

Even though later ones had better interfaces and graphics I still felt that the first 2 were the most fun to play.

I still have MM2 in the box with hint book and manual in my collection :ok:

Where is the "loadfix" the review mentions for getting it to run in dosbox? I dont see it in the zip file download.

Surpisingly it runs under windows XP however with internal PC speaker which is horrible for sound.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Sep 24 2007, 05:43 PM) [snapback]312958[/snapback]</div>World of Xeen = Clouds of Xeen + Darkside of Xeen.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(svpearson @ Sep 25 2007, 05:49 AM) [snapback]313039[/snapback]</div>Loadfix is an internal program under DOSBox.

I had this for Apple IIe. It was a great game. I don't think I ever won it, but it was fun to just wander around and level up back in the day. I remember there was a monster named the Conquistador or Crusader or something like that in one of the mountains... he was tough to kill but you got a TON of experience points for doing it and I remember it was possible with low level characters somehow, but it allowed for some quick leveling.

well well, finally one of my favourite Might and Magic games comes online here on abandonia, spent thousands of hours on this one on my C64 :)

A quick note here of one of the major improvements of Gates to a New World over Secrets, CARTOGRAPHY!

You can train a character in the Cartography skill so that he/she is able to make maps, then simply Use a navigational device such as a Compass or Sextant to view your maps. :brain:

Also refer to my post for M&M I regarding my hints for starting a new party.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Sep 25 2007, 12:53 AM) [snapback]313060[/snapback]</div>World of Xeen = Clouds of Xeen + Darkside of Xeen.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(svpearson @ Sep 25 2007, 05:49 AM) [snapback]313039[/snapback]</div>Loadfix is an internal program under DOSBox.
[/b][/quote]

Can you give me an example of how to use it? I don't see it under the help or help \all list for dosbox. Is it related to the loadhigh command? If so, I am not using it correct because I can't get it to work.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(svpearson @ Sep 25 2007, 06:37 AM) [snapback]313037[/snapback]</div>Can you scan them, so we can upload them as extras? :w00t:

otherwise i think the manual is already online on replacementdocs,and if not svpearson scans it first i can. If i can get my scanner to work that is.

Great!! Well if either of you guys scan it, PM me and it'll be put on the site. Thanks!

Nice to see this game available. I still have it (box, map, 5 1/4 disks and all), but it often gets overlooked in the M&M series. I spent probably hundreds of hours playing this one, got all my characters up to level 255 (they couldn't advance any further, but could still get hitpoints!).

Possible Spoiler (highlight with mouse to view):
The puzzle at the end pissed me off, though. I found out that the computer's <Pause> key would actually stop the clock, but I didn't know how they wanted me to enter the solution. Grrrrr....

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Sep 26 2007, 01:30 AM) [snapback]313241[/snapback]</div>Great thanks!


I think this MM has the best atmosphere of all of them even with the early graphics. My only main problem with this game is the dungeons reset everytime you leave, its a pain having to refight all the same fights over again.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Sep 25 2007, 08:19 AM) [snapback]313069[/snapback]</div>My favorite monster was the Cuisinart. Gods, the amount of damage one of those could do! But if you survived for a few levels and used magic to win the battle, you'd end up with some wonderful though randomized items, afterwards.

As for the game itself: it was the first Pc title made by New World Computing that wasn't a direct port from other formats, so it looks far better on the PC than M&M I. It was also somewhat easier, though harder than later titles in the series. Lots of little easter eggs, too--for example, there was an area ruled by two mages, Ybmug and Yekop. I remember asking Jon van Caneghem at the time, when doing a review, if these were simply Gumby and Pokey, the heroes of the first syndicated Claymation-style animated cartoon (back in the 1950s). He laughed, and said I'd hit it exactly. Watch carefully in the game for others. Lots of wordplay going on.

Okay gang... what the heck do I do now?!?!?
I just downloaded this game for the 2nd time. And for the 2nd time, within about 3 hours of play time, the character's Hit Points and Spell Points are no longer replenishing when they rest anywhere!
I just sent an Email to Ubisoft support, so maybe someone there will know. I'm just so mad because I've wanted to play this game again for the longest time, and FINALLY downloaded it, and now I'm stuck! Gaaah!
Anyone have ANY clue what's going on with my game?
Thanks all,
Lizard

Maybe you aren't replenishing because you have been poisoned or diseased or ran out of food? Find a healer in a town and get healed. Caveat: I haven't played the game in years so I'm speaking from memory. For what it's worth I think this is without a doubt the best RPG I've ever played (and I've played quite a few).

I remember waking up on Saturday mornings just to play it for hours before my parents woke up because when they did my playing time would be severely restricted (hard to imagine now with the ubiquity of computers but video games were a vice then).

Anyway, the game is awesome. Like the other poster above I got to LVL 255, quite a feat in itself but not impossible and actually quite easy if you follow a fairly linear strategy - just fight all the character quests (each class, ninja, thief, etc has a specific class-based quest that gives you XP like no tomorrow).

But before you do that, find Middlegate and fight in its dungeon to get gold, gain basic experience, and rescue a few mercenaries that could come in handy later if you so wish to get them to join your party. After that, go the vulcano town and find your way to the vulcano where there are gems galore in the 'dungeon' under the volcano, and some handy weapons like flame sword or flame flails etc - these will be your first 'powered' weapons. Make sure you get a levitation spell on at all times when exploring to avoid the lava. This is a good place to gain money because you can simply enter and exit the vulcano and the random gems will 'repopulate' the dungeon and you can 'find' them again.

When you feel that you've reached a high enough level, start the serious fun: class-based quests.

IMO the first characters you should amp up on XP by doing the class-based quest are your sorcerers (their implosion spells are handy when fighting top-level monsters). Note that you can only bring sorcerers along for a sorcerer-specific quest - same goes for the other classes. The exception to this is the thief - he gets to accompany all classes on their quests. Since sorcerers have major offensive magic in this game, I have two in my party. Along with the thief (to make a 3-member party) and a teleport orb and/or teleport spells, I was able to complete the sorcerer's quest quite easily. AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A MAP OF THE TOWERS IN SORCERERS' ISLE just so that you can use your teleportation orb with the most economy. Hint: by teleporting a few squares beyond a door you can avoid 'meeting' the monsters to reach your destination.

You get major sh!tloads of experience once you complete the quest. With powered-up sorcerers, you're basically set. Repeat the process for your knights, cleric, paladin, and other classes in your party.

At some point in time, to really become EXTREMELY powerful you'll have to start fighting dragons to gain XP. Fight a lot of them. Then go to the dragons cave (dragon's domion?) - it's an underground dungeon someone in the mountains (walk around the mountains until you find it, or check out the map) filled with wyrms and dragons.

The most powerful weapons are there - the Ancient Bow, Photon Blade, Titan's Pike. Use clever teleporting to avoid the most powerful dragons and you're set. What's more, if you exit and re-enter the cave, you can do it all over again, collecting lots of ancient bows and photon blades to sell them off at a profit later. Basically at this point you'll never run out of money. There's also a HP fountain in the cave that gives you HP for free everytime you enter it. Basically repeat until you get thousands of hit points like I did.

This is only an outline of the strategy I used, noting the most important things you must do to win the game.

The final stop of the game is a dungeon under the lake near Middlegate. There you'll find a cypher/scrambled message that you'll have to decode to win.

It's a simple cypher - they've simply replaced the letters in the alphabet with a different alphabet. So the letter 'e' might be 'x' for example. Or the letter 'a' might be 'g'.

But once you do a bit of analysis (look at how many letters repeat themselves - for example, since 'e' is most common in english so if you see lots of 'g' letters you can deduce that g = e), you can basically decode the message. Another hint: look for 2 or 3 letter words in the message - they'll likely be 'the' or ''by' or similarly common 2/3 letter words. So you can substitute letters in and see if they make sense - it's trial and error.

If you're STILL bamboozled, here's a hint from what I can remember: it went something like "we the citizens of Cron..." or something like that. Once you figure that out you can basically substitute the corresponding letters for the rest and solve the cypher.

Fup me I've been longwinded. Hope this helps.

Sorry for the grammatical mistakes and some nonsensical words (like writing 'someone' when I meant 'somewhere'). It was stream of consciousness writing but I hope it makes enough sense even where I've been ungrammatical.

Hell, I looked it up on google and it appears that people have already written general guides and more thorough walk-throughs than my own pathetic effort above. And the final cypher actually goes "We the people of Terra . . . "

Anyway, more here: www(dot)gamesover(dot)com/walkthroughs/might2(dot)txt

Such an aweomse game. Great memories playing it.

Hi there, a little help please

What's up with the sludge beast, I can't figure out what hurts him. I have two chars who can hit them and do damage, female archer and male ninja archer has glaive equipped and ninja has staff+1 ninja couldn't hit them when he had nunchacks (whatever the spelling). It can't be tied to gender then, read somewhere that some monsters can only be hit by one gender, and it can't be magic weapons cuz my sorcerer and cleric both have staff +1 as well but they can't do a thing against those guys, same as my knight and paladin, who both have broadswords.

And those sludges are so damn imba anyway, one of them releases his acid spray and all my party is dead, so if the group I encounter happens to have over 2 sludges I run, nothing I can do about it, and it sucks.

Have you considered that there may be different classes of weapons? Like in Diablo, where clubs are better than swords against skeletons.
Or perhaps try some magic spells?

Yes I have considered that, and ruled it out, cuz my archer uses glaive, which is slashing damage, and hurts these things. While two of my other guys use broadswords, also slashing damage, with no hurt on the damn things, and ninja uses staff, so that's blungeoning damage, and two other party members with exact same weapons don't do shait, and damage spells only do like 1-2 dam to these guys. Totally useless, plus they spray acid that does 41 damage to everyone and if first round doesn't kill all of the party then the second one will for sure, these are fucking retarded monsters.

turns out my ninja was a chick as well, damn should have given her more feminine name, so those things can only be damaged by females I guess, even though I know that now these guys are still too damn powerful, even if my entire party could hurt them, they can still kill my guys off with 1-2 waves of their acid spray

If that's the case, maybe they are the game designers' way of telling you you're not supposed to go there just yet?

Not in this case. But don't worry, once you gained enough levels you won't have to fear them any more.

Fun title, and the first M&M that was developed on the PC rather than ported over. Looked very good at the time, and was reasonably tough as well as pretty funny. (I seem to recall laughing at the sexily winking "Nasty Witches.") Lots of sly bits of humor, too: the names of the twin sorcerors locked in their towers are anagrams for Gumby and Pokey, the two heroes of an early, popular clay-based cartoon program here in the US (1950s).

Watch out for the Cuisinarts. ;)

Does this game have any sort of automapping feature?

Think I'll have to try it again if it does. The last time I tried it was many years ago on an Apple II with a defective disk drive that wouldn't allow me to save. So I had to leave the computer on when I wasn't playing. I actually managed to play it over a week (many hours each day) without getting that party killed. But eventually they became lunch to some foul monsters when I got too reckless in my wandering.

Yes, it does. But you have to buy it as a skill for one of your party. I recommend buying it for a second when you're flush with funds, since you can never tell when that particular character will be killed, and you won't know quite how to get back.

Speaking of skills... could I prevail upon someone to either: 1) Upload the manual or 2) Upload a description of the various skills and benefits. (e.g., what does "Arms Master" buy you) The manual is available at replacementdocs.com, but when I try to register or d/l it crashes. And rpgclassics.com does not have that information posted.

It's been so long since I played this, I forget what those skills do. If they work the same as the skills in 3,4, and 5, then I can refer to the World of Xeen docs to find out what I'm getting.

Had this for Apple II when it came out, but never got very far, and then switched over to PC and didn't want to lay out the cash for another copy. Now I can finally explore this game.

-- mal

M&M 2 was the first video game I ever played. I was 8 and it took me a month to figure out how to save a game on my old C64. I think it took me about a year after that to actually finish the game - there are so, so many dungeons, quests, and things to do in general, it still boggles my mind. It's a great game if you've got perseverance, but make no mistake it is a long, tough slog, and because of the sandbox nature of the game it is very easy to get in over your head just wandering around. Save often.

Here's my obligatory hint: nothing will help out your character's stats as much as a cupie doll...

I got through square lake an won all the battles. But ofter going through the door i was told i should not be here as i havn't saved King Kahlon.. BUT I HAVE SAVED KING KAHLON IN THE 8TH CENTURY.
I got the lemental orb and four lemental disks and went back and gave them to him. Then he reapeared in the castle and told me to go to square lake with the password wafe.

This game has a glitch i can' finish the game. feeling ddissapointed

Peter

I got it on the PC, and since it was remade rather than a horrible port (like M&M I), it looked fine. It played great. I once asked van Caneghem if he intended his M&M series to get progressively easier as they went up in numbers. He just shrugged, and said, "the market." Very nice guy, though.

I used to love this game back in the day. I never won it though. I don't remember why. I remember I leveled up my guys to be godlike. Maybe I just didn't know what to do next.

other versions of this game
 

MSX2 has a japanese remake of this game...

...and it is excellent! there are more shapes to identify monsters, better overview screen, combat is quite improved (combat screen shows all monsters involved, instead of the first one)

ah! names of the spells are shown on the screen, instead of a "spell code"


genesis version is almost identical to the PC version. the upgrades are better sound (with background music), spell names shown and during a combat, the graphic of the first monster is replaced when it is defeated (should it be a bug on the PC version?)

Ultimate power level plan for PC
 

I actually still play mm2 from time to time, which means I've been playing in for 20 years. Geez. Never thought about it that way.
Here are my suggestions: (try to complete these in order as early as you can). I use a knight, paladin, archer, cleric and two sorcerers for this model.
What I try to do is get my endurance to 50ish for my party before I leave level 3. This way you have, proportionally, much more security at lower levels. To do that you must: (in this order)
- get some gold (about 5000 to be safe) The best way to do this at level one is to set your disposition to 'aggressive' and cruise around middlegate until you run into an encounter involving burgulars, gnome elders, (run away from every other to avoid time wasting). They might be tough battles, but they are winable. Win, and bingo, you have a couple of thousand gold.
- set your disposition to the least aggressive setting, and go to Coraks Cavern. It's a short, safe walk. Enter and get Lloyds beacon spell (at 7,11). It's two steps from the door. Quick and easy. Go back to middlegate.
- Take the city portals to Tundara and Atlantium and buy a witches broom and teleport orb, respectively.
- Fly to area B1 using your witches broom. Visit meenu at 9,9 using your teleport orb. (Tip: face south at 9,9, the answer is meenu, and for gods sake, search after your done. You now have 100,000 gold.
- Fly to B1, enter Tundara and find the International Market. You will need one of your dudes/dudettes to be a merchant. (saves buckets of cash - your merchant character should now do all the purchasing in selling in your party.)
- Fly to area A3. Face south and teleport 2 squares south. (it's a small island). Save Flailer and Fumbler.
- Fly to A4 and enter Atlantium. Go to the inn and hire fumbler.
- Go to the backsmith and outfit your characters appropriately. make sure you purchase and equip Fumblr with 6 thiefs picks +5 (you'll notice his thievery skill is about 140% now - you will want this for opening high level chests early without the dying)
**** Note: in this process your disposition should never leave Inconspicuous, and you should run away from everything. You're not powerful enough to fight anything other than monsters in middlegate.****
- Fly to E1 and enter Vulcania. Find the caverns and enter.
- As soon as you enter, don't move forward, turn left and teleport though the wall 1 square. Turn left and walk until you hit wall. Turn right and teleport one square forward. Say yes to the ogre. Your party is now +10 Endurance. Cast your Lloyds Beacon spell (sorceror spell 2,6) and set a beacon. Leave the cavern the exact way to came in. Once you've reentered Vulcania, cast Lloyds Beacon to 'return to beacon'. Repeat until your party has it's max (for now) endurance of 50ish. Now you can freely train.
Note: at some point you should (as soon as you can), buy mountaineering and pathfinding skills in Middlegate. You will need two of each skill (two characters each) to have these skills in order to work. You should also by the Navigating skill in Tundara. With these skills you will be able to freely travel most or all of the environs in Cron.
You still with me? We haven't started the actual power leveling yet, but you are almost set to start!
In order to start, you need:
- the Holy Word spell (area C1 at 5,5 facing south - odd that one of the most powerful spells in the game is that easy to get eh?)
- easy access to the fly and teleport spell (either through the spells themselves or items)
Once you have that, you're ready to launch!
*Note: at no point in this next process should you encounter any monsters or rest. If you do, you will have to restart from the beginning (of the process)
- Go to area C1 at 1,11 - drink from the fountain. You are now temporarily level 9 spell casting level.
- Fly to area E2 *****note: you will die if you deviate from my instructions in this area. You are way too weak to even be here right now.
- Take two steps North once you land. Turn right and use your teleport 8 squares. Drink from the greatest fountain. (and don't move) You will notice that you are now level 50 with all stats 200. This is just temporary.
- Fly to area D3 and walk west until you reach x-axis 1. (your map coordinates should read 1,4 I think. Walk directly North until you reach the Lich Lord and Mr Wizard. Save Mr Wizard.
- To do this, you must kill the lich lord and a monster masher. This should take less than a round.... easy now that you've used those fountains! Direct ALL physical attacks to the monster masher, he'll die quick. With either your cleric or your paladin cast Holy word (spell 9,2). The lich lord is now dead (again) and you have yourself a million or so exp for your troubles! Search and use Fumbler (your hireling) to pick locks (anyone else will blow you up). You should get some reasonable treasure.
There! With that you should be able to train to level 13-15.
- Continue to fly to E2 and teleport to that fountain. Drink from it, and sweep the wooded area around the fountain for monsters. Note: you will have to redrink the fountain each new battle.
- At inconpicuous disposition (in E2), you should never be fighting too many monsters at a time, but you should avoid monsters that are immune to physical (golems) and disintegating monsters (warbots and the like) until you can get decent resistances and spell points. But the monsters you do fight, you will easily and reap some pretty decent rewards in no time. At this point, you might want to raise your other stats and upgrade as much as you can until I write the next installment!
Happy hunting!

I love this game I play it whenever I get bored with the new stuff.

Another little tip:

Mark's Keys are located at the Death Spider Lair in A2 2,9. There are 2 ways to obtain the keys. Answer the question "What has Mark misplaced?" with "keys"; or you can fight the Death Spider and the keys will be in the treasure you loot. Then visit Mark at C1 1,1 and give him the keys and get 10K EXP. A few teleport orbs will come in handy for this simple quest. It is repeatable as long as you do not have the keys when you visit the Spider. You must have the keys when you visit Mark or one or more party members will be killed.

I tend to prefer general hints to walkthroughs, so here are just a few to keep in mind:

There are 15 skills in all that your party can learn. Any party member can only have 2 skills--and two will need to learn Pathfinder and Mountaineer for these to be used--so choose wisely.

Mapping is probably the first skill you should get, and it's conveniently available in Middlegate. I suggest giving it to your sorcerer.

I don't bother with hirelings. They have to be paid, and when they gain more levels and become more competent, they have to be paid still more. A party of six should be able to manage gameplay effectively without any trouble, but if you do want assistance, make it someone like Dark Mage who can add extra sorcery power to your group. Just remember to grab a hireling only when you're about to enter a dangerous area, rather than to go looting encounters for gems and gold--because they'll charge you by the day, and you want to make every move count.

Party order does make a difference. Your enemies will always be considered to be facing you head on, with melee damage concentrated on places 1, and 2. Put your meat shields there. Notably paladins, since they can't use ranged weapons.

Don't forget food. Your party won't heal if you run out of food, even if you rest.

Speed, luck, and endurance. These are essential. Speed enables you to attack first, and it's easy to be caught out in the early game without this. Luck boosts your chances in a number of ways. Endurance gives party members more hit points every time they level up, and it's not retroactive. So make these as high as you can at the beginning, along with each party member's prime stat(s).

Don't forget that monsters can "call" for allies in battle. Save often. As a rule, don't run away during battle, because this must be rolled by each character individually.

Thanks
 

Just wanted to say thank you for the dosbox note,. Had been struggling to get this this game running and loadfix did the trick.